7 weeks of editing is almost done

This week is our last week of our seven week intersession course for Editing Print and Online Media.   It seems as though the weeks have flown by, but it made me look back.  Though seven weeks is not that long, it got me thinking as to what I have learned within that time frame.  I tried to think of what I knew about editing before I began this course compared to what I know now.  I would like to think that I have learned tips and tricks to use in the future.  The main thing I’ve learned though is how appreciative we should all be for editors.  Here are a list of items that I learned throughout this course:

• Steps to editing a story
• Spotting screwups
• Working with poll writing
• Writing headlines properly
• Laying out a website for readability
• Dangers in legal writing
• Spotting urban legends

Although I like to think I am a better editor now, it’s definitely not an easy task.  It takes a trained eye to carefully edit letter after letter, word after word, sentence after sentence, and so on.  I am ashamed to admit that even after everything I’ve learned, I still managed to send an email with a spelling mistake.  I only caught it when it was too late, right after I hit the send button. 

I have a new found appreciation for editing, as I never really thought of the mechanics and hard work that lay behind it.  Editing takes time, precison, and a good eye to catch things that other people may not have noticed.  Though I’m still working on my editing skills, I am happy to have taken the course and am now more aware of editing.

With whatever position I end up working in after my second year of CreComm, I know editing will come about at some point.  When it does, I can look at the piece and know I have backup, such as the info stored in my head, hand-outs, Caps and Spelling and the trusty CP Stylebook on my side.