Final Blog Entry

     Our final guest speakers, Cassandra Kircher and Eric Townsend, came to our class to impart their knowledge and professional experience. Although speaking to our editing class, I was most influenced by their positions as writers. Although gifted editors, the two speakers entered our class and openly took our suggestions on their works. Although inexperienced and unpracticed as editors, both Kircher and Townsend were happy to accept our feedback and actually took it into consideration.
     Cassandra Kircher, in writing a literary nonfiction piece for the Missouri Review, allowed us to read her unfinished work and then let us critique it. This not only gave us insight into her writing process and styling, it gave us an opportunity to interact with her as editors. Because it was her work, the class offered up suggestions and remained sensitive to her work.
     Eric Townsend on the other hand, showed us his work on E-net. As he spoke to our class, it became evident to him that his main focus was finding his target audience. He was interested to see, as a writer, who all in the class actually reads what he writes. He took suggestions and critiques on his site and was happy to discuss our feelings on E-net as a whole. By giving us a chance to speak freely and to convey our thoughts on E-net and the different postings and articles it is comprised of, we were able to give direct feedback as editors and as an audience.
     I am very thankful for the different guest speakers that came to our class. Not only did it give the class a different change of pace, it added a completely new perspective on editing. Each speaker had his/her unique way of going about writing and editing. Both Cassandra Kircher and Eric Townsend played very big roles in completing our learning experience. They allowed us to actually be their editors as they gave us the freedom to revise and critique their works. In doing this, our class was given great experience in practicing the always difficult editor/writer discourse.

Personal Revision

"Content Editing" Peer Revisions

"Content Editing: A Process" by Ross Rhoades

     Alex and David both had very helpful tips for me in editing my paper. Along with changing the title to better match the paper's content, they helped me in structurally editing my review of Gaither and Simonetti in order to better the flow. Both Alex and David looked through my paper thoroughly and presented their proposed changes as helpful suggestions. Although satisfied with the work originally, I believe that, with their help, this has become a much more effective and well written paper all around.

Peer Revision

"Editing Insight" by Alex Ward

     Overall I felt that Alex's paper was very well written. His opening paragraph laid the topical groundwork for the entire paper, followed by a brief description of the two speakers that we had in class. His following paragraphs were based around the teachings of our two speakers. Finally, he wrote a personal conclusion of what he has learned.

     Other than some grammatical corrections and a few wording choices there were not many changes made. Because he followed step by step instructions from our speakers in framing his paper, the entire thing flowed very well.

Weekend Post

     In class on Friday, we defined what the roles of an editor actually are. In opening the discussion, our class came up with the bullet points:

·      To make sure the piece has a clear purpose

·      To make the writing more effective

·      To make sure its worth reading

·      To create more success for the author

·      To ensure publication will happen and run well

·      To communicate with writers as partners

·      To help think the process out

·      To check for correctness

     On Friday, we also spent a lot of time editing a partner's paper on our first guest speaker while they edited ours. This was a new experience for most of us as many have never edited a full written work before. By using Kristin Simonetti's "A Perfectionist's Guide to Editing and Revision," we each went systematically through the steps and then worked with the author in discussing whatever changes were made. 

     I believe that, in editing for the first time, I used every bullet-point created earlier in my role as an editor. In the first three of Simonetti's editing steps, we read to make sure the story had a clear purpose, was worth reading, and to help think the process out before discussing anything with the author. Following this, we met with our partners (Step 4) in order to discuss ideas or possible changes and updates for the story. In a professional setting, this step would create more success for the author and even help to ensure the story's publication and that it would run very well. Finally, after speaking with them and letting them make their own revisions to the story, we edited their works again using steps 5 and 6. In these steps, like the bullet-points, we edited to check for correctness and then to trim down the story if necessary. 

     Overall I felt that editing like this for the first time was a good experience. Editing is a much more difficult task than I expected when first walking in to this class. I am glad to have early insight into a career that I knew little about and I am excited in moving forward to learn other various perspectives from different speakers on their editing styles. 

Day 3

     Today in class today we had guest speaker Kristin Simonetti come to discuss her job as an editor for Elon Magazine. Although learning about editing in class over the past two days, it was very interesting and informative to hear from someone who edits professionally. Coming from a newspaper background, Simonetti understands the importance of speed when writing and editing for the magazine despite her delayed deadlines. She gave us a her unofficial list on how she edits called "A Perfectionist's Guide to Editing and Revision." I found this extremely helpful, as it broke down her editing process into seven clear, simple steps. These steps help to lay the groundwork for future editing projects, giving us focus and direction when revising a work. I am appreciative of her time in speaking with our class, and I am excited to learn what future speakers will come and to hear their perspectives and learn what they too have to offer.

Day 2

     Today we went from learning editing to using editing. By matching up with another student from class, everyone swapped and edited their first blog entry and wrote a brief description as to why the changes were made. Aside from the length of my first entry, my biggest obstacle was categorizing the writing style that I wish to use in writing this blog throughout the semester. In our next class, the first of many speakers is coming to speak with us about editing and how she goes about editing in her professional career. I am interested in gaining some outside perspective and to learn about their individual styles in comparison to my own.

First Day of Class

     In our first day of class we learned about what it is an editor does and how difficult it actually can be. In our editing test I missed a lot of mistakes that easily should have been corrected. Also, we learned that editors today, despite the terrible economy and job market, are still in very high demand. I am interested to find out in the coming days how we will go about learning editing and how we will practice it throughout the winter term.
     I am not sure exactly how I feel about editing as a profession or whether or not it is for me. I wanted to take this class in order to expand upon my writing abilities and to learn more about the editing altogether. Although different from my normal interests, I want to work hard in order to learn everything about editing that I can in such a short period of time.