Copyediting
Copyediting has saved me from my own horrible spelling tendencies on countless occasions. Luckily, when I'm not writing stories of my own, I have a much better grasp on spelling and grammar.
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However, my editing focuses on more than just the writing logistics. I approach editing with the holistic purpose of improving a story’s structure as a whole.​ In order to do this, I make sure to leave detailed comments on what I believe needs clarification.
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Here is the process I go through while leaving editing comments.
Step 1: AP Style, Grammar
and Spelling
Commas and apostrophes are often the biggest struggle for staffers, especially the accidental addition of the Oxford comma. Additionally, staffers commonly forget to include punctuation inside quotation marks.
New staffers also have the tendency to overestimate the pool of proper nouns, often capitalizing words like high school, sophomore or freshman. Formatting of dates and numbers is another struggle.
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Step 2: General structure edits
After the basics, I turn to large picture edits like repetitive wording and organization.
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First, I look at the story to see if any quotes need to be added or if the structure of the story needs to be reorganized.
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Sometimes a story will have a good quote, but the transition doesn't match. In this case, I will ask a staffer to rework a new transition. Other times, I notice quotes that did not flow smoothly in their current location and would work really well in another part of the story.​
This is also the stage where I delete unnecessary or repetitive words, from excessive adjectives to run-on sentences.
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Sometimes staffers need assistance executing the news writing style. I have worked with a couple staffers who were too "fluffy" with their writing. The news of the story was lost in their creative adjectives. I help them emphasize a more objective tone while still keeping flares of their creativity.
Step 3: Tone, Purpose and Clarity
​The last and most important step for me is clarifying the writer's purpose.
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This is the section where I ask questions about the intent of a phrase or why specific information matters in the context of the story's message.
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In opinion pieces, I often have to encourage the writer to find their personal voice. I ask them not just why it is an important issue, but why it is important to them specifically.
Once, a staffer who was writing an opinion about the record number of women in the Olympics, lacked a clear voice of why it mattered to her.
After sitting down to have a conversation, she remembered how impactful it was to watch as a female student athlete. This helped her gain a much stronger voice within the piece.
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Editing examples
These edits were also about structure. The story about our schools Key Club chapter originally talked about the club sponsor and a river clean up in the second to last paragraph, but led into a quote about their sponsor. The edit on the right suggested focusing just on the river clean up and gave them a different quote suggestion. The edit on the left is to make sure they still talk about the sponsor and use the quote, but with a clearer transition.
These edits were for clarity. The first sentence (above on the right) had an unclear time frame for when it had received attention. Secondly, the quote second from the end used the beginning of a really good quote, but cut it off. I asked that the writer use the whole quote for a larger impact (above on the left).
Woah! Having so many words crossed out on your story can look scary.
This writer had all of the right information, but the quotes and transitions needed a lot of placement adjustment. After helping reorganize how many edits I had made which can look intimidating. In addition, I had already asked this writer to redo an interview so they could focus on a specific forensics competition within their story. This was a great time to make a comment reassuring the writer of my trust in their ability to do their job after seeing so much work on the page.
Design Editing
As a newspaper editor-in-chief, I was quickly thrown into the design world.
During second semester of my junior year, I was often the only editor with design experience present in my hour. So I quickly became comfortable with answering questions about design
This was a complex spread to edit due to the elaborate graphic.
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This first thing to do was make sure there was enough room for the text, which required making the overall design smaller.
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Although the detail was incredible, I wanted to ensure that the reader could still focus on the text. Because of this, I encouraged the designer to make the prominent subjects of the design, the person and the sign, smaller as well.
Lastly, I wanted to make sure the headlines cover coordinated with the image. If you look closely, it is the same color as the features on the sign.
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When I sat down with the designer who designed this spread and asked "Have you ever designed a spread?" They said "No."
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This gave me the opportunity to walk this staffer through the basics. I showed them where the character and paragraph styles were, how to copy and paste correctly, and where the selection and direct selection tools were.
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I also gave advice about the white space. I advised them to make the headline bigger than its default, and helped them crop the image to fill up the second page entirely.
This graphic got lost in translation.
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After assigning a graphic to go with a story about disrespect in high school sports, the designer turned in this beautiful illustration. However, I was struggling to see their vision.
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After having a conversation, I understood the image was supposed to represent perception vs reality of high school athletes, but I thought we could make the design more clear.
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After reading through the story together, it was evident that the atmosphere of athletic events was the main focus. I found an image of a rowdy student section in our photos and suggested they use it as inspiration for the equally beautiful illustration that conveys the story's message.
