| Fourth of July Copy Editing was a tough course for me because I felt I was back in high school splitting hairs about what was what. I knew it was a necessary course, but I did not think I would benefit from the class in the beginning. As the class progressed I began to realize the repetition of editing can benefit the writing and turn a story into a clear concise piece of writing. The paper I chose was from a story I had written about the Fourth of July. It was a long piece and there was a lot of fluff and as I went back to review the piece occasionally I would get lost in the prepositional phrases of plenty. In class we created a style sheet and learned how to look for specifics in the essay and not try to read the paper as a whole but stay focused on specific items. It was challenging at first, but with time I began to understand the benefits of this style of editing. I also realized it is a lot harder to simplify and shorten an essay than you might think. Second Edit (She Waits) The second editing system I worked with was with the Quills and Pixels team. This style of editing was totally different than trying to compress my own writing. It would be my job to look at someone’s essay and bring it to life for publishing in a book. I was nervous about this because I was now doing the same thing Dr. Anderson had done with my paper a year before. To make the situation more intense, I was in Dr. Anderson’s class trying to do this assignment! I made it through and learned a great deal about editing and helping other writers grow their skills. |