A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

COMM 207: In-class assignment. Here's the chance you've been waiting for ...

Update: For Tuesday, bring the paragraphs you wrote Thursday (Sept. 17), and be ready to print them out and edit each other's writing ... bringing out the best in the writing, of course. Read Chapter 5 in Ludwig and Gilmore, and pay special attention to the copy editing symbols on page 73 because you'll be using them. - pe

You get to write something!

And edit it for grammar, spelling and AP style!!

Isn't that exciting?

Here's what I want you to do: (1) Write a good paragraph, at least four or five sentences long, on the question below; (2) double-space it and print it out as a Microsoft Word document; (3) exchange papers with one of your colleagues in COMM 207; (3) edit your colleague's paper for grammar, spelling and AP style.

Use standard copy editing symbols.


There's a good set of copy editing/proofreading symbols from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and there's a set on page 73 in Ludwig and Gilmore, "Modern News Editing." It's in a chapter we haven't assigned yet, but it's not too soon for you to start getting used to them.

The Question
Compare and contrast the description of what a newspaper editor does in Ludwig and Gilmore, "Modern News Editing" and a literary (book) editor does in "Zen and the Art of Editing" by Terri Windling. Focus on what each does to bring out the best in the writing of the people they edit.

Finish your paragraph in class today. Save it to your flash drive or email it to yourself and bring it in Tuesday. We'll do the editing piece then.

1 comment:

david arterberry said...

The book seems to lean more on the coaching style as the website leaned more on the writing of a book. The website “Zen & the Art of Editing”, talk about a group of editors, as the book has more because their a paper. The book wants the editor to coach the writers in ways that the paper wants the story to come out. Like on page 57, “Each sentences is evaluated and a story’s deficiencies are explored… sprightly or serious, detailed or almost superficial”. The book wants it to be how the paper wants it and the website wants the author to be the main focus. “Our job is to help the authors shine, not to step into the spotlight ourselves; to help them express their creative visions, not re-shape their books according to our own. Okay, we might argue a point forcefully if we feel that it's in the best interest of the book -- but it's the writer's name on the cover, not ours, and the writer has the final say”( http://windling.typepad.com/editing/on-editing.html, Terri Windling)

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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.