Editorial Contribution

Editorial contribution

As part of the process for putting the publication together, the content that was produced needed to be edited for grammar and other issues that may be relevant. We had at first discussed designating roles within the first weeks, of which I had volunteered to edit work.  After a period of time, we said that we should all upload the work via basecamp and give feedback and critique each other’s work before we would edit the content. No-one seemed to do this, so I instead looked at peoples work, and edited the minor details such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. I also restructured some sentences, and rephrased some parts to go with this.

Editing the work was something I enjoyed as it also helped me to find errors in my own work, and it also helped with creating more of a house style, which was something that we had never discussed. Some people in terms of submitting the work for it to be edited didn’t do the submissions, or I was asked to find it on their blogs. This was very frustrating, as it was not helpful to the group that people didn’t submit work to basecamp so that we could edit, and know exactly how much content we had, and how big it was. We had decided that uploading work as a document rather than typing it or copying into basecamp was also a better solution, although again, some of the group did not do this.

When editing the work, this was the aspect that became difficult, and I found myself taking more time and effort to try and get hold of work so that it could be edited. This was supposed to be done as a group, but I was the only one to take work and edit the content.

 

 

The work that was done was all interesting to read, as to edit. I could see where certain pieces would go in the publication and also, how they needed to be improved.

I also attached these files back on basecamp to give to the original writer, so that they could read through and see what they thought to the changes made. I gained some feedback from this from some members saying that it read much better and made more sense. These were pleasing for me, as I had taken a lot of time to go through and read everyone’s work, edit them, and give feedback, without trying to come across too critical. My own work needed editing too in parts, and this was why I had thought we could edit as a group, laying all sheets on a table and giving feedback.

I edited all of the content that I was asked to, and that was available for me to edit, although there were also many pieces that were not edited by me.

For the purposes of creating a publication that may have been distributed, I thought that it would have been good to have all looked at the work and contributed to creating a slick house styled publication that flowed and was to a high standard.

As part of choosing aspects of the publication, I also drew sketches, and found pictures that could be used in the publication as part of the front cover. I uploaded these to basecamp, of which the main designers then took and used to create the covers.

Overall, the editing process has seen me oversee a lot of the publication, from ideas, to pictures, designs, content, and liaising on pagination and features.

For the editing process I used a book for guidance called ‘Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers’ by Harold Evans. I found this very useful when trying to work out what words are better suited in situations, and also what phrases to avoid and use, as well as common grammar and punctuation errors. The editing that I did do I enjoyed doing, and this is also something that I would look at continuing to do to further my skills in the field.