Editing, Leadership,
& Teambuilding
Last year, as a coverage editor on The Muse, a lot of my job was editing first drafts for staffers, coaching writers, and assisting staffers with coverage.
This year, although I still take on the role of a coverage editor in Period 5 (editing first drafts, coaching writers, and assisting writers with coverage), I also have other duties as the coverage managing editor, such as assigning stories to teams, managing the print and web budgets, doing task tracking and grading, and more.
End Letters
One thing I really love doing when editing is leaving end letters or ending notes on articles. When you have a load of edits on your article, it can be hard to sort through all of them to see what you need to improve on and what you are already good at. With end letters, I am able to commend a writer for what they did well in the article, summarize the main critiques for the story, and give them suggestions on how to improve upon the story. Basically, I am able to condense my feedback into one comment, so that is easier for writers to see what to keep doing and what they need to work on. I also think that it's a really good way to provide positive feedback for writers and reassure them of their writing skills and of the quality of their story.
Feedback Forms
Editing Style & Process
I love and take a lot of pride in editing stories, so I will usually take a while to edit so I can really take in the whole story. When I edit, I like to read through the entire article first and then go back in and make edits, so that I can grasp what the story is going for before deleting and adding in new things. Usually, I will skip the lead and nut graph and go straight into the meat of the story, to get the true feel of the story so that I can comment on the lead and nut graph accordingly. I think it's important not only to comment on changes that need to be made but also on amazing quotes or informative transitions that deserve to be highlighted. Major things I will usually check for when editing is if an angle is truly fleshed out (and if not, how to add to the article to do so), making sure quotes have emotion and add to the story, development of the story, and source diversity.
Critiques
In addition to leaving end letters and texting with writers about edits, I like to talk to them in person and explain my edits. Even though I will explain edits in comments on the article, I think it's really important to go through the article with the writer in person to explain why I made certain edits or explain certain aspects of Muse style or journalistic writing that they should keep in mind when writing in the future. In addition to just going over edits, I also like to talk to writers in person if they are having trouble with headlines or leads so we can brainstorm together and bounce ideas off of each other, and also so that I can discuss extra things like ideas to incorporate alt-copy into the article or interesting ways to format the article on print or web. Basically, I like to take the chance of talking to writers about edits in-person to have an open discussion with them about the article they are working on and how they are feeling about it.
Group Chats
I wanted to send out a feedback form to the people in Period 7 I edit for (both writers and non-writers) to see how I am doing as an editor and see if they had any critiques on the way I edit. I hoped that the form would help me learn what I was doing well and what I could work on so that I could better help my staffers when working with them on edits. Ultimately, I think the feedback form was able to help me get a better idea of what the staffers like about my editing and what they think I should do more of to motivate them and help them get better at writing -- keeping this in mind, I have tried to implement their critiques to become a better editor for them.
I love using group chats as a way to not only keep everyone informed and in the loop, but also as a way to build community and bond. Through being more casual and friendly in our writers group chat and creating a separate group chat for all of the people who like to write in Period 7 (including non-writers), I feel I am able to create a community and help create a connection between everyone in the group chats, since we are all able to talk, spread information, and make jokes together.
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Live Coverage
Whenever my writers are doing live coverage, I try my best to be at the event with them to help them out, especially if it's their first time doing live coverage. While I'm there, I try to mostly stay in the background and watch them do their thing, and only help if it looks like they're struggling or ask me for help so that they are more or less indepenedent. Throughout the process of uploading the coverage in 24-48 hours, I am constantly texting and checkng up on them in a group chat with them, the photographer, and other editors, to make sure that they are on task and the story is making progress towards being uploaded in a timely manner.
Slideshows & Writing Resources
Over the summer and during the school year, we created slideshows to present to the writers and occasionally the whole class about certain writing basics or tips and tricks. These presentations are all located in the Coverage section of the drive under the writing resources folder, and we present them to the writers or let them refer to them when they need help on certain aspects of writing, such as headlines, leads, and research. There were a few created during the summer, but others (like editorializing, email etiquette, and demographics) were created as we saw what the writers needed help on throughout the year.
Predrafts
Over the summer, I created the predraft slideshows. I decided to make some changes and add in some more questions and slides to try to encourage more planning so we could avoid issues from last year. For example, last year we had occasional issues with finding a good horizontal image to use as a feature image for a web story, so on the web predraft I created a question asking team's to think of a photo they might want to take to use as a feature photo. I also created a slide on the web predraft asking what a team's plan for an interactive element on web would be, since I want the publication to use those to create more engaging web stories. For the print predraft, I tried to add in more inspiration-gathering slides, asking photo and design/graphics to find inspiration and list specifically what about it they want to implement into their own design.
