Editing
Coming from a design background into the role of editor-in-chief, one of my main priorities was learning how to effectively edit third drafts. While it's still not my fortitude, I've seen a lot of growth in my ability to edit coverage over the past couple of months.
What I look for while editing + my methodology
- I always give articles a solid read-through before going in and making any edits. This helps me fully understand the story before making any presumptions about it.
- Once I begin to edit, I start by ensuring clarity and flow. If I can't understand something, I'll add a comment and ask about it. If something doesn't sound quite right, I will read it over and over again until I can figure out why and reword it.
-Arguably the most important thing I look for is editorializing. This has been the most challenging part of editing the third draft. What I found has helped me most is going into the article skeptical of everything. I have learned to look very closely at the way things are worded for fear of giving off the wrong impression or inadvertently adding the writer's opinion into the story.
-As the year has progressed, I've found myself being more comfortable with walking writers through edits and leading group critiques.
Organization
Editing well means nothing if there's not a good organizational system facilitating it. This year, we decided to try a different method of task tracking. We all felt like the past systems weren't ideal, so we settled on a spreadsheet instead. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding it when we first introduced it, but gradually, we found that the staff liked it more. Mainly, it does a good job at laying out the workflow. Note the emphasis we put on several rounds of editing before finally approving.
