Becoming an editor

I was geekishly excited when I made the quick decison to take Advanced Editing, a senior capstone course at UF.

I wasn't going to take classes at all. But if I took this class in the summer, I could take two capstone classes. The other is Applied Journalism, a workshop-style class that produces "Orange and Blue" magazine.  Although it was a quick six weeks, I learned quite a bit in Advanced Editing.

One of the biggest things I learned was that I am a writer. I like editing, though. I like being able to pull apart a story and figure out its meaning. I like knowing parts of speech and definitions and grammar. So, don't get me wrong - I still loved this class. But I found that I prefer writing to editing.

I supposed this confirmed something I've been ignoring. I really want to not only write feature stories, but I also want to write books, not necessarily be the executive editor at some big magazine company in New York City, the dream job I held on to through high school and much of college.

That said, I've learned being an editor and a writer can go hand-in-hand in many ways. Being a good editor will make me a better writer. Besides that, just because I'm an editor doesn't stop making me a writer.

There are important distinctions, though, between writing and editing. As I've learned in class, editors help writers become better writers, and they make sure a story is fair and accurate.

I've learned that editing goes beyond reading a story and fixing what you see wrong. Editing a story is a process that you build on. Editing is taking a story apart word by word and line by line to ensure it flows, it's grammatically correct, it's accurate, it's fair, it's attention-getting, it's news appropriate and a myriad of other things.

Not only did this class help me hone by AP Style and grammar skills, but it helped me realize that I should be balancing other type of judgment decisions, such as keeping a writer's style in a story and rewriting stories, which was one of the hardest challenges I had in this class.

I'm excited because this class taught me the skills I need to continue to be a good editor and to improve as an editor.

I think editing is something that can always be improved on, but it's something that, to a certain degree, needs to be taught. I also think that only by editing over and over again can you learn the art of being a good editor, something I have the opportunity to do as I continue my career.