Copy editors, please help me into a very important program

[Juniper200]

This won’t take long, I promise.

Tomorrow, I’m taking the entrance test for the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund copy editing internship program. This has the potential to make or break me, and the essay portion is a major part of the application process.

Could you see your way clear to ruthlessly critque this for me? I’m looking for tips on flow, style (AP and otherwise) and general content. Am I really addressing the purpose of the essay? (“Write an autobiographical sketch describing your editing skills and journalistic interests that could be forwarded to a media recruiter who is having a difficult time finding the perfect editing intern.”)

I wrote this without the benefit of a stylebook–which I won’ have on the test anyway. Please, pull no punches as this program means more to me than anything right now.

Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.

I spent the morning of September 11 cut off from the news. I can’t remember the last time I felt so helpless.

I was at my job in one of the campus’ computing labs, where I had no access to television or radio, when I heard a passing student say that a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I tried to learn more from news Web sites, but heavy demand made most of them inaccessible. There were crises unfolding in cities I loved, but I knew next to nothing about what was happening.
As soon as I was able, I rushed to the copy desk at the Missourian. I wasn’t scheduled to work an editing shift, but I knew the people on duty would be dumping the issue they’d planned and that they’d want help dealing with the extra workload. I was right, and I spent the next 11 hours working the copy desk. It didn’t occur to me that there was anything else I could do.

As I trimmed AP stories, wrote headlines and edited our local coverage, my feeling of helplessness diminished. I was part of a journalistic bucket brigade, getting the news on the street as quickly as possible and in the clearest form possible. I feel a little guilty admitting it now, but being a link in the newsroom chain was exciting that afternoon. Seeing so much copy move across the desk and knowing that the news couldn’t go out the door without first passing my deskmates and me gave me an adrenaline rush. Six weeks after that shift, I can begin to separate the nervous energy of watching a national disaster and the thrill of doing my job well.

I learned a great deal about that job on September 11. I learned about the constant changes a newspaper undergoes when its staff is working on a tight deadline and the news keeps pouring in-- half of the stories I edited that afternoon never saw print. I learned that I would grow to dread seeing the inevitable paragraph describing the day’s events that appeared in virtually every news story to cross the desk for the next few weeks. I learned the way a newsroom full of strangers can pull together to create an issue that is emotionally charged but still informative.

Most importantly, I learned that, through editing, I could help my community. Many, not understanding the importance of every step in the writing process, would consider that a grandiose statement, but it’s true. Just as my feeling of helplessness grew smaller as I made myself familiar with the news, being a part of the process that delivered the news allowed me to diminish someone else’s anxiety and fear. People are empowered through stories they read in the newspaper, making the copy editor’s job of making sure that news is correct, of polishing its shoes and tucking in its shirt, one of the most rewarding jobs I can imagine.

[Chef_Troy]

Senior Editor/Writer of an international trade association here. I just printed this out and I’ll have my corrections to you as soon as I can.

BTW - you go to Mizzou?!? I did my core classes there and finished my bachelor’s at Columbia College. Small world.

[Chef_Troy]

first, I’m giving you my comments paragraph by paragraph, then my version of your essay with edits made.

Par. 1: nice intro, drags the reader in.

Par. 2:
[ul][li]either say “campus’s” or “campus”… you should always use an “s” after a possessive apostrophe even if it looks weird (see Strunk & White’s Elements of Style).[/li][li]change “where I had no access to” to “isolated from.” More forceful and succinct.[/li][li]change “heavy demand made most of them inaccessible” to “heavy demand overwhelmed most of them.” Word choice can change the whole tone of a sentence… in my opinion, the way you wrote it was passive and sort of bloodless.[/li][li]change “I knew next to nothing about what was happening” to “I had no way to learn more about what was happening.” This makes the sentence tie in to your theme of “journalists help people learn more in a crisis”. The way you wrote it could simply have meant, “I was ignorant,” not “I was cut off.”[/ul][/li]
Par. 3:
[ul][li] Publications should be in italics; italicize the Missourian.[/li][li]Delete “I was right, and…” go straight into “I spent the next 11 hours…” - they’ll then know you were right.[/li][li]change “It didn’t occur to me that there was anything else I could do” to “I had no thought of doing anything else.” Presumably you knew there were other things you could be doing and you chose to stay at the desk. That’s better.[/ul][/li]
Par. 4:
[ul][li]add comma after “headlines”… AP style includes using the serial comma.[/li][li]change ending of sentence 2 to “…as quickly and clearly as possible.” shorter and stronger.[/li][li]I rewrote your sentence about feeling guilty to show why you felt that way (my guess).[/li][li]last sentence: change beginning to “I now am able to separate…”[/ul][/li]
Par. 5:
[ul][li]I’ve chosen to set this off as a bulleted list. It’s a matter of taste… I think it helps the pacing of it. Also, I deleted your sentence about growing to dread the Paragraph of Doom, because it isn’t something you learned about copyediting and doesn’t belong in the paragraph. I also changed “informative” to “objective” in what is now the second bullet, and pulled the first sentence of Par. 6 up to make the last bullet on the list to make it stand out.[/ul][/li]
Par. 6: The last sentence is way too long, and confusing to boot. I chopped it off at “…read in the newspaper.” and changed “making” to “That makes.” I also set off your metaphorical references to shoe-shining and tucking in shirts so that the sentence flows better.

Hope it helps.

I spent the morning of September 11 cut off from the news. I can’t remember the last time I felt so helpless.

I was at my job in one of the campus computing labs, isolated from television and radio, when I heard a passing student say that a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I tried to learn more from news Web sites, but heavy demand had overwhelmed most of them. There were crises unfolding in cities I loved, but I had no way to learn more about what was happening.

As soon as I was able, I rushed to the copy desk at the Missourian. I wasn’t scheduled to work an editing shift, but I knew the people on duty would be dumping the issue they’d planned and that they’d want help dealing with the extra workload. I spent the next 11 hours working the copy desk. I had no thought of doing anything else.

As I trimmed AP stories, wrote headlines, and edited our local coverage, my feeling of helplessness diminished. I was part of a journalistic bucket brigade, getting the news on the street as quickly and clearly as possible. I feel a little guilty admitting it now, but the excitement of being a link in the newsroom chain equaled my dismay at the unfolding events. Seeing so much copy move across the desk and knowing that the news couldn’t go out the door without first passing my deskmates and me gave me an adrenaline rush. Six weeks after that shift, I now am able separate the nervous energy of watching a national disaster and the thrill of doing my job well.

I learned a great deal about that job on September 11.
[ul][li]I learned about the constant changes a newspaper undergoes when its staff is working on a tight deadline and the news keeps pouring in (half of the stories I edited that afternoon never saw print).[/li][li]I learned the way a newsroom full of strangers can pull together to create an issue that is emotionally charged but still objective.[/li][li]Most importantly, I learned that, through editing, I could help my community. [/ul][/li]
Many, not understanding the importance of every step in the writing process, would consider that a grandiose statement, but it’s true. Just as my feeling of helplessness grew smaller as I made myself familiar with the news, being a part of the process that delivered the news allowed me to diminish someone else’s anxiety and fear. People are empowered through stories they read in the newspaper. That makes the copy editor’s job of ensuring that news is correct — of polishing its shoes and tucking in its shirt — one of the most rewarding jobs I can imagine.

[Juniper200]

Mwah! Thanks, Cheffie! You’re the greatest!

Yeah, I’m at Mizzou. I’m a senior doing the whole copy editing grind, just getting ready to start looking for a job in earnest. I figure that without a Dow Jones internship, my chances of getting hired are nil and I’ll probably starve on the street after failing to find a little Beefaroni at the bottom of a can during my day’s dumpster diving. (But then, I say that about a lot of things.) I’ve had my stomach tied up in knots for, literally, two years over getting into this program.

::sigh:: You couldn’t tell it by looking at that essay, but I’m actually a pretty good editor–although I’ll be the first to admit that I’ll only get really good with experience. I just can’t do it to my own stuff. I mean, the sentence is perfect as it is or else it wouldn’t have come out of my brain that way, right? The mistakes and clarity problems just don’t jump out at me like they would if someone else had written it. I’m not the only one like this, right?

Time to go make some changes. Thanks again!

[Primaflora]

Good luck Juniper!

Cheffie has italicised the in the Missourian and it should simply be the in roman while only Missourian is italicised.

clear as mud?

[Chef_Troy]

*Originally posted by Primaflora *
**Good luck Juniper!

Cheffie has italicised the in the Missourian and it should simply be the in roman while only Missourian is italicised.

clear as mud? **

whoops, sloppy coding. thanks for zipping my pants up for me, primaflora.

[Juniper200]

Don’t worry, I caught it. See, mad copy editing skillz!

[Juniper200]

Well, I took the Controlled Editing Exercise (I’ve been saying “Dow Jones test” for so long that it’s really weird for me to call it that) on Friday. It turned out to be no harder than the quizzes we get in editing class every week, but there was still a lot of pressure on the “must not miss a single trick” front. I think I did very well, and know I nailed the headline portion. I’m really good at headlines.

I mailed the packet of application materials (resume, transcript, new-and-Doper-improved essay and application) yesterday. I’m still terrified that I won’t get in. Last summer’s job market was pretty crappy for editing interns who weren’t in the Dow Jones program, so I don’t have much experience. I NEED to be in this program if I ever want to get a job. But at least it’s out of my hands now. I’ll know the results the first week in December. November seems so terribly long now.

[Superdude]

Good luck, Juniper. Make sure you tell us how you did!

[pulykamell]

One point – AP style says to “Capitalize the in a newspaper’s name if that is the way the publication prefers to be known.”

Also, the stylebook says nothing about italicizing newspaper names. It strictly prohibits quotes, though.
My look at The New York Times web site seems to indicate they don’t italicize paper names, either, unless they just don’t do it in their web editions.

(Yes, I know what Strunk & White, Chicago and all the others have to say. I assume the Dow will adhere to AP guidelines.)

Also, placing an “'s” after “campus” is correct, but the “'s” does not follow ALL possessives ending in “s.”

AP:

Geez, that coding was tiresome. There are some interesting rules in there. Note particularly the “singular common nouns ending in s” and “special expressions.”
PLURAL NOUNS ENDING IN S: Add only an apostrophe.

NOUNS PLURAL IN FORM, SINGULAR IN MEANING: Add only an apostrophe: mathematics’ rules, measles’ effects. Apply the same principle when a plural word occurs in the formal name of a singular entity: General Motors’ profits, the United States’ wealth.

SINGULAR COMMON NOUNS ENDING IS S: Add 's unless the next word begins with s:* the hostess’s invitation, the hostess’ seat…*

SINGULAR PROPER NAMES ENDING IN S: Use only an apostrophe

SPECIAL EXPRESSIONS: The following exceptions to the general rule for words not ending in s apply to words that end in an s sound and are followed by a word that begins with s:for appearance’ sake, for conscience’ sake, for goodness’ sake

[pulykamell]

(Whoops! AP did not say “Geez, that coding was tiresome” that should follow my quote. I previewed and forgot to scroll down all the way. BLUSH)

[dcnewsman]

Long time newspaper man here. First point, remember newspaper style is nothing like literary style.

*Originally posted by Chef Troy *
Par. 2:
[list][li]either say “campus’s” or “campus”… you should always use an “s” after a possessive apostrophe even if it looks weird (see Strunk & White’s Elements of Style).[/li]

But, if you are taking this for the Dow Jones Scholarship, having worked for a Dow Jones Newspaper, I know they follow AP style and AP style says “PLURAL NOUNS ENDING IN S: Add only an apostrophe: the churches’ need, the girl’s toys, the horses’ food, the ships’ wake, states’ rights, the VIPs’ entrance.”

Also, AP style says you abbreviate as follows: Jan., Feb. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. and Dec. when using them with a date.

Also, my AP StyleBook says not to use serial comma, so don’t put it after “and” in a series.

[Juniper200]

I ran most of those things through the stylebook before I sent it off and pretty much did things dcnewsman’s way. Of course, it’s in the mail now and out of my hands. I’m not going to obsess over it any more. Just good-but-nervous thoughts from here on out.

[pulykamell]

That’s correct, dc. No newspaper I’ve worked for uses the serial comma before “and.” (eg red, white and blue not red, white, and blue.) But AP does have some stupidities that most newspapers change in their own stylebooks. The most notorious example I can think is that AP insists on hyphenating “teen-ager” and “teen-aged,” though most papers I’ve seen don’t abide by this rule.

Anyhow, good luck Juniper!

[Politzania]

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Juniper200 *
**

I spent the morning of September 11 cut off from the news. I can’t remember the last time I felt so helpless.

I was at my job in one of the campus’ computing labs, where I had no access to television or radio, when I heard a passing student say that a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I tried to learn more from news Web sites, but heavy demand made most of them inaccessible.
**

Try taking “where I had no access to television or radio,” out of the current sentence and adding it to the following sentence: " As I had no access to television or radio, I tried to learn more from news Web sites, but heavy demand made most of them inaccessible.

**
… knowing that the news couldn’t go out the door without first passing my deskmates and me gave me an adrenaline rush.
**
“deskmates and me gave me” - sounds awkward, but not sure how to fix.

**…
I learned that I would grow to dread seeing the inevitable paragraph describing the day’s events that appeared in virtually every news story to cross the desk for the next few weeks.
**
This took about 3 readthrus to figure out. Needs a rewrite, but no concrete suggestions.

**…
People are empowered through stories they read in the newspaper, making the copy editor’s job of making sure that news is correct, of polishing its shoes and tucking in its shirt, one of the most rewarding jobs I can imagine.

**
Maybe "which makes the copy editor’s job’?

**

Just my $.02.