Editing at the review round 2

Monday I completed my final shift at the review. I found the experience to be kind of boring. I know newspaper journalism is something I would never want to do for a career (not because of this experience, but it just isn't for me). 

After reviewing my work from the time I spent writing for a Greek newspaper at K-State, I too wrote about meaningless things and used my friends or friends of friends for quotes. But I don't think that's great journalism and I see a lot of the things I once did occurring in the review. My biggest criticism of the Review is the fact the same people seem to give quotes weekly and it is because the author knows them. The views don't necessarily reflect what is being said in the article and the people being quoted don't really seem to disagree either. The people the newspaper quotes don't have much of an opinion. Many of the quotes seem to be from apathetic, uninformed people. Truthfully, if people were randomly selected to give their opinion on the topics at hand the same apathy would be present, but I think more opinionated people would offer more compelling quotes. 

Editing at WU Review #1

Tuesday I had my first experience editing at the review. Overall the articles I edited seemed pretty good except for the fact I felt a lot of the quotes were from people on the newspaper staff or closely related to staffers. I think efforts should be made to get more diversity in the paper and who gives quotes. I know it's easy to ask friends for quotes, but in the real world journalists can't just ask their friends.

I noticed many of the students working in the office are not mass media majors or if they are mass media majors they were not people I recognized. I edited about 5 different articles. 

Washburn Review editing round two

Yesterday I went and completed my second hour of editing at the Washburn Review. This time around I felt much more comfortable and at ease editing than I did the first time. It was a lot better knowing what to expect. Colleen was a huge help and she is great to work with! All of the staff at the Review seemed to love what they were doing and were all happy to be around each other. It made for a fun atmosphere. Overall, I would say I had a positive experience at the Review and it helped me in my editing skills.

I spent more than enough time editing stories for the WU Review. It was fun to get to correct people when they were wrong... Just kidding. It was tough to do though. it was a tedious task that is of vital importance. Much respect for Colleen and the other editors around the globe making the writers look good.

Editing Experience

This past week I experienced editing in a whole new light. I was there sitting in a room staring at real stories that were up to be published. I was sitting there asking myself if I was ready to actually edit something that a lot of people could see. After a couple of minutes of editing I felt like I was actually making a difference in these stories. Now I can't say if it was for the best or not.


I made it through two stories. Both were over things I liked. The first one was over TV series that were coming back on and the other was over sports. As I was editing these stories, my eyes started to hurt from staring at the screen. I decided right then that if was ever going to edit some long paper in the future that I would print it off and write on it.

Washburn Review editing experience

I was a little nervous editing for the Review because I felt like as an editing student I really needed to know what I was doing. The student worker that was in there helped me a lot and reassured me in my editing skills.

I edited around 4 stories. I was surprised when editing my first story because there were a lot of AP Style mistakes. The rest of the stories did not have as many and they were all well written. It was hard for me when reading an opinion piece because I kept wanting to make AP Style changes that aren't necessary in opinion pieces.

I feel like I learned a lot and that it was a good experience overall to further my knowledge with AP Style.

Spring course schedule causes panic in mass media department

 It is hard to believe, but it is almost time to enroll for classes for the Spring 2016 semester. The course catalog is now available on the Washburn University website.

While looking at the course catalog online, mass media students intending to graduate in May of 2016 may have a panic attack when they see that the class “Promotion Writing” is going to be offered online in the spring.

This class has not been offered in several years, and the mass media department has allowed students to take another upper division elective to fulfill the writing class requirement. Several students have taken a special topic elective titled “Murder, Media, Mayhem: Crime Reporting” that is taught by adjunct lecturer Timothy  Hrenchir, who currently works for the Topeka Capital Journal.

According to department lecturer, Regina Cassell, students who have taken a substitute for the course during the time it was not being offered will not be required to take the class. The substitute will still satisfy the requirement. This comes as a big sigh of relief for those who are expecting to graduate in either spring or summer 2016.

Be sure to keep a look at your email to ensure you don’t miss advising for the spring. Advanced registration opens Nov. 2. Make sure to check with your adviser to ensure proper a date to enroll, as it is based on class rank. 

(Corrected: Nov 5 DC)

Washburn Review Editing

This was the second time for me editing at the Washburn Review. I felt more comfortable editing this time. I edited three articles. I mostly edited capitalization errors and punctuation errors. I had to edit an article where I wasn't quite sure what she meant by a couple of the sentences so I did my best to fix those two sentences. It is really hard to edit when you are not up to date on a topic. Overall, editing at the Washburn Review was a good experience and made me realize it is not as easy as it seems to edit others articles.

Editing at the Washburn Review

When I started editing articles, I noticed that the same mistakes that I make are the same mistakes that other people make as well. A lot of the mistakes were wording, capitalization and overuse of commas. It is very important to go back and reread what was wrote. Even at the Washburn Review, I had to ask questions to staff members and read aloud. Another thing I realized is that if you are doing an opinion piece, it is extremely important to spell check. I ran into a situation where I didn't know what the word was supposed to be because I had never watched the show before. The last thing I remember about my experience is that even if you have an extensive vocabulary, you need to dumb it down so anyone can read it. Very humbling experience!

Editing at the Review

I had a good time when I went to serve my two hours of editing at the review. The first time my partner and I asked a lot of questions and found out what the students do at the review. I thought it was really interesting because I have never been in a student newspaper. They put a lot of time and effort in trying to prep the stories. The second time we edited a couple stories and I felt good because I actually changed stuff in the articles to AP style. I enjoyed my experience editing at the review, glad I did it.

Editing at the Review

I went to two shifts at the WU Review to edit the paper. In my first shift, I edited beside the copy editor who was on staff at the time. She wasn't sure what I needed to do, so we did some together. The first one we edited was very difficult formatted. It was in sentence format, not already put into paragraphs. This looked very difficult for the editor. Also, the wording was not the strongest. The second shift was more structured and planned. The editor printed out a page from the paper and told us to edit it. This was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. The sentences were poorly written, as well as word choice was poor. I noticed a lot of commas in stories. Overuse!

Editing at the Review

Today I edited three stories at the Washburn Review. It's amazing the time and detail it takes to go through a story and find even the smallest error. I read over my own edits a few times and even found things that I missed the first time through. If anything, this experience just reaffirms why I do not want to become an editor :)

Review editing on Sept. 14

On Monday, Sept. 14, I edited four stories at the Washburn Review. I learned it is extremely important to proofread and edit your own story before giving it to another editor. It seems like a small task, but it is amazing what errors are missed when writing the first draft.