In about 300-500 words, think through the following:
*the process for the editing project
*think through the process(es) for each project--newsletter, remediation, editing--and examine them side by side
*what connections do you see between these process(es)
Remember reflections should be thought-out and specific--use details, refer back to past assignments and/or readings, etc.
Due: Monday, August 1, 2011 BY 6:00 pm.
I enjoyed the editing assignment. At first I was dreading it, but if I did it correctly, I thought it was fun. Editing is more than just catching errors. You have to think about the content, and how to restructure poorly written statements. The process of editing and revising the newsletter was rushed, and that's why many simple errors were left unnoticed. The remediation projects required revision and editing. Working on the remediation assignments was my personal favorite. Editing and revision can take a while, but it gives your words clarity. My process for the editing assignment began with reading and rereading it thoroughly. I then thought about the content alone, and determined whether the text needed to be rearranged.
ReplyDeleteIn the third read over I looked carefully for grammatical and punctuation errors. I made notes in the margins and tried to make them as clear as possible. After editing the piece I think it's important to write a letter to the author. My process for the newsletter began with research. Since the text was meant to be scholarly grounded, I looked for rhetorical composition sources. I used Dr. Ong and Rhetorical scholar Rebecca Moore Howard. Both scholars depicted audience in a way that was easy to understand, or at least easy to put in basic terms for others. I wrote my portion of text and tried to avoid a personalized tone. I decided to relate music and audience, it was a very nice fit. I wanted to find a popular figure that was in the spotlight right now. The perfect candidate was right in front of me, actually pasted onto my dorm wall. Lady Gaga has a massive volume of fans. She has created a legendary Monster empire and campaign. I also needed a classical figure to help related my classic source. I chose Led Zeppelin because they are a classic rock band with great appeal to audiences of today. When it came to collaborate with my group, we designed the template together and reviewed our articles to make sure they connected. We read over our final product and made revisions. One common thread that links all of the assignments together, editing and revision. Each assignment has required us to explore of theory of composing and continually add new terms.
Editing is the process of revising someone else’s or even your own work. Editing this past newsletter was more challenging for me because we had to edit our own groups’ newsletter, “Real World Rhetoric.” Obviously if I was turning in an article that would be graded for a main assignment, I thought that it was my best work with no errors. Since editing is an ongoing process I went back and found some changes. A composition can always be improved whether you have a fresh set of eyes looking at it or you wait a week before you begin to rework it again, it can always progress. In one of our past readings, a tip that has been very helpful to me was to not edit for more than 6 hours a day. This eliminates the repetition from reading the same thing over and over again from clouding our vision of what is really supposed to be the final product. For the newsletter, remediation and editing project my processes were slightly different since they were different genres. When I was creating my remediation I was not focused on grammatical errors since the medium I chose was an online poster and there were few words. I was making sure that old medium was still represented in the new medium which is why I carefully chose what pictures I would use. The editing process I did for our newsletter was less formal than the most recent editing project. The audience for the newsletter was freshmen attending Florida State University. It is imperative to not use too advanced language but also to not “dumb down” your word choice which could cause the reader to lose interest. During this past editing project, we had to make an audience switch from freshman to the entire student body at FSU. This was the trickiest part to this project. When I was a freshman I was only 17 years old and as a junior now I am in a completely different stage of my life. To be able to hit all ages but no change the author’s original work was complicated. Editing is the most critical part of my composing process because this where I can go back and make changes before I submit my final product.
ReplyDeleteWhen it came to this editing project I had to step back and remember that I was editing someone else work. Usually If I go back and read something I don’t like I know what I am trying to get across to my audience, so I have a better understanding of what I want the piece to be. So I had to try and step back and make sure what was being said is something that an outsider can understand. This wasn’t my work so something’s I cut may be just because I didn’t understand it. In the revision process these are the kind of things that can be addressed. At the same time though I did not want to be a heavy handed editor and completely redoes their piece. Just because I am editing the piece I don’t want to change the authors voice or major points on the paper. So with this newsletter I wanted to go through and point out some errors or things that would help it flow better. At first I read through the letter just to see what it was about and gain an understanding of what they were talking about. The second time I went through the newsletter I wanted to try and edit it so that everything flowed better. The last time I read through it was to make sure the simple errors and grammatical were marked and noted. I put my suggestions in my letter back to the writer and let them make changes that would work better for everyone involved. When I think of all the projects that we have done so far I feel like we have been building towards something every time. Everything goes hand in hand with each other. Editing and remediation have a lot more in common than I thought they would. The mini-assignment for editing really helped me prepare for this project. With that project we had to cut so much material to get it where we wanted the piece to be, it made it a little easier to cut things from this newsletter. After doing the readings for editing it also help me catch some grammar errors that I probably would not have caught before. I am still not a huge fan of editing, but I definitely have gained a greater respect for the process. When I go back to edit my own work now, I will be able to pay attention better to the small details.
ReplyDeleteMy process for the editing project was very time consuming. I first went through the whole newsletter and read it. When I came across small mistakes I would correct them with the right punctuation marks. I then went through it again and made major corrections. For example, color corrections, layout corrections, and picture corrections. There were also many grammatical issues. I made my corrections to the audience of a student body as a whole. This was a lot harder than I expected. To try and change a newsletter that is focused toward freshman and direct it towards FSU’s whole student body is very hard. I also wrote a letter informing the group which changes they need to make. There were many adjustments to be made. All in all, there newsletter and its content as a whole was excellent. I enjoyed playing the “editor” role. I felt in control and like I had the upper hand. Our first project, the newsletter, was the most strategist project. However, it helped us learn techniques that we will take with us in the real world. As EWM majors, we need to know how to do these types of things. Our second project, the remediation of the key words was my favorite project so far. I felt I could think outside of the box and get creative with it. I focused my remediation project around the theme “Mulan”. I had a “my remediation box” and lined it with mirrors, for a “reflection” look. When I think of reflection the first thing I think of is Mulan, but we all know in our case this isn’t what reflection means. According to Kathleen Yancey, reflection is, “using reflection in our writing classrooms and asking students to participate with us, not as objects of our study, but as agents of their own learning, in a process that is a product." Each of these projects helped me gain confidence as a composer and a writer.
ReplyDeleteI will be completely honest; at first I thought that this project would be a lot easier than the previous ones. Unfortunately, it was not as easy as I originally thought. The process was very time consuming. First, I read through the entire article looking for grammatical errors, and there were a lot. After correcting those, I reread the newsletter and deleted unnecessary sentences and continued to revise. Finally, I wrote the letter explaining my revisions. My process for this one was very different from the other projects because I did not have to do much of my own work besides the letter. Editing someone else’s work was a lot different than editing and revising my own because I did not want to be too harsh or too relaxed. With my own work, I am always very harsh. For this project, I had to find a balance between the two. Also, I was able to recognize that editing is one of my strengths in this class. I have always been very concerned with grammar and word choice in my writing; therefore it was exciting to be able to use this skill as a way to help others and improve their work. The revision/editing aspect of this project was the only part of the process that was somewhat similar, although different because it was not my own work. It was interesting to read and view another group’s newsletter to see how the other group chose to address the target audience and present their work. This Editing Project was not as frustrating and stressful as the other two projects. The newsletter was time consuming and stressful, especially because it was a group project, and the remediation project was very frustrating because Vuvox was a program with which I was not very familiar. Also, the other two had a creativity aspect attached to them, which is something that I struggle with. The editing project was to the point, which is why I favor the editing aspect of this class. This project definitely gave me the confidence that I needed to continue to pursue a career in the EWM field, especially in editing.
ReplyDeleteFor the editing project I started out with reading online about what the terms Ethos, Pathos and Logos meant. After getting an understanding of them I began reading the newsletter I was assigned. As I read I would see grammatical errors and automatically change them. When a person has to stop and read over a sentence repeatedly the sentence clearly needs to be fixed. I find that saying a difficult sentence out loud can help identify the problem. Most of the time a word needs to be deleted/replaced, as well as a reworking of the sentence. While editing I referenced the article “Before you Begin Editing” for how to mark up my corrections in the document and margins. After my initial editing, I went through and read the newsletter again. A second read through allowed me to read the newsletter with my corrections and identify any another corrections that needed to be made. After reading the articles I looked through the pictures and thought about them in context with the new audience. They did not work, so suggestions to change pictures and colors were made. I enjoyed this project very much. It was interesting to see how another group formatted and wrote their newsletter. I also got excited when I would find a major error!
ReplyDeleteI find that each project is not associated with its predecessor. The composing and thinking process for each is different therefore the projects are different. Although, all projects do get a final look over before submission to check for any errors missed. All projects on a whole provide experience for future jobs. It is nice to know that I can take something in one medium and completely transform it into a new medium or add a new insight to the original medium.
For the process of the editing project, I first read through the whole newsletter before I began making revisions to get a feel of the intentions of the author. Then, I looked at the content of the piece and deleted any unnecessary information that didn’t appeal to the audience. I also made some suggestions to re-word anything that sounded awkward and made revisions to errors in grammar. Then, I read through the piece three times to make sure I fixed any mechanical errors. Finally, I edited the style of the newsletter; adding spaces, new paragraphs indents, and made suggestions for new images, which are all changes in style used to appeal to the broader audience of FSU students. My process of editing was most different from my processes in the newsletter and PowerPoint remediation.
ReplyDeleteFor the newsletter, I outlined the piece with sections of content, composed the text, and placed it into the format. Then, I edited any mechanical mistakes in the content and moved it around to make sure the arrangement was appropriate for the topic and audience. My process for the newsletter was mostly focused on the content, because it’s divided into sections and the content must fit the form. The newsletter didn’t allow for as many options in delivery as the PowerPoint, so my approach was different in the process of composition for these two mediums.
For the PowerPoint remediation, I began my process of composition with the stylistic effects since it was a remediation of the term delivery, which I had already defined in the newsletter. The process of composition in the PowerPoint was focused primarily on style, adding effects and animations to appeal to my audience and demonstrate the term delivery. After I created the effects for the delivery of the slideshow, I added content into the text boxes and title headings. In the process of creating a PowerPoint, I began with composing the style and then added the content, which is the opposite of my process of creating the newsletter.
The process of the editing project was completely different than the first two projects because I could view the work from another perspective, as the editor. Sometimes as the composer, I feel overwhelmed and under pressure, so I focus on certain aspects and then completely ignore the other aspects of the composition. As an editor, I was able to see how important it is for all the aspects of composition to come together to appeal to an audience. The editing assignment was most beneficial to me, because it made me realize how important all the elements of composition are in order for a piece to be successful. Before, as a composer, I would just jump in and compose in any way I felt at the moment, throwing around sentences and adding images, without giving any attention to my audience or what it was that I was trying to convey to the audience. Now, I realize it’s important for the content and style to work together and appeal to the audience for whom you are composing. Now, I can use my editing skills to revise my own work, and critique it to find ways that will make my composition appeal to my audience and be a more successful composition.
@shannon- I also agree with Yancey that reflection allows us to learn through the process, not just by the product. I grew as a composer, reflecting on the process of each project.
ReplyDeleteFor this reflection I decided to create an outline in hopes that I could find the connection between the three projects we have submitted so far…and I think I found them. After reflecting on the process for all three projects, two of the main connections that I noticed involved (1) genre and (2) audience. In order to accurately complete the projects we had to remember the conventions used for the medium in which the project was completed, i.e., newsletter format, the medium for the remediated projects (which for me was a book), and the letter to the group whose newsletter we edited. The audience analysis was very hard for me to remember, for some reason, but after completing each project I would make note of the importance of audience in my reflections. I have come to understand that audience awareness is very important when preparing projects such as these, especially through the remediation and the editing project, and even more so in writing. As I mentioned in my letter to the group whose newsletter I edited, you must remember the audience because they provide purpose to your business, just as they provide purpose to writing. You can speak or write an article for a group of people who share an interest in energy related topics, but if you present that speech or article to people who are more interested in celebrity gossip or animal rights, it will fall on deaf ears and its purpose will be lost. Other commonalities shared by the projects were the process of revision and editing. If I had given myself the time needed to complete my articles in our group’s newsletter I would have looked over the final product before it was submitted to make a few editorial changes; I would have also checked to see if we needed to revise articles for fluidity. In the remediation project, if I remembered my audience, I would have revised the color scheme of my book; and for the editing project, well, the whole project dealt with reading, revising, re-reading, revising, re-reading then editing.
ReplyDeleteDuring the editing project, I took time to peruse some of the online references cited in our reading, “Before You Being Editing” and the style guides form our reading. I read the newsletter about three times, made a copy of it, read it again line by line, and marked up the copy first. I did this because I am a heavy handed editor and I have a tendency to completely change other people’s work; I tried to keep in mind not just the genre and the audience, but the author’s voice as well. I did not want to separate the articles from the source of their creation. All three projects have been very challenging to and for me, but in hindsight I can appreciate working through and completing them. The reflection process that we have to do after the projects has also been very helpful and insightful to me because now I have a better understanding of my own theory of composition and more methods than ever to help me with future writing projects.
For this editing project, I printed out the newsletter and read through it once without making any corrections. Even though I was essentially editing my own project, it was very easy to find corrections. I was surprised to find errors in my own work. It’s weird how different your eyes are three weeks after you write something. I felt like I was reading someone else’s work. When doing the project, I had to keep the key to the symbols open on my computer because I am not very good at editing at all. While I was doing the project I kept forgetting the proper editing protocol and I don’t know if I even did it right. I tried to keep to the guidelines as much as possible but there was still a little bit of gray area with me. I am not very strong at editing, I would much rather be on the creativity side and have someone else edit my work. It’s not that I don’t like stepping on people’s toes; it’s just that I don’t think I’m exactly qualified to say whether something is right or wrong. Needless to say, grammar is not my strong suit. After I read through the newsletter without making any corrections, I grabbed my read pen and went to work. I was looking more for the image of things over the general grammar, but I tried to correct as many grammar mistakes as I could find. My goal with editing the newsletter was to try to make the authors make the thing work for the intended audience. Since the audience was different than what the original project called for, I had to edit some things out that were geared toward freshman. This was new to me because I used to think that the purpose of editing was to just make corrections, but after this class, I see that revising is the step in the composing process where you make most corrections and editing is where you make last minute adjustments and also make the piece work for the audience. I think of the original piece as sand, and revising as the sifter. It catches major grammatical and spelling mistakes and then all that’s left is editing.
ReplyDeleteThe newsletter project required a lot of research to gain a general background on the key terms we were given. I thought that the newsletter was kind of like a brainstorming project in the grand scheme of things. The remediation is where you took your definitions and put them into a creative outlet. The remediation was the main project in my opinion. It is where we showed our perfect idea of our key terms. It was meant to show our interpretation. The editing project went back to our roots. I think it was meant to show us insight into our projects after we went through our interpretations. I think that the editing project was all about finding out what other people wrote and trying to apply real life practices.
The editing project was kind of fun. It was something I have really never done before, or at least to that extent. I realized quite a few things. For instance, it is probably best, to print out a physical hard copy of the work. Sometimes it is easy to overlook grammar errors, punctuation problems, or space issues on a computer or laptop. Everything seems to be in order and lined up, but once it is printed it may look differently. Also, if is important to have “fresh eyes” look over your work. I must say, I have been guilty of skipping this. Fresh eyes are eyes that have never seen the content or product before. Because they have NEVER seen the work, it is easier for them to go in and make edits and see what needs to be added or deleted. This step is probably the most overlooked but the most important, because our readers are “fresh eyes” so to speak. Our readers will be reading the content for the first time and it will destroy our credibility if we have run on sentences everywhere. When I edited the project I read over it first for obvious errors like spelling or punctuation. If I saw a sentence that needed further revising I would make a note to come back. After I have corrected the minute errors, I go through and read the content. I try to understand each point, based on the title that was provided by the author. For instance, if it said, “What is a Process”, I expected to get definitions, explanations, examples and applications of what a process is. If the main idea of an article was not clear, I tried to eliminate the words that made the article cloudy and added suggestions of other things to write. When I was editing my remediation project I think the editing processes used were quite similar. When I created my game, I wanted to be sure that there were no SPELLING errors. The wrong word could have thrown off the whole challenge of my game. Then I had to go through to be sure that everything matched and made sense to players. Like, were the directions clear enough to understand the goal of the game? Do the cards follow the direction the game is trying to go in? etc. THEN! I played with my boyfriend so FRESH EYES could see the game. After two rounds it was clear that he understood how the game work and the rules were clear. So I would say that although they were two different projects, the editing process used was the same. That is something this class keeps teaching me about myself! Everything always comes in full circle, even when I don’t mean for it to. As composers, we are learning to compose through different mediums, edit different mediums, but somehow it is based on a fundamental process that is the same. (that is cool to me, but then again who am I? )
ReplyDeleteEditing is definitely a special skill that one must practice to improve on. I have not had much practice with editing in my day besides peer editing in high school, and that was not considered formal editing by any means. This WEPO class has taught me many things about editing. The projects that have been assigned in this class have all been building blocks on top of one another. In order to edit, we must first understand how to compose. In order to remediate, we must first have some basis upon what will be changed. For the newsletter project, I felt that as a group, we collaborated and put in a lot of time and effort to perfect the project. But by learning about editing, I found that there is always something that can be fixed and polished in any piece of writing. Whether it is color scheme, audience change, mechanical errors, etc, there is always room for improvement. This is another thing that these projects have taught me: there is always room for improvement. Whether as a writer or editor, it takes years to perfect your skill and calling on assistance from others is never a bad thing. Feedback is essential in the English world. Overall, I enjoyed the editing projects, but I also realized how meticulous of a duty it really is. Originally, I thought editing was simply fixing the small grammatical errors and replacing a few words here and there. Now I realize that editing requires a lot more attention to detail. In order to be a good editor, you must step back and look at the whole picture. You must understand the content and the point that the author is trying to make. Sometimes, heavy-handed editing is essential in order to improve a writer’s work. In this case, being sensitive to their feelings and work as an author is crucial. You don’t want to tear someone’s work to shreds. Instead, you want to tell them what you think works in the piece, but you also want to give them specific feedback on how exactly to fix their work. Overall, I found the editing assignments to be very helpful and insightful, but I think I have also realized that I would rather pursue a career in writing rather than editing.
ReplyDeleteOver all of the projects we have done, I would have to say that the editing the newsletter project was by far the easiest. This could also be because of the newsletter I received to edit. It was absolutely amazing to read over. One thing that has been important with al of the projects we have done is focusing on the audience. This was an extremely crucial part in this project. For the first project, the newsletter, the audience was a younger crowd, the freshmen at Florida State University. Switching the audience to be more for everyone at Florida State was at first a struggle. The causal talk that is widely used on campus had to be ignored and put into more of a formal” I’m talking to my professor” kind of text so that the new audience could be reached. However with my newsletter, the word choice that was used was already professional so not much changing needed to be done to reach that goal. This project took way less invention time then the remediation project. We were not taking our own work and transforming it into a new medium, we simply were editing the work. It felt more like were waiting for someone else to do all the hard work and we just guided them through the finishing product. We did have to put about the same amount of thought into the appearance of the editing project just as we did for all of our other projects. Though the other group that worked on the project already picked the color scheme, some changes may have needed to happen to make sure the color scheme worked for the different audience. The hardest part of the whole editing project was remembering to use the symbols that we learned in class over the reading. Some symbols did not make sense when putting them in the text yet we had to use them because that’s what we were taught to do. Overall the editing process project was one of my favorite projects because the amount of stress was kept to a minimum.
ReplyDeleteThe editing project was one of my favorite assignments. I think this assignment helped me to think more deeply about editing and what it truly means to edit.
ReplyDeleteBefore this class whenever I "edited" someone's paper I focused more on looking for grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors. During the course of the
fourth week of class (Editing), I learned that editing is more than looking for technical errors like grammar. Throughout the projects I personally think
that the editing project was most influential to me regarding how my perspective of editing has changed during this project. The Newsletter and remediation
was more similar in the ways I edited compared to the editing project. I feel like it's harder to edit your own work sometimes because those are your thoughts
and you chose these particular set of words because you obviously thought it was most appropriate. On the other hand, the editing project was a completely
different dynamic of editing because it wasn't your work that you were editing. I feel like I'm more cautious and more aware of the edits I chose to make
with other people's work because in Yancey's reading she talks about how sometimes, editing doesn't always mean that your paper is going to be better. I think
I was more selective with the corrections I suggested for the editing project. For the newsletter project I thought that we had a different way of editing;
because we worked in groups with the newsletter it kind of made it easier because we could not only edit our own work but we could help the other members of our group.
Having fresh eyes to look over your work can be helpful especially when your group memeber have a mutual understanding of what the goal of the writing is. Because I chose a digital medium for my remediation project I think the conditions of editing was a little different because everything was digital. While editing my remediation project the only thing I could do was constantly replay the collage to check that the speed wasn't too fast or slow and that the images were in the correct order and while I was making minor adjustments I started playing with the tools on Vuvox and it helped me add more effects to my collage. I think that throughout editing I tried to keep focused on the ultimate goal of whatever project is and to make my edits effective not just technical. The editing project was most beneficial for me because it changed the way I think of editing and the processes I take during editing. The editing project called for more than just checking for grammar or punctutations errors but to read the compositiong and to think about what the writer is trying to convey and how to make the literature more effective depending on audience and genre.
With any piece of text I edit, I read through it to get an understanding for the content and style of the writer. The second time reading it, I go through and mark anything that is grammatically incorrect or unclear. The process I took for the editing project was no different. The audience change effected alterations I suggested to the writers but I still made sure the errors were corrected and the content was understandable to readers. Because of everything we have learned in the past weeks, going from writing and editing my own project to editing and revising a peers, was less challenging. When composing the brochure, we were still learning about the important concepts in writing and media. It proved to be somewhat challenging because we were still in the process of learning about our topics. As the class progressed, we were able to relate our key words to our discussions. With the remediation of the brochure, it called for thinking out-side-of-the-box. Making printed text into something completely different called for a large amount of creativity. After composing and remediating, the editing gave us a chance to apply what we had learned over the course of four weeks. Each process called for the use of how I, and an audience, views text. There was a different audience for the projects, which caused me to put myself in someone else’s shoes. Yet, at the same time, I stuck with what I knew about each subject area. In the brochure I included a segment on Taylor Swift, an artist I knew a lot about. With the remediation project I decided to paint a plate since painting is something I do routinely. As I mentioned before, the editing project had me apply everything we learned on the subject to alter a peer’s brochure. Creativity, patience, and effort went into each project to make it the best that it could be!
ReplyDeleteThe process for this past assignment was very different from previous assignments. As I have stated with a previous post the process for the newsletter was rather simple because I knew what I was writing about, whereas with the remediation I had to be more creative. With this editing assignment the process was a rather long compared to the other assignments I completed. With this assignment, since it was not work that I was involved in, my first step was to go through and read the newsletter to understand the concept and content. Then my next step was to go back and re-read to find mistakes and make suggestions and comments. And that step was the hardest, not to mention, most time consuming. Since the entire audience of the newsletter was changing it was hard trying to make suggestions without having to do the newsletter all over. And being that the newsletter that I was given to edit revolved around a Twitter theme it was quite the challenging. After finally doing my mark up and making my suggestions the next step that I decided to do was to go back through the newsletter and make note of the suggestions that I needed to mention in the letter. I thought it would be useful to only include important suggestions in the letter to the group. I felt that there was no need to mention every time there was a comma missing or when a new paragraph should of started. I only wanted to address things that I felt impacted the overall outcome of the newsletter. I think in the end my letter to the group turned out pretty good and got the point across. This project was a lot simpler for me because I was apart of the audience and apart of the student body that slightly older and to me that made a difference. It was rather easy to go through the newsletter and ask myself “What would I want to read?” and “ What would capture and hold my attention?” and provide suggestions and changes from that. Overall, I enjoyed doing this assignment
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the editing project a lot! I learned that it is a lot of hard work that goes into editing something. It is more then just symbols on a paper; there is actually an order to it. Beginning with the newsletter process, I think back to what our group went through to finish it. We worked extremely hard to do the best we could on that project, but we didn’t really edit ourselves very well. For the most part, we wrote what we had to, make sure it made sense and created our brochure. The remediation process was a little bit different. This time, we got the chance to change what we talked about in our newsletter to another medium. I chose to do a poster. This project wasn’t my best work. I felt like I could have done a better job, but mostly it wasn’t bad. I personally thought it was cool to see how the other people in my group interpreted our brochure. Then, the editing process began. It was actually helpful I thought, for us to edit another group’s newsletter. This gave me a taste of what the real world will be like. As I read through every page, I tried to have the mindset that this was a real article that I was editing. That helped me stay focused and do the best job I could do. I went through and made the editing marks on the paper, as well as took notes about major things that needed to be fixed on each page. Then came the difficult part. I have actually never written a formal letter before so this was a challenge. The notes I took helped me to keep an order to what I was saying needed to be fixed. I tried to do what we talked about in class by saying a complement, and then a critique. After I composed my letter, I made sure that I edited myself. If you are writing a letter to someone telling them they need to fix their writing, it is important to make sure your writing is up to par. When thinking about these three projects and how they tie together, I think about then as part of a process. First was our draft, which was the newsletter. Then came the remediation, which is sort of like the revision. And last was the editing before the final draft. If you think of it in this way, it is like one big project. I have now come to understand my own process by reflecting on it and learning what I have done, and can do to better my composing process.
ReplyDeleteMy process for the editing project was similar to how I approach any project. I look over the task I have been assigned, jot down ideas to look back on and keep me focused on my ideal end product, and then get to work. With this project, it was almost too easy to compare this other group’s newsletter to my own. That bias in favor of our own work was a hindrance on getting through the edit at first, but as I read through and understood their key words I was able to appreciate the newsletter for what it was. With the proofreading marks open on the computer screen in front of me, I first went through the newsletter with red pen and edited spelling, grammar, and diction. During this first read through I was sure to take notes on the positive and negative aspects of the newsletter to look back on while writing my editor’s note. On my second read through I considered the white space and placement of pictures and text, and how they were aesthetically pleasing. On my third read through I paid special attention to the audience they were aiming to attract and help. Not until that morning when I was checking my email before class did I see the reminder email you sent about changing the audience, so that is my mistake. This process differs from my remediation project because that was solely online. My prezi project did follow a change in the audience however. The process for that one also started with an overview of what I was given, which was our newsletter, and taking those main points and converting them into this new media, rather than revising them. For both projects I took our past readings into consideration, and let the magic of rhetoric guide me through the project until its completion. The final step, in all of my assignments, was a final look over and clicking the save icon for the one-thousandth time. Reflecting on these projects, I really do procrastinate more than I should.
ReplyDeleteThe process for the editing project was one that varied from past editing experiences. I say this because it was unorthodox (in a good way) in multiple aspects. In grade school, I was taught the proper editing marks and practiced them in workbooks and class sessions. In college composition courses, I’ve been taught to line edit and give meaningful suggestions and new ideas to the author. With the past editing project, these two teachings came together in practice. The process was to edit using the specific symbols I hadn’t seen since grade school and write a professional letter providing useful feedback. The process was time-consuming because the line editing needed to be detailed and specific, requiring my full attention. The letter needed to offer the author suggestions for her newsletter with referring to examples in her work. Mastering the art of kindly editing was a major lesson learned in this project.
ReplyDeleteThe process for the newsletter included the group members bouncing multiple ideas off of one another and working together to organize what needed to be done and who would complete each task. We worked with both individual and group deadlines to complete graphics, image placement, articles, article placement, and complete lay out. The remediation process was, to say the least, a creative one. I had to work through many trial-and-error cases and make sure my project wasn’t too abstract and disconnected from the newsletter. The editing process involved completely changing the audience from freshmen to university students. With this major change, the newsletter needed heavy editing.
Each project involved switching audience. Because keeping the audience in mind during each process was such an enormous factor, the projects are proven to have overlapped in more ways than just dates given to complete them. Each process involved thinking creatively and striving for uniqueness and perfection. For the newsletter, we wanted to have a creative, eye-catching cover, unique graphics, and perfect layout. For remediation, I wanted to create something no other student had ever done, present a unique project resulting from obvious time and effort, and represent my vision for the project flawlessly. For the editing project, I had to be creative in finding ways to gear the authors’ words towards university students, present unique critiques in a helpful light, and strive to reach perfect grammar, syntax, and diction. If there were no specified audiences for each project, none of these goals would have been reached or, let alone, identified. In my experience, the editing project was the one in which the audience held most importance. In the newsletter and remediation projects, the creation held the heaviest weight in the process. The editing project held the shift in audience as the most important focus.
The process of the editing project was a combination of knowledge and terms from the previous projects. I read the newsletter, re-read it, made my judgments and took everything into consideration that I felt needed to be addressed. Everything we’ve explored up to this point applied to editing. The knowledge of rhetoric, audience and editing symbols were pieces to the puzzle that enabled me to edit. I felt that I was just taking everything I had previously learned and applied it to the newsletter. Each process for the different projects were very similar for me. I had to think heavily of what I was actually doing before I attempted to do it. That’s surface level; for instance, I felt that for each project the process required a heavy amount of preparation and revision. The newsletter in particular called for specific attention to detail and much careful revision and editing. Although at the beginning of the class we weren’t exactly fine-tuned editors like we are now, there was still the aspect of perfecting our work. Over the course of the mini projects and the remediation projects, the heavy revision was necessary as well. I felt that by the time it was the editing projects turn, we were equipped with abilities and experience to thoroughly edit. The connection I made between each project was this – no work will ever come easy but with that being said, a good work is one that requires many parts to make a whole. Each aspect of composing meshes into a net that is the final work. No matter what it is we may be working on, the processes coexist – creating the newsletter, creating a remediation of the newsletter, and editing the newsletter. Editing required the most attention because it was my own credibility on the line. If I ‘corrected’ a phrase or piece of the newsletter that didn’t make sense or was essentially wrong, I would appear to be ignorant. This may be a narcissistic way to look at the task but I feel as though the same can be said for all work, as a composer or editor.
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