[Process Post 5] An Editor*

As an editor*, there are many levels and facets to consider. As I have learned more about publishing houses and the levels of editing in class, they are all very important. These levels are acquisition of editing, structural or substantive, stylistic, copyediting, marking or coding, and lastly, proofread editing according to Professor Suzanne Norman.

I conduct editing practices all the time. Commonly, it is backspacing my wrong keystrokes of words (such as typing this sentence), texting my friends with corrections* and the asterisk of the right spelling of the word are all examples of editing I do throughout my daily life.

For my site, I reflect upon my role as I try to cultivate what Tanya Basu calls the digital gardens on the internet, the type of site I am cultivating is speaking towards a larger audience. Tanya further discusses how digital gardens simply have no (or less) rules to follow and “can be edited at anytime to reflect evolution and change.”

* Asterisks for corrections seen during texting.

Hats

As the author writing on this site, I must play multiple roles and wear different hats. Some of these hats are:

• Designer (visual, website etc. design)
• Writer (blog writing)
• Editor (as a I proofread, editing, make updates and changes to my writing)
• Creator (creating media where needed)
• Photography (taking photos)
• Researcher (verifying, sourcing information, finding information etc. for my writing)
• Publisher (publishing the self)

As I can see, my roles include important tasks in order to create these posts – even if it is a simple process post like this one. I may have to wear some of these hats to make it happen.

Shift of Understanding

With my direction and vision for my site as a blogger, I can publish anything that interests me the most and readers can choose at their leisure of what they would like to read. Of course, considering what my readers would like to read is essential as well. As Corey Doctorow discusses in their article, this is correct. The key is to also produce to attract.

… but producing to attract, rather than serve, an audience.

Corey Doctorow, 2021

I think this is an important point as an editor and writer. Being able to write what I am interested, keeping the freedom of what to write about, while also having the audience in mind is essential. I think this is a great balance and objective to achieve.

Being the Editor

When I put on my editor hat, I must go through some of the levels of editing. Proofreading simple grammar, making sure my language is simple (and not too complex), spelling and so forth is important.

Other deeper editing that needs to be done is keeping up with my stylistic choices, format, wording, and so forth. If I plan to make changes, I have to be intentional and making sure I am consistent with those changes and they are not different throughout all the posts. Checking my sources and not having broken links are steps to take as well.

In terms of Accessibility, making sure that my photos that I have added have alt texts to concisely describing the images. Additional considerations such as logic, flow of the writing and overall blog posts themselves are components for me to consider as an editor.

References

• Basu, Tanya. September 5, 2020. “Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet” MIT Technology Review.
• Doctorow, Corey. May 9, 2021. “The Memex Method: When your commonplace book is a public database“