Copyediting

This week in Greyrock, we learned about copyediting, which is editing for grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage, etc., but not for content. I’m quite familiar with copyediting for AP Style, but in literary magazines, we use the Chicago Manual of Style, which is virtually foreign to me. Thankfully, we have access to the online Chicago Manual through the CSU library, so our task this week is to learn about the intricacies of the manual/style and try out copyediting.

Copyediting is not only checking the grammar in a piece of writing, but it’s also about fact-checking. When we copyedit one of our submissions, we will need to check that the author’s claims about proper noun spellings, movie names, historical dates, the names of certain actors, and more. We’re not looking to change anything and we will only make changes when they are absolutely necessary for accuracy and proper usage. Our graduate adviser, Kristin, told us that “we’re not on our high horse” and we need to respect the creative decisions of authors as often as we can (poets have a little more leeway with their creative language because their rhetorical rules are not quite as rigid as in prose).

We received a pamphlet today (pictured above) with all of the potential mistakes that we might come across and the proper way to mark them on the physical manuscripts. Our graduate adviser mentioned that the mark-ups will be tedious and sometimes annoying to do, but it’s the system that’s been used forever and we need to keep our system uniform.

Here are the things I’ll need for my copyediting exercise this week:

• The Chicago Manual of Style (online)
• A dictionary for spelling
• An erasable colored pencil
• My mark-up sheet
• Sticky notes for author queries

Although in the past few weeks, I have been noticing the impetus for change, new technologies, new methods, and fresh ideas at the Greyrock Review internship, this week I observed resistance to all these things, especially from my graduate adviser. This week, during our team meeting, I asked if there was any way we could switch to a digital method of keeping track of copyediting changes, errors, mistakes, and queries. I thought that this would be better for our environmental impact, would make the sharing process more efficient, and would save tons of time (because we wouldn’t have to transfer our markups from paper to the proof — we could just copy and paste). And I’ve noticed many new technologies for digital copyediting in the world of my own freelance editing business, such as the “Track Changes” feature on Microsoft Word.

However, when I asked if we could use a more modern technique like Track Changes during our meeting, I was told by Kristin that we cannot. She said that it has to be on physical paper (a “hard copy”) because “that’s the way it is in the copyediting world.” She mentioned that Track Changes hasn’t really made an appearance in the publishing industry and that we will be using the methods of most copyeditors in this business.

I understand that this is an important skill if we want to make it in the publishing industry someday, but this was a surprising revelation for me because of the air of change and fresh eyes that I’ve observed at Greyrock recently.

The Aesthetics of Our Literary Journal

Yesterday, we continued our discussion from last week on the layout of literary journals. This week, our meeting moved from general learning about jargon and the necessary aspects of layout to the discussion of how we would like our own literary magazine to look this year. Each person brought a literary journal in to use as an example and we discussed certain things that we liked and disliked about each journal.

The journal I brought was called Alaska Quarterly Review, which I found in the Colorado State English Department (see the photo above). I brought this specific journal because I liked the shape, which was about the size of a paperback novel, and the table of contents, which was organized by genre and had a very simplistic font.

The most important and primary issue we needed to resolve was the size and shape of journal that we wanted. Last year’s Greyrock was a medium-sized, square book, which I liked for its uniqueness but disliked because of the way it fit on my bookshelf. I suggested that we keep Greyrock simple by making it a thin volume that looks like a paperback book, which would fit well on shelves and blend in with most journals and other books. However, most of the other interns seemed interested in either the same shape as last year’s version or a slightly taller shape — a wide rectangle. We took a vote, and the majority of the group chose the wide rectangle shape, which will be quite large for a book, but one intern made the argument that it will look great on coffee tables, which I agree with.

After the long process of voting on the size and shape of the journal, we spent some time discussing the front matter we want. We will obviously be including the masthead (which describes the role of each intern at Greyrock), a table of contents, a title page, and the copyright information within the front matter. One intern suggested including some art within the front matter, which sounded interesting and was well-received within the group. The table of contents is another important aspect of our layout, which we finally decided would be organized by genre — although the journal itself will not be — without any antiquated dots running from the title to the page number.

One thing that we also had to discuss after deciding on the shape of the journal was whether we want the proof (the author’s work) within the journal to have columns. Several interns mentioned that columns make pages look too choppy and sometimes even confusing. However, we eventually agreed that — with such a large page size — columns would be necessary because huge blocks of text typically appear overwhelming to readers.

Finally, we spent some time discussing where we want our page numbers and whether we want to include running head or feet. We decided very quickly that we would have page numbers at the bottom and outside of each page, and I suggested that we maintain a running foot next to the page numbers. The interns voted to keep this idea, and we will be including the name of the Greyrock Review and the genre of the proof in the foot, which I think will look simple and professional.

There was a lot of friendly disagreement during our meeting, which was productive and added quite an interesting new dynamic to our group. I loved listening to each intern’s unique vision for our magazine. When I received last year’s version of Greyrock, I didn’t consider how much work went into just deciding on how the magazine would look. It became clear to me yesterday that every intern at Greyrock cares about this magazine and how the layout will look. I don’t think anyone chose not to participate in our conversation, and each team member had something to contribute. Even in the disagreements, it was clear that everyone was passionate about creating our journal, and everyone was willing to compromise for the good of the group in the end. I think that this is a caring and engaged group of people who really want to make something unique and important in order to have something special to put their names to when they graduate from CSU.

This week was the most fun one so far, because our team got the chance to sit in a circle and decide exactly how the Greyrock Review is going to look this year. It’s exciting for everyone that we’re starting completely from scratch and we get total creative license over the aesthetic of our magazine. Our task for next week is to come up with two words for the aesthetic that we want to use when creating all the small details of layout next semester, which we will condense at our next meeting in order to get a consensus before we start working on the layout, and my two words are minimalism and color.

Double-Entry Notes

This week, we talked about fundraising at the Greyrock Review. Instead of recording my observations after the internship was over, I decided to try an ethnographic research technique known as double-entry field notes. According to FieldWorking, “double-entry notes are designed to make your mind spy on itself and generate further thinking and text” by forcing you to observe both your surroundings and your reactions as they appear before you (90). As you can see in the photo above, double-entry notes divide a page in half vertically: the left side is for direct observations and the right side is for recording personal reactions to observations.

This research exercise was eye-opening and made me consider my own biases at this internship and the way I impact the culture of the Greyrock Review. At first, I began recording the way the discussion was going and who brought up which topics, and my reactions were mostly based on my thoughts about the individuals who made specific comments. However, as the night went on, I began to get into the groove of writing down my observations and I started noticing more about my environment and less about the people in the room.

Overall, my most striking observations came from the table at which we sat together. I noticed that many group members were on their phones during quite a bit of our meeting. My immediate reaction to this was that they must all be distracted by their phones (texting, using social media, playing phone games, etc.), which I realize now is a personal bias that I hold against many people in my own generation. However, I soon came to the realization that most of the people on their phones were looking up different aspects of fundraising, and the qualifications for fundraising a CSU club, with their phones and sharing their findings with the whole team. We have quite a limited amount of time as a group each week, so the wide use of personal devices to make quick clarifications shows me that my fellow interns truly want to get things finished as efficiently as possible.

Throughout the night, I made some other small observations about the number of daily planners on the table in the meeting room (seven of ten interns had their planners out), the amount of times people volunteered to do extra work outside of class, and the number of questions that were asked for the sake of the whole group. My reaction to these observations tells me that I am among individuals who are excited to create this literary journal, want to create a legacy at CSU, and hope to use this internship as a stepping stone toward a career in the publishing industry. I’m learning more about the culture of this litmag every week, and I’m starting to notice several trends in our meetings that I think speak to the way Greyrock operates throughout the year.

Throughout the night, I also observed that when an intern asked Kristin, our graduate adviser, any questions, she turned to me instead of immediately answering them. This was quite nerve-racking for me, but my immediate reaction was surprise (and feeling honored) at how much she trusted me — enough to let me handle student questions. Over time, I noticed that many interns began to ask me questions directly instead of asking Kristin by the end of the night, which made me feel that they are starting to see me as a true Managing Editor this week. It’s becoming more clear to me just how much of an impact my presence makes on the culture of Greyrock. I’m interested to see how this new dynamic continues to develop next week as well.

My duties before our next meeting include reminding everyone to sign up for three classroom visits in which we speak to classes about getting Greyrock submissions; making sure that our promotional flyers are made, printed, and distributed throughout campus, announcing that we have a public meeting for our club next week about the submission process; recruiting extra RamRide volunteers for our fundraising efforts (we get $1,000 if we have 30 volunteers at RamRide, but we only have 10 interns); and contacting the SLiCE office to learn about our current finances and our account information for RamRide registration. I’m absolutely loving all my new responsibilities at this internship!

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Sources:

Chiseri-Strater, Elizabeth, and Bonnie S. Sunstein. FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997. Print.