Editing

Organizing the editing process

I spearheaded the creation of the Eastside Master Spreadsheet to create a centralized location for all stories to receive edits from. Each story receives edits and “sign offs” from the respective section editor and section EIC for that issue. I also work on editing the angle to help guide editors to pitching the best story possible as well. Because editors have the link to the story on the spreadsheet while they are working on it, sometimes I help edit drafts to speed up the process.

The spreadsheet is organized so that I can quickly see when editors have signed off and editors can see the status on the EIC sign off with different options being etc.

Last spring, I reached out to past JoY winner Anushka De for advice on how to best organize our editing process and she told me about the El Estoque Pitches & Edits spreadsheet. Because I knew implementing it would be a big transition for my Editorial Board, I filmed the Screencastify to the right explaining it in detail to help the process in implementing it more seamless.

Click above to watch the Screencastify!

Editing examples

When I am editing stories, I go through multiple levels of edits. The first level is to address structural and bigger picture edits about the content as whole. Then, I check for accuracy on the claims. Finally, I complete AP style, grammatical edits, and smaller sentence level edits. Below are examples of edits I have left on stories.

Communication

I maintain continuous communication with individual sections, the whole Editorial Board, and respond to individual concerns. I created a schedule with deadlines and send reminders in our What’s App as well. Through consistent and reliable communication, not only are editors more motivated to work on stories earlier, but it demonstrates clear expectations for deadlines.

This is an example of a full schedule message that we send prior to the cycle.

This was a reminder text that I sent editors for an upcoming edit deadline.

The blue text on our master schedule shows deadlines for editors on when stories / edits are due.