For
this assignment my husband had me edit a paper he wrote for one of his
classes. The paper was a case study
analyzing his strengths and weaknesses as a video game developer (he's working on his Master's Degree in Video Game production at the U). I have spent a good deal of the last 4 years
editing his papers, so I feel like I know what questions to ask, and what
changes to anticipate.
Some
of the things that I do when I edit is to focus on grammar and punctuation, and
note any glaring problems that I notice on my first read. I realize that this is very backwards from
the way most people edit, but it allows me to get the easy things out of the
way, then I can go back and really get into the meat of the text and focus on consistency
and clarity.
One
suggestion from the reading that I did try and focus on this time was asking
questions rather than making statements.
Usually I will comment with, “this doesn’t make sense.” This time I made a point of asking things
like, “are these jargon words going to be clear to your reader?” My husband tends to use a lot of industry
jargon like “white box” and “kits” in reference to a prototype and art packages
respectively. I wasn’t sure if his
professor would know what he meant, since the course isn’t exactly a game
development course. Turns out, the
professor has worked in the video game industry and knows all the “code,”
so-to-speak, so he clarified that with me and we moved on with the paper. It helped that he was on the other side of
the room rather than states away, though.
I
like to draw on my past experiences as an editor as I move forward editing,
too. I used to work with the Air
National Guard as a journalist, and was told on a number of occasions that I
was one of the best editors in the office.
I’m not sure why that was the case, I stuck to what I knew and
understood, but I also tried to work with my colleagues to find a better
solution when I came across a sentence or paragraph that I wasn’t particularly
fond of, which happened more often than not.
I
don’t feel that I have a lot of diverse editing experience, which I hope to
eventually get in the future. My
experience is limited to academic and journalistic writing, and I hope that on
day I will be able to broaden that experience into fiction because it seems
like more of a challenge that I am ready to explore.
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