IDEAS

• OPEN MEETING-- all ideas no matter how silly or seemingly trivial--can be presented

• IDEAS SHOULD RESPOND TO– THE PUBLICATION’S PURPOSES– THE AUDIENCE’S NEEDS– EDITORIAL CALENDAR– SEASONAL CALENDAR

IDEAS & PUSHBACK

• STAFF PARTICIPATION– ASK FOR MORE– ASK FOR SUBJECT ACCESS– OFFER CONTACTS– EXPRESS DOUBTS

• MASAAGE AN IDEA TO IMPROVE IT: NOT TO SHOOT IT DOWN

ASSIGN

• ASSIGNMENTS ARE MADE BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF– MIX– DEPTH

• GRAPHICS & TEXT

– LENGTH• ASSIGNMENTS ARE TRACKED BY A MANAGING EDITOR

– EDITOR & WRITER(S)

• NOTIFY ASSOCIATED FUNCTIONS– GRAPHICS– LAYOUT– BUSINESS

COMPOSE

• FIRST PERSON COVERAGE IS RARE• MULTISOURCE• SINGLE SOURCE• COLLABORATE WITH ART• WRITER HANDS-OFF TO EDITOR

EDITING

• EDIT FOR– CORRECTNESS– BREVITY– FELICITY OF PHRASE– READER ENGAGEMENT– PUBLICATION VOICE– ASSIGNMENT FULFILLMENT

EDITING & COLLABORATION

• Collaboration is a social skill that can be taught and learned. Self-advocacy, leadership, mutual trust, meeting deadlines, time management, consideration for others’ time management, and willingness to compromise allows all parties to feel a win-win. These are the hallmarks of the professional.

• No one wants to work with a micro-managing control freak; no one can work with a sullen hermit.

PATTERNS OF EFFORT

• Ordinary human effort, like many things, seems to follow an 80-20 pattern of efficiency. That is to say, 80 percent of an accomplishment seems to happen with the first 20 percent of total effort.

• Creativity initially is rapid. One cannot type quickly enough. One quits, exhausted, retires for the night, and awakens at 3:00 am with fresh ideas.

ORDINARY EFFORT

The reasons for this pattern are obvious—the mind delights in novelty, but we are all prone to physical as well as spiritual exhaustion. In the final hours of a project, we often feel we are mired in trivia—in search of semi-colons and hyphens, when the big, exciting ideas

are in the past. Against deadlines, some of us learn to procrastinate completion, having become addicted to the adrenaline rush that comes with desperation at the midnight hour,

the only way we can bring ourselves to finish. In fact, that adrenaline rush enjoyed by the so-called “deadline writer” is self-deceiving,

a biological drug that distorts reality. That pattern will not do—not for a professional in a collaborative environment.

ITERATIVE EFFORT

Consider the pattern of a writer and teacher who asks for a rewrite. Both the writer and teacher engage each new task with enthusiasm, but soon are mired in the minutiae of revisions. Each iteration brings the writer (or teacher) through the complete cycle of ordinary effort. The result is despair. Nothing ever seems good enough

TOUCH ONCE AND PASS• Professionals engage a “touch-once-and-

pass” process. That process acknowledges that written product is the property of an organization.

• In exchange for the writer’s ego-investment in work, the organization offers speed and quality. Professional collaborative processes are more efficient, faster, and lead to a superior editorial product because at each pass a member of the editorial group “starts fresh.”

• Touch-once-and-pass differs from student experience in any other kind of writing class. It feels like “cheating.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

POSSIBLE EDITORIAL ROLES

WHERE MIGHT YOU FIT IN?