Editing, Leadership & Team Building
There is a difference between being in a leadership role and being good in a leadership role. As an editor of two different publications, I have not only learned how to correct mistakes and use proper format, but to explain my edits to staff members and make sure they feel comfortable with what I have changed. By talking with them about the edits I made and why I made them, they get to learn new techniques while also getting the opportunity to voice opinions and ask questions. This leaves little room for them to be confused or possibly hurt by how the story ended up, two feelings that I was not unfamiliar with when I was in their role.
Yearbook Spread Planning Document
When I first joined the Shorelines Yearbook staff my junior year, I was initially overwhelmed with how much there was to do in such a short amount of time. It was very hard for me and my group mates to keep track of who had interviewed who and whether or not they had typed out the caption. After my first spread, I started creating planning documents that I would share with my group members. The documents would have all the questions we were asking people, plus the names of the students and what grade they were in. When someone got an interview, they would export the transcript to the document and we would edit the quotes there, resulting in a caption that we could just copy and paste onto the spread. The document here is the one I used for the fall play spread this year.
EIC Responsibilities Document
I made this document at the start of this year to help me and my fellow Editor-in-Chiefs for Nighthawk News Magazine figure out where to start. Since there are four of us, we have tried to divvy up the jobs for each cycle as evenly as possible to ensure that no one gets burnt out in the middle of a publication cycle. This has helped us stay on top of everything and prioritize our publication and staff by making sure no person or page falls through the cracks.
Spring/Senior Edition Calendar
Towards the end of our second publication cycle, I sat down with the other Editors-in-Chief to discuss what the next two editions would look like. We knew that we would have to have our Senior Edition (the final paper in our cycle) out before our graduation in June. Going off of that, we discussed when we would design and write and brainstorm ideas, then turned it into a calendar. I color coded and arranged the calendar and ran the dates by our advisor, Steve Hanf. He said it looked great and that we could proceed with the next two papers.
