Page 94 - Student: dazed And Confused

Editor's report

ed-it 1 Q Pronunciation Key (ed h )
tr.v. ed-it-ed, ed-it-ing, ed-its

1.
a. To prepare (written m aterial) for publication or presentation, as by
correcting, revising, or adapting.
b. To prepare an edition of for publication: edit a collection of short stories.
c. To m odify or adapt so as to make suitable or acceptable: edited her remarks
for presentation to a younger audience.

2. To supervise the publication of (a new spaper or m agazine, for exam ple).
3. To assem ble the com ponents of (a film or soundtrack, for exam ple), as by cutting
and splicing.
4. To elim inate; delete: edited the best scene out.

O ur task for this module was to produce an anthology of poetry and prose sent in by
students on the course. It got off to quite a rocky start and I do not believe it has been well
organised as there has been much confusion on all fronts since beginning.
W e were all sent a batch of poetry written by the other group and either those of
the year above or below us. W e had to shortlist our favourite ten from the bunch. I found
this quite difficult as none of them really struck me as being better than the rest (a num ber
struck me as worse) or as having more m erit than the others. Som e of us had agreed that
we would try to grade them on how technically accurate they were. This has been said to

be a good short-listing technique but I thought it was a bit stupid som etim es. We all had
our own ideas about the criteria pieces had to meet to be in selection but I didn't think any
of them met every single one. Everyone else seem ed to have found som e though, and I
guess m ajority rules. Then, when each small selection group had decided their list, the
w hole cohort re-gathered to decide on a joint selection. The whole process was much
lengthier and drawn out than it should have been and I still have no idea why it had to be so
com plicated. If this is what professional editors and adjudicators have to go through to get
their wage slip then I feel terribly sorry for them . It can't be a pleasant job.

One or two of the pieces I liked made it onto the first selection list, but I was finding
it necessary to fall back on personal preference where people seem ed to have found
som ething of note, but one or two eventually made it onto the final list. Choosing the
included pieces was not easy but it was a drop in the ocean com pared to the editing. Even
when we finalised the list, it was not definite as we kept changing our m inds about which