Contemporary Editing

Book excerpt: Contemporary Editing offers journalism students a forward-looking introduction to news editing, providing instruction on traditional newsroom conventions along with a focus on emerging news platforms. This comprehensive text provides students with a strong understanding of everything an editor does, addressing essential copy editing fundamentals such as grammar and style; editorial decision making; photo editing, information graphics, and page design; and new media approaches to storytelling. Throughout, the book focuses on how "the editor’s attitude"—a keen awareness of news values, ethics, and audience—comes into play in all facets of news editing. This new edition offers expanded coverage of web publishing and mobile media, giving students solid editing skills for today’s evolving media and news forums. Features of the Third Edition: -Editing 2.0 boxes discuss the impact of digital technology and social media on editing. -Coverage of grammar problems and a new chapter on working with numbers provide students with a strong grasp of math and grammar, which are the underpinnings for all writing and editing. -An emphasis on editing for brevity prepares students to write and edit clearly and briefly, for print and for the web. -A chapter on the art of headline writing guides students through one of the editor’s most important tasks, and introduces the task of search engine optimization. -Examples of ethics and legal situations show students how issues arise in even the most basic stories, and how to address them. -Online exercises present additional practice for students, without needing to purchase a workbook.