Copy editors aren’t just proofers
In a recent blog post, I mentioned that students in one of my editing classes are producing a new community newspaper, The Stand. They are collaborating with reporters in another class to conceptualize and create the content, and they are responsible for the layout.
Students in one of my other classes are proofing the pages.
Proofing the pages.
The phrase seems so simple. It usually means: Look for any glaring errors, such as typos and misspellings. The role of a proofreader is important, agreed.
But what is interesting to me is how these “proofers” found so much more than glaring errors. Actually, what was not glaring is telling.
They questioned inconsistencies in name references and in byline style. They pointed out letters that cut off at the bottoms of pages and different type sizes in a list of elements that should have been the same. They suggested places to rephrase content for clarity, and they marked places to delete because of repetition.
These students took their roles seriously, and they went beyond the directives given to them.
Their contribution is what we have come to expect in a fast-paced, 24-hour news cycle that never ends. Editors are trained to “see” things, especially under pressure, and editors have become the multijob journalists that newsrooms need at every step.
And, one editor did find a glaring error: A missing letter at the end of a reporter’s last name in the byline. Easy to miss for anyone not trained to look at every letter in a word.
Emilie Davis
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