I had not heard of AP style until I was 18 years old. My high school had cut its newspaper one year before I could join, and my weekly hometown paper still refers to the football team as “leatherheads.” But my grandma, a former English teacher, made me diagram sentences or play Scrabble when I was bored, and grammar was my strong suit as I grew up. Through college, my skills that would benefit a news organization have diversified. I copy edit and report for the university paper, participate in leadership activities in class and on campus and gain cultural experiences from traveling.
Initially, I joined the campus paper solely to write. Copy editing was a foreign concept, but I decided to join on a whim. I learned to use Adobe InCopy and InDesign and quickly figured out the basics of AP style. I picked up on the minutiae of designing a paper and began to revel in each factual error or comma splice I picked out. Each headline that made it past the copy chief was a victory. I began slotting pages the second semester of my freshman year, and by sophomore year, I was assistant copy chief. As a reporter for the life and culture section, my copy editing skills improved my …show more content…
While my news editing class required extensive knowledge of AP style and taught important editing practices, my newsroom leadership course was equally beneficial. Here, I worked with the editor-in-chief, managing editors and editors from different sections to discuss newsroom improvements. As a young editor, it helped me be comfortable collaborating and taking criticism from older, more skilled employees. Learning to foster these relationships helped me be comfortable correcting their errors within stories or asking for help if I was unsure about anything. I also became a better leader for the other copy editors, adopting a stricter attitude when directing workflow and encouraging them to ask