[Edprof] Teach copy-editing marks?

[Frank Thayer]

Hello, Jeff,

Indeed I teach copyediting symbols in beginning classes because even 
though students submit stories electronically and edit stories on 
screen, their graded stories and critiques are returned in hard copy. 
How better to show the preference of "Smith said," to "said Smith," 
than to do pencil editing. Yes, the Dow-Jones editing test requires 
familiarity with traditional editing symbols. We're going to need 
these marks well into the future. Why else does the Associated Press 
Stylebook still have these symbols at the back of the book? These 
symbols are still very much part of the journalistic lexicon just as 
10-codes are still used by the police.

Frank Thayer
New Mexico State University

At 9:34 PM -0400 4/21/09, Jeffrey C South/AC/VCU wrote:
>Do other j-schools teach students to use copy-editing marks? These 
>are the notations one would use if editing a printout -- to indicate 
>that words should be deleted, inserted or abbreviated or that an 
>abbreviation or a numeral should be spelled out.
>
>I had been covering the copy-editing marks in my introductory 
>newswriting class. I oversee all of our sections of that course. An 
>adjunct teaching one section said the marks are passe -- that nobody 
>uses them anymore.
>
>What do other programs do? (Don't students need to know the 
>copy-editing marks to take the Dow Jones test?)
>
>-- Jeff South
>
>Jeff South, Associate Professor
>School of Mass Communications, Virginia Commonwealth University
>(804) 827-0253; Temple 1149-B
>
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