Most of the people who pick up a copy of The Lamron every Thursday probably don’t know much about how thoroughly each article that goes to print is scrutinized during our copy editing process.
Why is each and every article subjected to this extremely rigorous process each and every week? Why does The Lamron staff spend so much time editing upwards of 30 - 40 articles weekly when it really doesn’t matter? Geneseo students are smart, everyone here can write; why waste all that time revising articles?
Well, to put it lightly, it does matter. We edit so meticulously to make The Lamron the quality college publication that it is. As exhaustive as the process may seem to outsiders, we pride ourselves on creating and maintaining a succinct, cohesive style that permeates all sections of the paper.
Within the copy editing hierarchy of The Lamron, there are six pairs of eyes that revise, stylize and fact check every single article that goes to print each week: the writer, the section editor, the section copy assistant, the copy editor, the managing editor and finally the editor-in-chief. After that, any number of people typo read an article after it’s constructed in Adobe InDesign.
In each step of the copy editing process, editors will catch any number of errors; spelling, grammar, incorrect facts and stylistic mistakes are all corrected. Though The Lamron’s copy editing staff certainly spends a great deal of their time stalking Facebook and calling the Registrar’s office to check student names and class years, this is definitely not our principle duty. To guide us in our stylistic endeavors we refer to the copy editor’s bible, more commonly known as the Associated Press Stylebook.
Like many of the departments here at Geneseo that require students to write papers according to MLA or Turabian style, The Lamron follows a specific style: AP Style. Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer spoke on campus? Or did former governor Spitzer speak on-campus? What day was the event in March 2008? Mar. 6? 3/6? March sixth? Welcome to the wonderful world of AP Style.
Outside of creating a cohesive Lamron style, copy editors are responsible for making articles clear and concise. Many articles that arrive in our inbox are redundant or contain vague or distracting information that needs to be removed prior to publication.
Copy editors also clarify and specify the masses of text that enter The Lamron catalog each week. For example, someone picking up The Lamron who knows absolutely nothing about hockey – a rarity here at Geneseo – might have a hard time understanding the difference between a hat trick and a power play. It’s the copy editor’s job to make this distinction and clarify jargon for our readers.
The Lamron copy editors are here to edit, not rewrite. We strive to maintain the writer’s voice while crafting a clear, cohesive journalistic style.
And, just in case you were wondering, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer spoke on campus on March 6, 2008. If you have any other questions about our copy process, feel free to e-mail us or visit our website … or is it Web site?