Th Office, The Stockroom, The Hallway

My job at the WVU Press so far consists of running between the main office and the stockroom via a very smelly hallway that holds the oder of an old locker room and about 40 years of dust. I started by building a site map of the Press' website, just to get a feeling of what content I have to work with. I then started to copyedit some of the entries that were up that described the plot of the books the Press publishes. Most of them were alright in terms of the description, there were just some errors in the use of Chicago style and spelling on a few. I say that I spend a lot of time between the stockroom and the office because I have to go back into the stockrooms and find the hard copy of the book for which an entry is made and make sure the price, ISBN, spelling of the author's name, among other things are all correct. I'm vaguly sure I look like a mad woman running back and forth between rooms so much, but I'm learning quite a bit about what it means to get used to a new workplace, especially since I'll probably be working somewhere similar in the future.

I've also managed to quickly punch out my Internship Contract for this capstone and got some very interesting answers from my publishing-supervisor-guy, Than. For example, when I asked him to tell me what learning goals he has set for me during this internship he said simply, "Synthetic Thinking." This means that when I don't know what I'm doing I should try to accomplish the task by taking what I know from previous patterns and experiences to figure out what I need to do. He also said I would obviously be learning basic editorial skills, but synthetic thinking was the first thing he mentioned. I've heard many people say that asking questions is always the best way to figure out something when you don't know the answer. I think this is true, but I also think that it is important to learn how to improvise sometimes and come up with creative solutions, especially in writing and editing. This can not only help with the writing aspect of copy editing, but can also help the editor-writer relationship. I feel this way because the more creative you can be with coming up with solutions to a problem, even if it's something you're not sure about, can be helpful in gaining feedback to figure out a solution that pleases the writer and editor.

Post One-Introduction to the WVU Press

On Friday I went to my first day at my internship with the West Virginia University Press. This is a new path for me in regards to what I'm used to writing and working on. At the Press I'll be working primarily on their website, or reworking it, I should say. The site currently severely lacks flow and is has a very plain, unappealing design. It's very uninteresting and doesn't really draw the user in to further explore the page, much less accomplish the task of leading the user around the site. My job at the Press will be to enhance the usability, among other tasks I'm sure, but this is the main thing I'm going to be focusing on throughout the semester. As I said, this is a very new avenue for me. I've critiqued websites before in my comprehensive editing class and I've worked on websites in my technical writing class, so at least I've got a bit of experience I can apply to this new internship.

When I think about all of the classes I've had during my time as a Professional Writing and Editing minor one word comes to mind: Work. All of the classes I've taken have been challenging in their own way and have required me to do tons of work that at the time I found to be tedious. I also have to say I was a little peeved when I found out I had a capstone for this minor when many of my other friends' minors do not require any sort of final coursework. However, I am grateful for the time and effort I've had to put into this minor. This I feel has prepared me for the next level of my life, which is the stuff that happens after I graduate in May, I suppose. Either way, I'm looking forward to learning more about this field. I think that my previous classes have prepared me to do well on most of the assignments in this capstone, especially the writing assignments and this blog. I've got plenty of time to reflect on what I've learned each week and the writing exercises in general help me clear my head and put what is going on in the class or internship in perspective.

One thing I am worried about in this course is the amount of hours I have to be at my internship each week. I realize that 10 hours per week shouldn't really be a big deal, but it tends to stress me out just thinking about the task set in front of me. As I mentioned before, this internship is going to be a new adventure for me, so I'm pretty nervous about what Than (the guy in charge or us wee interns) is expecting of me. He seems nice enough, though, so that is at least a little comforting. Another reason I'm apprehensive about this internship is the fact that I already hold a very good job at The Daily Athenaeum as the administrative reporter. I'm currently covering the presidential search and the Board of Governors, which takes up a significant portion of my time already. I would hate to have to leave the DA, but if it comes down to it I will because, after all, I have to have this internship to graduate and I've done a large amount of work at the paper already. It might be time to move on, but I'm not ready yet, so I'm giving it a chance and seeing if I can handle both.