Contemporary Editing

Exercises

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Editing 2.0 Exercises: Checking it twice

Module 14.1

Questions

Activities

1. Explain in a sentence the power and potential online of a well-crafted bulleted list.
2. 2. Lists are but one arrow in the online editor’s quiver. In terms of formatting text for online readership, what are some of the arrows, or tools and techniques?
3. Come up with three examples of the kinds of information best suited to presentation in an ordered list. Next, come up with three examples better suited to unordered lists.
4. 2. A safari: Go online and hunt down an expertly composed interactive (hyperlinked) list. While hunting, see if you can spot in its natural habitat a particularly poorly composed list. What makes the good list so good, and the bad one so poor?

Module 14.2

Editing 2.0: Mapping it out

Questions

Activities

1. Geomapping is becoming almost ubiquitous, especially with the rapid growth in smartphone adoption and growing sophistication in smartphone apps. Think through some of the privacy issues raised by this capability. How should individual privacy concerns be balanced against, for example, convenience?
2. 2. Visit a data-rich, visually arresting data map, like the New York Times crime map mentioned in the Web 2.0 module. How might this basic approach be deployed at the local level? What kinds of stories in your campus newspaper or local newspaper warrant the kind of industry and resource these sorts of multimedia presentations require?
3. Experiment with one of the free locator map generators mentioned in the Web 2.0 module. Choose a news story from your campus newspaper or local newspaper for which a locator map would help readers better comprehend or appreciate the story. Create a simple locator map to appear with that story online.
4. 2. Experiment with Meograph, on the web at www.meograph.com. Create a multimedia story incorporating at least one map. The quality or news value of your story isn’t important here; the priority is gaining familiarity with this free online tool, and to begin to appreciate how maps and mapping can add to a story.

Quiz

Editor’s Bookshelf—Additional Reading Suggestions

Showing the story: Editing data visualizations

Huffman, J. Ford. The importance of being earnest in editing visuals. Huffman, a design editor who has worked at USA Today, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other news organizations, is a contributor to the Visual.ly blog.

Thomas, Jesse. Meet the young designer behind the Washington Post’s infographics. Forbes.com, Aug. 20, 2011.