InDesign, Writing, & Editing

Yesterday was a great day. In the morning, Dan gave me a short tutorial on how to use Adobe InDesign. I had been using Microsoft Publisher for most things before. In high school, I did the layout for the newspaper with Publisher for two years. I caught on very quickly to InDesign. I practiced setting up pages with text and photos whenever I had free time during the day. Now that I have a basic understanding of the program, JRN 302 should be a breeze (in JRN 302 you learn to use InDesign).

I completed my article about Pridgeon and submitted it to Dan. He read it over and said it was good and pointed out a few changes that I could make. He told me that he wasn’t going to tell me exactly what to put because he “didn’t want to take away my voice.” He said the article would be perfect if we were going to be printing it that day, but since it is for a publication he said we can perfect it even more. I thought this was great because I am able to learn to correct my own mistakes and perfect my own words. I know that I am a fairly good writer, but I want to become even better. I can already see that this internship is going to help me do that.

So I went back through the Pridgeon feature. I re-worked the lead and discussed it with Dan. The lead seemed to be the hardest part for me. Dan told me to imagine I was telling the story to my brother…how would I start it? I wouldn’t start by just bluntly telling the important details. I would first intrigue my audience to get them into the story. I re-worked the rest of the article and sent it back to Dan.

Dan sent two stories about a coach and asked me to edit them into one for the Viewpoint. It wasn’t a difficult task, although the fact that I know nothing about sports was a little intimidating. Luckily, the “complicated sports stuff” didn’t need editing. I sent it back to him and he said it was fine and he just moved a few little things around.

At the end of the day, Dan said that I would get more stories to write soon and other things to work on. I also will be starting work on CMU Welcomes You soon.

Lesson of the Day: Write like you’re telling a story to someone to their face. Intrigue them and draw them in.