Multiple Ways to Edit

As we were reading each other's final draft of the Urbana shooting story, I noticed that editing can vary in major ways. We each had received the same information and the same basic story, yet most of our drafts were different in at least one way. It proves that while there are multiple rules and guidelines to follow with editing, no one editor thinks alike.

Each person may have different preferences about what quotes to include, how to paraphrase, where information would be most beneficial in the story, and the syntax of a particular sentence. This all depends on our personal writing style and the articles that we have learned from. While I may believe one quote is important to a story because it adds a element of surprise or it is unusual, someone else may see that quote as meaningless. These differences make reading a newspaper or magazine enjoyable. If everyone had the same style and followed the same exact format, who would really want to read the news.