In today’s class, we delved into the depths of the different kinds of editing, genres versus forms, as well as the concept of functional and decorative alt text. There were two points from the lecture that spoke to me:
I found it interesting to learn more about the specific types of editing and their differences, especially since I used to be a freelance copyeditor but never understood what the other designations meant. For example, I now know that stylistic editing refers to the revising the voice, sense, tone and flow of writing, and there are in fact Indigenous editing protocols that have yet to be blended into the other styles. As well, when your peers knew you as the “good editor” for their high school English projects, it set me back to hear a quote that stated, editors should not feel important for their role and rather understand that, at most, they “release energy. He creates nothing.” (Perkins, n.d.).
The second point that struck me was the idea that, under genres and forms, we could consider blogs as a supergenre – a super genre, or category. When it comes to content creation, through my Instagram and Living With Rajah, I constantly struggle to do as most advise small creators to do – stick to one niche. In my mind, I’d rather cover any content that excites me, that I feel passionate about. Therefore, to hear at least one “person” say that blogs can be a supergenre that cover everything from news to essays, and photos to videos, allowed me to rethink my content and the way I plan to create moving forward.
Readers should be prepared for a wide variety of content moving forward!