I want to be a detective!

Although I couldn’t have been more wrong, it was fun editing the astronomically incorrect story of the bus and car crashing. Who would’ve thought that four letters (east versus west) would change the entire meaning?

As the copy editor, I love/hated that activity. Part of me wants more stories like that; then again, my job would’ve – and should’ve – been easier if the reporter was correct.

Still, I find myself rooting for stories to be terrible. Is that bad? I want to seethe through text like a detective mulls over evidence, knowing that something is clearly wrong, but not knowing what, where, when, why or how the heck it got that way. It’s kind of a thrill.

But I have a hunch that if I become a professional copy editor, I won’t want the thrills. Unlike editing in a classroom, there’s a lot on the line in the real world of actually having people read your work.

Editing in class is like driving the simulator in Driver’s Ed. You don’t have to worry about running over the pedestrians, since they’re all wearing bell bottoms and tweed jackets… oh, and they’re not real. If I make a mistake in editing class, it’s not like I’d be throwing the integrity of a news organization out the window. The worst case scenario is that I get points docked from my grade. Or I fail the class, which would kind of mean that I won’t be able to graduate…Oh well. At least there is no publication getting publicly humiliated because I spelled Whicker with an “h” instead of a “k.”

Although I doubt copy editors truly feel as if they’re detectives trying to track down killers, or hard-nosed cops testing the witness’ story to see if has any faults, perhaps they should. It might make them have more careful eyes. Although it sounds silly, getting into the mindset that reporters and/or sources are either trying to pull fast ones on you, or accidentally doing it, will never hurt. It should be an automatic part of the job description. Pretending that all stories are surrounded by clouds of mystery will just ensure that copy editors maintain that.

And if the editing becomes extremely dull, by pretending that all stories are surrounded by clouds of mystery that only you can clear up and bring to justice, you might actually have fun looking up someone’s name in the phone book.