Letter from the Assistant Editor

After my verbal abuse of our beloved Editor-in-Chief (EIC) while editing his editorial for the last issue, it was suggested that I should have to write one of my own. For some reason, the IW production staff decided that giving me free reign over as many words as I choose to take is a good idea.

Unfortunately, I’m apparently not all that good at writing all these words. The copy editor is already despairing, not of my coherency and grammar (unlike certain EICs I could mention), but that I will ever manage to finish it.

You see, the EIC is notorious for not getting in his editorials in on time. He is worse than the EngSoc Exec at meeting IW deadlines (and even more convinced that the 6 pm on Friday deadline doesn’t apply to him). This makes those of us responsible for making it sound like our EIC actually passed his ELPE despair, as it cuts into our time to rescue it.

In order to be fair, I must acknowledge that our current EIC is not alone in his inability to write an editorial in anything remotely resembling on time. An EIC of the past always sent out draft issues of the paper without her editorial, as it was written way too late to possibly be included. If any editing was to be done, it was Monday morning, right before the paper was supposed to be sent to the publishers.

Now, perhaps, since I am writing an editorial after all, it is time to whine to everyone else in the office. “What do I talk about? What has happened that’s interesting that I can talk about?” I’ve been told to write ONE THOUSAND WORDS mocking editorials. I mean, I know that a real editorial is more than a thousand words, but…

Now, as I haven’t actually mocked the EIC for two whole paragraphs, I feel I must return to my originally intended topic. What should I talk about? I could talk about the fact that I’ve been quoted exclaiming in despair when presented with his editorial that “this doesn’t flow! This doesn’t even pretend to flow!” [I interrupt this paragraph to point out that Eduroam doesn’t like the IW office, and that keyboards randomly changing themselves to French are annoying.] I could also talk about the fact that he’s not allowed to proofread, since he can’t find a grammatical mistake if his life depended on it (did I mention that he failed the ELPE?). I could also talk about…ummm…something. I’ll get back to you on what I’m going to talk about, if I ever figure it out.

While I’m trying to figure out what I’m talking about, I wish to make a public service announcement. WHEN YOU ARE QUOTING SOMETHING, PERIODS AND COMMAS GO BEFORE, NOT AFTER, THE CLOSING QUOTATION MARK. I have been contemplating making a giant sign with flashing letters that screams this at people. It was originally just a sign, but it has become bigger, flashier and louder as the term progressed. If this was a colour page, I probably would put those words in bright colours, but I don’t think IW will buy me colour for one sentence. 🙁

Back to making fun of Roy. I’m still deciding what I’m talking about. I wonder if Roy ever does decide what he’s talking about. Half the time, I think he just rambles about anything that comes to mind. Actually, change that to all the time.

Roy is complaining right now because I’ve claimed first edit for his editorial. I think he’s afraid of a repeat of last issue, and was hoping that someone nicer (and someone who isn’t in the process of spending a lot of words making fun of him) would edit it first, so I could find much less ammunition for my article. (In case you were wondering, he is very well aware of the fact that I’m writing this.)

Now he’s forgetting people for his Staff Appreciation Corner. So nice to know he cared so much that he can’t even remember who he’s supposed to be thanking. I probably shouldn’t say too much about that; he might say something mean about me. Of course, I don’t deserve any such thing, but he’s so unreasonable.

Now that Roy’s done his editorial, I’m going to take a break and edit it. I’ll come back to this once I’ve done so, and acquired more things to mock him about in the process. He says that he thinks this one will be better than his previous ones since it’s Saturday, which is remarkably early, but I do not hold out much hope.

Now I’m all done editing the editorial! I made comments as I edited, I have shared them with Roy, now I’m including them for everyone else’s enjoyment.

1. Way to state the obvious.
2. You know you’re allowed sentences that are more than 5 words long, right?
3. Never mind.
4. THAT IS NOT A SENTENCE!
5. NO comma!
6. You know that paper you’re the EIC of? It’s called The Iron Warrior, not Iron Warrior. X4
7. ITALICIZE websites!
8. Commas are important.
9. Singular subject = singular verb.
10. Transitions? Please?
11. Periods don’t go in the middle of sentences.
12. You can’t blame everything on your keyboard.
13. Dramatic much?

Comment twelve relates to the fact that every time I told Roy about something he did wrong, he claimed it was because he wasn’t used to the keyboard he was using. Personally, I don’t believe this is a valid excuse for missing entire words in a sentence.

Hey! I’m actually approaching ONE THOUSAND WORDS! Now the layout editors are telling me that they might not actually have enough space for me to have written a thousand words. Talk about inconsistent. Maybe I should start mocking them. That might push this beyond the thousand words, however, and they might not appreciate that. They might give this to the evil copy editor to cut bits out of it, which would be mean. 🙁

I hope you enjoyed my editorial, and my view of the editorial-writing process.

-The Crazy Assistant Editor

PS. This is approximately 300 words longer than Roy’s editorial.