By SUE BURZYNSKI BULLARD
UNL ACES members with professor Sue Bullard Brzynski (back, second from left).
What do you get if you ask college students to give up a sunny autumn Saturday to spend all day inside a classroom learning about editing, math, bias and more?
Answer: Six enthusiastic members of UNL’s American Copy Editors Society (ACES) chapter.
And the six had to spend nearly 12 round-trip hours in a car to attend the regional ACES conference Oct. 3 at the University of Missouri in Columbia.
“I wanted to go on the trip because I thought it would be a great opportunity to hear from professionals about the journalism field,” said Emily Giller, UNL-ACES chapter secretary. “I felt it was a great way to network and get a head start when it comes to thinking about future career choices.”
The students heard from editing professionals and professors from around the country on topics as varied as editing business copy and finding an editing internship.
Other sessions provided refreshers on math and ethics.
“I feel more knowledgeable about ethical situations that copy editors have to face and feel that I would be better able to handle a tough situation than before I attended the conference,” said Marcy Pursell, vice president of the ACES-UNL chapter. “I was also able to learn some helpful math tips to make my life easier when dealing with numbers in copy.”
The students also had a chance to meet informally with editors from both big and small newspapers and to meet several national ACES officers, who were presenters at the conference.
“I told myself that I’ll be like a sponge and soak up knowledge from the gurus in the copy editing field,” said ACES member Alexis See Tho. “I learned more about what it’s like to work in the real world.“
And the professionals enjoyed meeting the UNL students, too. “I want to let you know how impressed I was with your bright, interesting students,” said Lisa McLendon, secretary of ACES and an editor at The Wichita Eagle. “If this is the future of journalism, we’re in good hands.”
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