Are you up for the challenge today? Today it is 7 posts to edit on our monthly Random Editing Day.
As explained in previous month during the series of Blog Exercises, this month you will need to edit seven random posts, one for every month of this series so far.
This monthly blog exercise can be done on any 7 posts on your site, chosen randomly or specifically.
If you are looking for ideas, look for posts with a July Theme. For some July represents summer cold or heat depending upon your location on the planet. For others, the theme of July is holidays and festivals, parties, vacation, and more time spent outdoors than in. Choose one or more themes and go for it.
If you really wish to get creative, play with the number 7. Have you used it in any of your posts? Why not choose 7 posts published in the past on the 7th month, July, or in 2007. Were you blogging then? If so, I’m sure your 2007 posts need some attention.
As described in the original exercise, your task today is to find seven random previously published posts and edit them.
In the post announcing these random edit blog exercises I offered an extensive list of things to look for when editing articles.
If you have been following along with these Blog Exercises from the beginning, your writing style has definitely improved, stretching all the ways you can explore a topic. Really push yourself to edit deeper and harder, finding the true intention of the article, its heart and soul. Let the world read that and be better for it.
Show us your best edits by adding a hat tip link to the edited post(s) to this post to generate a trackback, or post a link to the two posts in the comments. Include an explanation of why you are proud of your editing skills. If WordPress moderates the comment because of the links, be patient as I’ll be here as soon as possible to approve the comment. Thanks!
Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.
You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.
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7 Comments
Like 9-11 is linked to terrorist attacks in the USA in 2001, in the Chinese history, the date July 7 is often linked to the so-called 7-7 Incident in 1937, or known as Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The day signified the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war during the second world war.
Interestingly, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, Chinese celebrate their own version of ‘Valentine’s day’ (or called Qixi festival). On this day, the cowherd and the weaver girl are allowed to be reunited, only for a day every year, on a bridge formed by a flock of magpies, on the Milky Way.
We were just talking about the significance of numbers in various cultures at a book writer’s group meeting. Fascinating how some numbers are “magic” throughout very diverse cultures, the stories behind the power in the number so similar. Fascinating stuff. Love how you found so many connections with 7 to think of for this exercise. Wonderful!
Like 9-11, the number 7-7 evokes strong emotion. If you mention 7-7 to the older generation, they may recall flashbacks of the Second World War in Asia. Learning history, 7-7 is one of the most important numbers every child would remember.
However, regarding the lunar 7th day in the 7th month (around late August each year), the legend is magnificent. In the old days, this was the day when girls prayed to the weaver girl, who was their role model, as the weaver girl is kind and gentle, and she is excellent in craft, such as weaving and needlework (or perhaps tatting too? You never know.). This day was known as ‘girls’ day’ and girls aspired to be like her.
With the influence of the western Valentine’s Day, youngsters consider this lunar 7th – 7th day as a ‘romantic’ day (as she meets her cowherd once a year only) . They’ve tried to transform this day as Valentine’s Day. But, it is not as successful. The western Valentine’s Day is still more widely celebrated. Personally I think turning the bittersweet Chinese cowherd and weaver girl story, one of the finest legends, into a mass commercialised event is rather daft.
I often wonder how best to ‘edit’ an old post, when people had already made comments, given you extra materials, challenged you through their comments.
In a post, if there’s an imperfect part, but your readers have corrected you in their comment (not via email), or have formed a stream of conversations based on the imperfect part, I feel that I won’t be able to remove that imperfection from my post (typo, silly mistakes, punctuation marks etc). If I correct it, the conversations in the comment won’t make sense. The imperfection is part of the history; it’s my footprints.
Once a reader left a message and corrected a wrong verb that I used. She was correct. She taught me a new word. But in my text, I had to edit it as ‘later corrected as XXX by YYY’. It looked a bit clumsy. However I felt that was the best and the only way — unless I deleted her comment, and corrected the verb without mentioning her in the post. But I wouldn’t want to do that. (I had considered deleting her comment, then sending her an email to thank her personally for her correction, so that I could just change a single verb on the post, and the post would look clean. But later I decided to keep the wrong word with a correction note, to respect the reader’s virtual correction.) Her comment was genuine and correct and I would not delete her comment for the sake of purity of my text or presentation. Her online correction was then being threaded into my post as a result.
However, when no one comments on a post (thanks goodness!), I would have the total freedom to update a post. I would not have to worry about the continuity of conversation between me and my readers and I would treat the post as new.
What’s your view of the above dilemma, when readers’ comments have restricted the power of your editing?
I’ve mentioned before about how John Dvorak used to put an error in on purpose as he found it started off the conversation with someone correcting his spelling when he moved his articles from print to the web. I wouldn’t do it on purpose but I love it when readers are checking my grammar. Proves they are reading and that they care about me. I love that.
If someone spots an error and reports it, fix it. From there, it is up to you to say thank you and leave her comment, or delete her comment if it interrupts the flow of the conversation. Never post a note that you fixed something in your posts like simple spelling or grammar fixes. No one cares.
The key to these editing exercises is not to fix every spelling error or grammar mix up. It is to improve your writing. For those going through these exercises, their writing, their voice, their style, and the way they present the material has changed. It’s evolved, improved. My hope is that the edits have more to do with saying things in a better, tighter, more consistent way than just checking for spelling.
As for the edits, even if people comment, it doesn’t change the conversation. The point of the article is still made. Few ever notice when you change an article. And many don’t reread articles they’ve read before. Readers and commenters should never restrict your ability to edit your posts. NEVER.
Have you been in a conversation with someone and they stopped and said, “Wait. Let me tell you this again in a better way.” Or having a favorite story you tell over and over again gets better with the telling. This is the kind of editing that improves your posts.
If you change your mind, shift a position you’ve taken in an article from black to white, then add a note to let your readers know you’ve changed your opinion. Comments or not, it is your site and you are in control of the content. Reader’s appreciate it when you work hard to maintain the best content.
If you do a major edit, and you are proud of it, publish a post announcing that you’ve updated that post, explain why, and point to it. People who have read it before might return for a re-read. Those who never read it may discover it for the first time.
I think your reply has done just this: “Wait. Let me tell you this again in a better way.”
Thank you.
Great exercise! Many of the best bloggers admit to spending much more time editing than they do writing. While editing isn’t as glamorous or fun as writing, it is extremely important that we edit our work profusely. Great bloggers are great editors!
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