It's great to meet you. My name is Sheree Josephson. I’m excited to have you in my class. Editing is one of my loves and one of my main expertise areas. But as much as I know, I always learn things about editing when I teach this class. There’s so much to know. I hope you’ll learn a lot of things this semester and even have some fun doing it. Let me introduce myself. Before coming to teach at Weber State University 17 years ago, I worked for 18 years as a print journalist. I worked for three daily newspapers – the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah; The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah; and the Colorado Springs Sun in Colorado – two different times each. A few of the job titles I held were reporter, news editor, assistant city editor, copy editor, graphics editor and weekend editor. I also taught briefly at the University of Utah and in Westminster College’s communication graduate program. At WSU, I primarily teach classes required in the journalism and public relations concentrations. I occasionally teach in the Honors Department and advised the student newspaper, The Signpost, for six years. During that time, my students won numerous awards, including first place in the nation for editorial writing, spot news reporting and general news reporting in the Society of Professional Journalists competition. Recently I was named director of the new Master of Professional Communication program, which begins this summer.
Since becoming a college professor, I have taken frequent jobs as a freelance editor so as not to lose my skills. I have edited two books, numerous Web sites for high-tech clients, news releases and media packets for public relations firms, and print advertisements. I just published a scholarly book titled "Visualizing the Web" for Peter Lang Press. It is about research methodologies used to study visual imagery on the World Wide Web.
I hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication from Utah State University. I earned my Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1992. Since receiving my doctorate, I have engaged in a considerable amount of communication research. I use eye-tracking to study how people process visual imagery primarily on the Internet. While at WSU, I have published a number of academic journal articles and book chapters. I am currently working on three research projects.
I also wanted to tell you that if there are topics you want to learn about but do not find on the syllabus, please alert me and I will try to address them. Also, please let me know if there are problems with materials posted on the class online site. The best way to alert me to problems or to ask questions is through my e-mail at sjosephson@weber.edu, which I monitor almost continuously on a daily basis. However, I will also try to monitor the online class site and address questions there at least every couple of days.
Anyway, as you can see from the syllabus, every week you are required to post something to this blog. This week I want you to introduce yourself and preferably include a picture. On subsequent weeks, I want you to write about 200 to 250 words about editing and briefly comment on two entries from other students. Your entry each week must be about something you learned from the textbook “When Words Collide,” from the “AP Stylebook” or from the book you are reading (when we get that far!). I also want you to share an editing mistake you found during that week and discuss what should be done to correct it. Pictures would be great. The goal of this blog is to teach each other about editing. You may get further instructions from me regarding this blog depending on how things are working out.
Before we start blogging, I want to remind you all that this blog resides on the Internet. Anyone could stumble onto it and read it, although I have not advertised it on the main blog search sites. Therefore, do not post anything to this blog that you don’t want me, the rest of the class and even the rest of the world to know. If you’re not comfortable introducing yourself at all on this blog, post something about editing and writing. However, I hope we can all get to know each other a little bit better this first week.
Here’s to a great Spring Semester!
sheree
Hi Sheree! How do I post my own entry to the blog? This is all new to me and I've been searching help from the site for the past two days!
ReplyDeleteI tried posting a picture with my blog, but for some reason my computer won't let it upload. I did upload a picture for my profile, so if you want to see a picture of me, there is one there. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHello, my name is Peter Golde. I am a 20 year old outdoor enthusiast. I couldn’t figure out how to post my own blog so I decided this was a viable plan B. I uploaded a picture of myself as my profile picture.
ReplyDeleteThis will be my sixth semester here at Weber State University, and I bleed purple. I am an Organizational Communication major with an emphasis in Training and Development. I chose this major because my previous field of study was Secondary Education with a Physical Sciences concentration. I have always been interested in teaching people new skills, and I was concerned that teaching kids might become too repetitive.
My dream job would be a corporate trainer working with software. As new software is developed I would be able to preview, ‘test drive’ this software, and develop a training program to acquaint employees with the new systems. I would like to make a modest yet healthy salary ($95,000) and have very good benefits.
I look forward to the new software and other computer related technologies that will be coming out in the coming years. The speed at which the world has been developing in the last decade has been really fascinating, and it has revolutionized the way we as a civilization communicate (It was about time for an overhaul if you ask me!).
I work at Snowbasin, a local ski resort, as your friendly man in red and blue running the lifts. I love my job! Working on the mountain is exciting and dynamic, and it provides me with a sense of satisfaction everyday when I go home. When I am not at school I am usually on the mountain working. Working full-time and going to school full-time will definitely be a challenge, but if I can kill that little voice in the back of my head encouraging me to procrastinate all the time it shouldn’t be too hard to excel this semester.
If it is summer time then you will always see me smiling. I love the summer and all the activities that go along with it. If we were meeting in a classroom you might see me with my longboard, but if you are on campus a lot then I guarantee you’ll see me rolling by (always evading Campus PD of course!). I also love to hike, rock climb, run, bike, and a medley of other outdoor activities.
I love to write, but typically I write creatively or in my journal/notebook which I have on my person 24/7. I write lots of lists. I tend to forget things if I don’t write them down and cross them off. It has become a habit of mine to make a list on Friday so that I know what I need to do on the weekend. I think it would be really interesting to continue on with these lists for several years, all the while archiving old notebooks as I fill them up. After many years I would be able to look back and see what my life was like and what I was doing.