Writing Buddy Meeting #2

Faris and I met up on Friday March 25 for our second meeting, once again in Union Court. For the first part of the meeting we mostly talked about our spring breaks and our terrible first weeks back at school. Faris did not have a new story for me to edit, so I looked over the story he was working on last time about Arabic classes. I felt guilty for doing this, but I almost wanted it to be a train wreck so I would have something to say. I went through the story and felt slightly panicked because if I didn't have any constructive criticism or advice to give him, I thought that I would seem incompetent as an editor. Fortunately, I did pick up on some AP style errors and some structural parts of his story that could have been improved. I pointed out a habit that Faris seemed to have in his writing of not directly identifying his speaker of a quote, either because he forgot to or he thought it was implied. There was also a part of his story where some random speaker named Jake was talking about the need for Arabic classes and that speaker had never been previously identified. As it turns out, Faris had cut out a good portion of his story, and Jake's first quote had gone with that.

Other than those few errors, there was very little to edit in the story. He had a good number of sources and very good quotes. He was initially worried about sounding biased, and compensated by constantly comparing the two sides. He wanted to know if that was a good tactic, and I relayed a story of an experience I had in 621 about writing a story on the legalization of marijuana and how I was told to do the same that he did by Sandy.

Faris and I have plans to meet up sometime this week. He is hopefully going to email me his story for class or TNH in advance so I can spend a fair amount of time editing it, and then we will meet in person, where I will go over what I thought of the story and things that he can do to improve it. I feel like this tactic will be more beneficial to him and myself, since he may be able to improve his grade through my editing, and I will have some kind of stake in editing the story.

Writing Buddy Meeting #1

I met with my writing buddy Faris Al-Hashimi on Friday March 4 at Union Court. The meeting was mostly introductory; I found out he was a senior Political Science major who wanted to go into journalism and was taking 621 to get some kind of background with it. He has been writing for TNH for a while though. He is originally from Oman, and is planning on moving back there once he is out of school. I asked him how 621 was going, and about any issues he might be having with the class, or the subject matter, or his own experiences in writing. He said that his biggest issue was coming up with story ideas, which I told him I could totally relate to. I gave him advice on where to look for stories. We then started talking about a story that he had coming up that week, which was on the lack of a Upper-level Arabic class. We talked about what sources he had spoken to, and who he might want to try and get in touch with. We made plans to get in contact after spring break so I could sit down and look at some of his writing. Overall, I think it was a great experience, because I think it helped him realize that some of his insecurities about the class were very universal, and it felt good for me to be able to impart some wisdom about journalism at UNH. Although it is a little intimidating to edit someone's work who is older and with more life experience, I think that it was a good lesson for me to learn. Even though I may feel insecure and out of place doing so, I need to recognize my own confidence as an editor, since I am taking the class and learning about editing in depth. This is something I am going to try to work on next time Faris and I meet.