After focusing most of my time throughout the summer on my project with Made By History I was ready to dive into the process of editing with Dr. Brownell. This was really my hope in pursuing this internship, being able to get a behind the scenes look at what it is editors do and see if it is something that I would be interested in pursuing after completion of my masters.
Each MBH piece goes through an editing process based on the needs of the author. Most pieces only take two rounds of edits before moving to press, but some may take longer depending on the back and forth throughout the process. After author’s pitch an idea, the first editor will go through to make sure the piece works within both the Washington Post and MBH style. To understand this, I had to learn the necessary terminology and ideas that support a well-written piece. Is the lede concise? Does the nut graph pull readers in? Is the conclusion too prescriptive? After reading through the piece, the first editor will send their thoughts back to the author and ask for revisions. Once this process is completed (which can sometimes include many emails back and forth) a second editor will read through the piece in order to catch any lingering issues as well as ensure the overall quality of the piece.
Along the way, Dr. Brownell made sure I was in the loop on communication with the authors as well as shared on the Google Docs where edits were made. It was fascinating to watch the edits come through in real time, and view the entire back and forth between an author and editor. It was especially fascinating because it wasn’t my writing, so I didn’t have to deal with someone else’s edits, but it was great to see the process from an editor’s point of view. After each round of edits Dr. Brownell would allow me and another intern the opportunity to ask any questions we had about why an edit was made.
My biggest takeaway from this experience was understanding that writing for MBH is different from writing for an academic journal. While scholars tend to elaborate on their ideas and the history behind their topics, there is no room for this background when writing for MBH. It’s the author’s job to be concise while writing both the history and why someone should be interested in reading their piece. More often than not Dr. Brownell’s first edit was deleting the entire first paragraph of background that was unrelated to the author’s main point.
There are many reasons I am grateful for my experience with MBH this past summer, but I am most appreciative for the first-hand experience of helping to create a public history project. My biggest takeaway? There are so many considerations when putting together a project for public consumption, and so much of the work is behind the scenes. No one will ever see the hours I put in collecting the titles and author names of each MBH piece, just like no one ever sees the editing process that goes into publishing a piece, or the online mining of sources and tagging of ideas that happens at Bunk. I understand now that while a 50 word description about a historical article may only take a few minutes to write up, it may take hours of deliberating with various stakeholders about how best to say what you need to say. My work with both MBH and Bunk shows that no public history is done in a bubble. Many of the projects we see are collaborations between many individuals who all come to the project with different points of view and experiences that often lead to a process of molding a project into something that works for
everyone.
I also learned that I enjoy editing, but may want to spend some time working on my own writing and creative interests before helping others polish theirs. It was very easy to see the edits that needed to be made while watching Dr. Brownell in a Google Doc, but it is much harder to look at an unmarked page and suggest revisions on your own. This is especially true when working with an author who more than likely has a better understanding of the information than the editor does. Practice certainly makes perfect when it comes to editing, and I hope to continue gaining editing experience while working on my own projects - especially when reworking my thesis this spring.
Lastly, I continue to question how best to promote public history projects like the one I spent my summer focused on. As you read in my second blog post, paywalls are a true barrier to getting historical research out into the public. Whether it’s JSTOR or publications like the Washington Post, subscription fees hinder the public’s access to important works that can guide our thinking about the present through the lens of the past. While this is the case, it is also true that the fees collected by subscription services help promote this important research in the first place. How can we break down the various barriers to accurate historical research, while continuing to support the researchers themselves? I am positive this is nothing new in the world of public history, but I am glad to have the opportunity to think about this and other issues surrounding the field due to my experience this summer.
All history majors should gain work experience through an internship. Not only can you gain course credit, but you also have the opportunity to explore your interests in a way that allows you to promote yourself through these experiences. Given the rapid changes taking place throughout the country within the humanities, it is important for historians to show their value in other ways than writing books for an exclusive few. Taking history to the public is not only valuable, but crucial work within our ever-changing world.
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