Editing Projects

For this project, I fact-checked a news article about a Saline Township resident attempting to intervene in legal proceedings involving the OpenAI- and Oracle-backed “Stargate” data center project. The original document was a public-facing article meant to explain a local legal dispute involving the township, the data center developer, court decisions, public meetings and claims about the Open Meetings Act. The goal of the assignment was to identify factual claims, separate them from quotes and personal statements, verify important information and decide when a claim needed more clarification or stronger evidence.

For my edited materials, I created an annotated version of the article using color-coded highlights and comments. I marked quotes and personal statements, claims that needed verification, repeated verifiable information and information that needed clarification. I also created a full comments document that listed each claim I checked, the sources I used and my conclusion. This included verifying the term “Stargate,” the project’s location, OpenAI and Oracle’s involvement, Related Digital’s role, the October township settlement meeting, Judge Julia Owdziej’s ruling and the claims surrounding the Open Meetings Act.

This project shows my ability to fact-check carefully and explain my editorial judgment. I did not treat every claim as automatically true or false. Instead, I looked at the strength of the available evidence and explained when a claim was verified, when it was only tentatively supported and when more direct documentation would be needed. This project reflects my interest in accuracy, legal awareness and responsible editing, especially when writing involves public officials, companies, courts and community concerns.

With this project, I created a style sheet based on a writing sample from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Be Useful” newsletter. The original document was a short motivational essay/newsletter excerpt written for a general audience interested in self-improvement, discipline and personal growth. The goal of the assignment was to study the writer’s voice, identify patterns in style and tone, and create a guide that future editors could use to edit similar work consistently without removing the writer’s personality.

I drafted a full style sheet that documented spelling, capitalization, punctuation, number treatment, proper nouns, repeated phrases and voice patterns. I used Chicago Manual of Style as the main style guide and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as the preferred dictionary. I also included a reflection explaining my editorial choices and a mock email to the client summarizing how the style sheet would help protect the writer’s voice while improving consistency.

This project shows my ability to edit with consistency while still respecting the author’s voice. Instead of removing repetition or casual phrases automatically, I identified which patterns were intentional and should be preserved. The style sheet helped me practice making editorial decisions that balance grammar, clarity, tone and voice.

For this project, I edited a short fiction excerpt called “The Adventure Begins…” The original document was a mythic, fantasy-style story about Sashinta and Bartholomew making their way through fields of wheat and barley while Sashinta reckons with being sent toward the enchanted, or forbidden, woods as a sacrifice. The goal of the assignment was to edit the piece for clarity, consistency and correctness while still preserving the strange, dramatic and chaotic voice of the story.

In the tracked-changes version, I focused on punctuation, grammar, capitalization, spelling, consistency and tone. Proper nouns like Sashinta, Bartholomew, Everglog and Jemineta needed to stay consistent because invented names can easily become confusing if they shift throughout the piece. I also left comments where I was unsure whether something was an error or an intentional choice, especially with the story’s repeated humming, strange humor, song references and casual phrases. Instead of changing everything automatically, I tried to separate actual mistakes from choices that seemed connected to the author’s voice.

This project shows my ability to edit carefully while still respecting the writer’s style. I did not want to flatten the piece by removing every weird phrase or chaotic sentence, because that strangeness was part of what made the story feel specific. At the same time, I made edits where the writing became unclear, inconsistent or distracting. The tracked changes and comments show that I can balance grammar, clarity, tone and author intent while knowing when to make a correction and when to ask the writer for more information.