Teaching Editing for Social Justice

Abstract

Responding to calls for an inclusive editing paradigm in the teaching of editing (Clem & Cheek, 2022), the author revised their professional editing course to better align with social justice values. The author describes the revisions that took place in terms of definitions, curriculum, learning objectives, and assignments. Having taught the course in spring 2022, the author performed a content analysis of one of the course assignments where students define technical editing early in the semester and revise their definition at the end of the semester. Results indicate that students’ conceptualizations of editing shifted over the semester from copyediting-based definitions to definitions based in editor/author relationships, rhetorical awareness, and substantive editing.