Journal No. 13
Being an Editorial Assistant for LA YOGA Magazine has been a learning process. Looking back on the past 12 journals, every entry tells a story about a new experience I had that contributed to my engagement with writing for a magazine. I’m actually quite proud of how far I’ve come in only 48 days of this internship. I plan on recapping every journal entry in March towards the end of the quarter to track my development and research.
As for this entry, I want to catch you up on yesterday’s meeting with the Editor-in-Chief. We only had an hour and a half to get updated before I had to return to Riverside for class, so I wrote a to-do list of things for us to discuss in order to stay on task. Once we had our coffee and breakfast, Felicia handed me the drafts and Table of Contents for the March issue which will be coming out next Tuesday, March 3rd. I learned what exactly she meant by “going to press” with the articles and the importance of finding the right size for photographs. All pictures need to be 300 DPI (Digital Pixels per Inch), meaning that they need to be a sufficient pixel dimension to appear clear in print. For websites, the DPI is about 72.
Another cool thing I learned about the magazine is the printing company that creates LA YOGA Magazine. Trend Offset Printing produces our magazines from cover to cover in a timely fashion with high-quality and detailed care. PDF files are uploaded to the printer server and go to press in Los Alamitos. Zoe Kors, the managing editor, packages the files. It’s pretty cool learning about how the print is actually produced and how it gets distributed around Southern California to yoga studios and other businesses. I believe Felicia had said that 50,000 copies are distributed from Los Alamitos to Glendale. She also provided me with the digital printing company that handles our online apps. MAZ is a company primarily comprised of technological experts who have previously worked for Adobe and Apple, making LA YOGA Magazine accessible through mobile devices and computers.
After learning about the interesting things about the printing process and reviewing the March drafts, we talked about the final article for the April edition. For myself, I had to write down one sentence describing what my article is basically talking about. Using the following sentence will help me maintain a focus in my final draft and truly find out if whatever I write serves the story:
Yoga therapy is a powerful tool for aiding in the recovery of trauma of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Felicia and I looked over the rough draft which needs plenty of editing, and found specifics that need to change. For example, less background on the people I interviewed which doesn’t serve the story. I also must write more clearly, especially with narration and citation.
As a final take-away, the editor advised me to have two portfolios for the future: one with all of my published works and a separate one with unedited drafts where I cover things I absolutely love. Editorial jobs that I will be applying for after I graduate in the summer will ask for either one, so it’d be safe to have both ready for review.
There is much more to learn in the next month before the internship is over. Once the article goes to print for the April issue, I plan on revising the article and figuring out how to submit it to newspapers in the Inland Empire such as The Press-Enterprise and The Los Angeles Times to spread awareness about human trafficking and yoga therapy.
Amanda Ridder 