The Eighth Page

Coppie Editeur Applekation

The board has finally turned over! With transparency in mind, Features would like to give the general public an opportunity to see the application process. Below is a sample Copy Editor application, filled out by one Ms. Meera Patel.

1. What is The Phillipian? The Phillipian is a newspaper. It is the uncensored, student-run newspaper of Andover. It has a lot of pages. I was really surprised when I found out the The Phillipian looks like an actual, real newspaper, because I thought that it was just going to be some amateur creation of 8.5×11 paper stapled into a packet. Most of the editors on The Phillipian seem like really cool people, and of that group, I’d say that about half are genuinely nice people! I would know, because I am already a member of The Phillipian board. I want to work for the paper, because I hear that having your name on the masthead will probably most likely with certainty help you get into college and will make your parents proud of you or at least just your mom. I also like newspapers a lot. I heard that The Phillipian gets really good food in the newsroom and gets permission to party late at night, so, yeah, that’s another reason why I would like to join, along with really wanting to go on the New York trip in the spring and getting to be in lots of really high-quality photographs with the rest of the board. I want to leave Andover getting the whole “newsroom experience,” and I also hear that friends you make in The Phillipian are friends for the rest of your life or something cute like that.

2. What do you hope to achieve as a member of The Phillipian?
I hope to achieve nirvana as a member of The Phillipian. I’m not sure if The Phillipian will directly help me with this, but achieving nirvana is something that I want to do anyway. I know you wanted 200-300 words in response to this question, but this is all I have, so you will have to deal with that. I am a strong, independent woman who does not need to follow your guidelines or those of society. In other words, I am a nonconformist through and through.

3. Have you ever sat before a Disciplinary Committee?
I have never been DC’d before. Better put, I have never been caught. 😉 #effthepolice

4. What is the role of a Copy Editor?
The role of a Copy Editor is the exact same thing as what the job description says on the application that YOU wrote. Why are you asking me?

5. Why would you be an asset to The Phillipian?
Basically, I am the human embodiment of power. If you crossed Kanye West with Beyoncé with Dora the Explorer with Mila Kunis, you would produce a clone of me. I am not what The Phillipian needs, but rather, I am what The Phillipian deserves. Like Batman.

6. Why do you want to work for the Copy Section?
I want to work for Copy, because then everyone will think that I am actually a really selfless person. Most people think I am rather selfish just because I don’t care that much about other people, so I want to fool everyone into thinking I’m nice.

7. List some of the potential errors you would look for while editing an article.
1. Factual discrepancy 2. Misspelled name 3. Pie graph that doesn’t add up to 100 4. Misspelled word 5. Improper capitalization of a title 6. Misspelled word 7. Oxford comma 8. Incorrect page number 9. Incorrect jump 10. Absence of a period (VERY IMPORTANT. THIS COULD MEAN PREGNANCY.) 11. Absence of a comma 12. Overset text I put these potential errors in this order for no particular reason. It just felt right. Meera Patel is a four-year Senior from Commentary, CXXXVII.