editorial critique thread

The dead sea scrolls are just one source of Biblical times tales.
Some of the other is taken from fokelore of other religions, some from historical references, there is a wide catchment of material used.
We still do not know who originally wrote the first Bible, nor why, nor when.



Here it mainly means to be edited for errors, and take out the (deleted) put in my your meanings?...
But yes, it could be down to as you say.
But on a book that important, we would expect that its a rewrite to make it more accurate.
In the same way the phone directory gets rewritten every year, things change.


I will get away from Religion....... last post on that book.

Getting back to the original request.
For what reason?....
Why are you doing this?... the actual reason, not a why are you standing in a field holding a 30ft pole in a thunderstorm way of asking why are you doing that.....

[---I may have differing ideas of religion, but that does not stop me from seeing that to many people, religion is that important, and I will not decry that in any way, I actually support it.---]

I ask because if this just appears with no editorial reason why its there, some people will be asking why its there.

I have some suggestions, I wonder if they are of any use?....

May I ask if you will be offering maybe a modern interpretation of the words.
If so, will you perhaps be interviewing a person of high regard and respect in the church for their interpretation of the words....

Will you select a few various other peoples interpretation of the words.

Example....

I have this image in my head that where Ironhold lives (Texas) is a very religious place in general, so something like this would seem perfectly natural to include in people's newspapers as a filler.

If that's what this is, I'm just glad Ironhold put so much thought into it, finding quotes that show the better sides and the nuances of religion, rather than just what people are used to hearing at church. That would have been the "easy way out", so to speak, since many religious people have their favorite passages of scripture that they regurgitate on a regular basis without actually thinking about what they mean. I don't see many of those "typical" passages in Ironhold's list, but rather a collection of quotes that may actually catch people off guard and make them stop and think for a while.

I had a teacher once who said something that stuck with me:

In order to make a change to any system, including a human being, you have to introduce an appropriate disturbance. Too little disturbance won't register and the system keeps doing what it's been doing all along. Too much disturbance creates resistance. Either way, nothing's changing.

By taking less known quotes from well known places, Ironhold is keeping to this. He's disturbing the readers enough to pique their interests, but not so much that they'll resist the input altogether.

If there's just one reader who stops, thinks and makes a positive change in his/her life, or at least just comes away from it with a broader view, I'd say it's been worth the effort.

I've known the assistant editor for a while now, and in fact he and I have both been at the paper longer than the head editor. Because of this, he'll sometimes let me take a peek at things as they're being done up and we'll even occasionally talk about ideas for the paper. For example, the other day we were debating the merits of expanding the comics section.

I was looking at the redone religion page layout, and noticed some open space near the bottom. It was far too small to run any sort of column, but large enough to look bad if it ran as it was. Hence me trying to find something that would fill the gap.

I had an idea to subvert a Valentine's Day piece into a teaching lesson on writing technique, but I'm worried I might have used a bit too much snark.

Mind looking it over?

Thanks.

**

Writing What You Don’t Know

One of the great axioms of writing is “write what you know” After all, if you’re brazen enough to try and write about something you don’t have a fair grasp of, then it’s inevitable that someone, somewhere will be calling you out on things you supposedly “got wrong” (whether you actually did so or not). In contrast, if a writer is familiar with the topic that they’re writing about, then they can provide more detail and depth to what they do.

But what if a writer has no choice but to write about something that they aren’t familiar with?

Suppose for a second that Valentine’s Day is coming up, and it’s expected that you’ll be doing a piece for the holiday.

Now suppose for a second that you literally haven’t had a date in a full decade. And that you usually mark the day by buying your own Valentines. And that you’re coming to suspect that you don’t even remember what it even feels like to be in love.

Now what?

One could just always try and fake it, writing as if they fully know and comprehend the subject matter anyway. In this case, one could write a dissertation on the topic and pray that no one notices all the fluff being used as filler. Good luck with that one.

Then you have the prospect of “cribbing” off of others who have dealt with the topic. In this situation, a person sees what others have done and uses them as inspiration… when, of course, not blatantly copying them. In this case, a person could listen to “romantic” music (having “mood music” is, in fact, a valid writing aid as it can help to focus on the work at hand), read “romantic” books, and/or watch romantic movies & television shows. This assumes, of course, that one can find any worth watching.

Under normal circumstances, researching the subject would actually be the best option. There are many resources in this day and age one can use in order to find information on practically any topic, from the library to the internet. A person could hypothetically become an “instant expert” on a topic with just an afternoon’s research; one could likely even find academic paper after philosophical treatise on the topic of love. The trade-off, however, is that far too many so-called “experts” in their fields are actually either experts in foolishness or experts in telling falsehoods, and so one must be wary of the sources they use; the more independent sources one finds for a given topic, the better since this allows for different views and might expose multiple facets of an issue.

Then, of course, we have a little something known as “hands-on experience”. This is where a writer takes active steps to experience the subject matter first-hand so that they can honestly say that they’ve been there and done that, even if only for a few hours. This could be anything from “volunteering at a soup kitchen to get an idea of what it’s like to work with the poor and homeless” to “spending gobs of money to jump out of a perfectly good airplane in the hopes that your parachute opens in time”. In the case of a Valentine’s Day article, one could speak with actual couples, speak with matchmakers, or even brave the local dating scene somehow. Good luck with that one, too. (Would I be out of line to suggest pepper spray and a flamethrower?)

Either way, a would-be writer has options. It’s up to the writer to decide which one works best given the specific situation.

Which part reminds you of that? What's actually written, or what's being written about? Just trying to figure out if you have a problem with the way the article is written, of if the subject of the article just reminds you of that person and his/her writings?

That's what I thought. Just wanted to make sure I understood you right

Weighty Matters

Folks, I’m seeing something happen that shouldn’t ever be happening.

If you believe yourself to be overweight, or people you speak with claim that you are overweight there is only one proper response. That response? Consult with a doctor, coach, and/or licensed physical trainer. Not only will they help you determine if you truly need to lose weight, they can help you determine a proper course of action concerning how to lose it.

It’s true that there are basic ways of getting fit, such as “eating right” and “exercising”. But so-called expert after so-called expert will tell you completely different things about what constitutes “eating right”. And there’s a plethora of work-out options available, but they often retail for the low, low price of “entirely too much money for equipment and videos of sometimes dubious merit.”

Yes, a person can hypothetically ask friends and family for advice. But there’s no guarantee that this advice will be useful, and in some instances it can be harmful. Hence the need for a doctor or another licensed professional to serve as final judge in the matter.

Why is my ire up?

Some months ago, a rather unfortunate exchange took place on an internet forum I go to. A young woman asked for advice concerning whether or not she was overweight, and if so what she should do about it. What should have been a constructive discussion was soon derailed by a rather unpleasant individual who felt the need to hurl insults at the young woman and those posters (myself included) who suggested anything less than the most radical of weight-loss methods since he viewed the young woman as quite obese (she wasn’t). He self-identified as a paramedic, and claimed that his abusive behavior was the result of dealing with a series of patients who were suffering from weight-related conditions (patients whom he said very repulsive things about, something that I have been informed would have cost him his credentials had his superiors seen his posts). He followed it up by posting images of people who he claimed to be “healthy”… including one man whose biceps were so over-developed as to put him in danger of bone fractures and another man with so little body fat as to be dangerously thin. It took myself and several other “white knight” posters countering his absurdities with actual facts for reason to finally prevail.

Well, round two happened a few weeks back. Another young woman came on seeking advice. Her family was convinced that she was fat, but her doctor said otherwise. Most of us focused on either helping her find ways to explain matters to her parents or offering individual ideas for losing weight or gaining definition. Cue another individual who, although a different poster, used the same basic line of argument: anyone who is “fat” needs to immediately abandon everything and lose as many pounds as possible. He held no regard for anyone who disagreed with him, and the obscenities flowed freely from his fingers while defending his “cause”. As I type this, he’s still at it.

Once upon a time, men like Charles Atlas and Karl Istaz defined the strongman, while women like Marlene Deitrich and Bette Davis defined the leading lady. Nowadays, it seems like society wants men who are overly-muscled hulks and women who are wafer-thin. In the process, we have issues like anorexia, steroid abuse, bulimia, crash dieting, and other methods of achieving “fitness” at the cost of true long-term health.

It’s time to break that cycle, folks. A little common sense can go a long way.

I'm usually not one for pop culture, but there's a new (and I believe healthier) beauty ideal being spread for women through the media right now. The "bootylicious" look. Hip hop culture is turning the phrase "junk in the trunk" from something negative to something positive and I think it's a wonderful thing. Personally, I've never felt the need to jump into bed with a woman who's so skinny that the only way to tell the difference between her and a bike rack in the dark is temperature, so I welcome it.

But yes, there's still a whole industry out there devoted to telling us all that we're not good enough as we are. In some cases they're right. There's nothing healthy about being overweight. But in most cases they're horribly wrong, because there's nothing healthy about having less than 1% body fat either.

Our problem is self image. Movies, TV and fashion magazines tell us we all have to look like Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johansson and for some reason we believe them. But take a walk through your local mall and get a reality check. How many people actually look like that? Even if you only look at the ones who aren't overweight, who look like they're perfectly healthy and take care of their bodies, very few people in the world are that beautiful. Chances are your high school prom queen, even though she may very well be prettier than most other girls at your school, doesn't even come close to these ideals and is very self-conscious because of it. Does that mean we're all ugly? Of course not! It just means that a lucky few are better looking than the rest of us. If anything, they're the "freaks of nature", not us.