Editorial Role & Responsibilities

The Rutgers Magazine Editor is responsible for the following:

Preproduction

  • Work with staff to populate website of previous issue;
  • Assemble lineup of stories for upcoming issue;
  • Share lineup with Jeanne Weber; director of editorial
  • Share lineup with magazine staff, which includes three members of the Alumni Relations staff;
  • Generate contracts to commission writers;
  • Meet with art director to map content of magazine and determine photographers and illustrators to use;
  • Meet with Alumni Notes editor, who works in the Department of Alumni Relations, to review content of the section, supplementing any need the department may have for additional photographers or writers;
  • Arrange a production schedule with the section editor, who will submit stories to magazine editor for editing;
  • AN section editor will assign stories and art for Alumni Notes unless other arrangements have been made;
  • Meet with art director and staff photographer to review and assign photo assignments for entire magazine.

Production

  • Assign stories, including details of payment and deadlines, to writers upon administrative approval of contracts;
  • As part of a daily practice throughout the production cycle, monitor university communications, as well as other sources, for story ideas that are more timely to swap with existing stories;
  • Begin in-house writing assignments;
  • Edit arriving stories from freelancers and supply headlines and decks (upon acceptance of story, have freelance writer submit an invoice and give it business office for payment);
  • Assemble documentation of facts for each story;
  • Print story and give a copy to Jeanne Weber and a copy to fact-checking department, which also receives facts documentation;
  • Place electronic copy of the story in the UNEDITED folder (within the ISSUE folder, which is within the MAGAZINE folder, which is within the GROUPS folder on the server) in order that art director has text for assembling pages;
  • When a story is returned by Jeanne Weber and fact-checking department, make their editorial changes to electronic file and post the edited file in the EDITED folder and remove the same story from the UNEDITED folder;
  • Notify art director of the final, edited story: if changes are extensive, request that the new file be flowed into Quark layout in its entirety; if changes are few, indicate them in blue.

Page-Proof Phase

  • After a department, or feature, within the magazine has been completed by art director, and after having consulted with editor for suitable look and feel of its design, including editor’s need to cut and lengthen stories to fit the layout, a COMPREHENSIVE page proof is generated;
  • After editor has reviewed and approved COMP, it is routed to editorial director of Creative Services, director of Creative Services, and photo archivist in Creative Services, who approve and sign the cover sheet attached to page proof;
    • A) If changes are requested and okayed by editor, COMP returns to art department, which generates COMP II, which is then submitted to the fact-checking department for copy editing and fact-checking.
    • B) Fact-checking returns COMP II to editor for his approval or rejection of suggested changes and the page proof is returned, with changes noted and initialed on cover sheet, to art department for corrections;
    • C) The next round of the page proof—PROOF 1—is generated and given to editor, who checks to see that corrections have been properly made;
    • D) Editor gives PROOF 1 to fact-checking department, which reads the page proof for a second time and returns to editor for his approval or rejection of suggested changes and the page proof is returned to art department for corrections.
    • Steps A through D are repeated until the PAGE PROOF of each department or feature is void of errors.
  • After each department and feature has run the page proofing course, the entire edited magazine is printed and reviewed by editor and fact-checking team for last-minute considerations.
  • After issue has been sent to the printer and printer sends color samples of each page, editor reviews, along with fact-checking team, for final corrections or alterations to color.
  • Magazine is okayed to print.