Deliverable 4- Presentation of Data

Editorial Thought Process

To identify good examples of editorial thinking, you need to begin your presentation with an objective explanation of the issue at hand. First, you need to identify the issue. To do this, concentrate on what you want to render and make notes of any main ideas that come to surface. If the proper words don't materialize, paraphrase and jot down just a few keywords. Your first attempts will be in the form of a rough draft, but somewhere within this draft is the main issue or take away that you want to deliver to your audience. Find it.

When you begin developing your presentation or written project, start out with the main issue or take away, and describe it the best as you can in the early stages of your draft. This issue is what you want your audience to remember, and is what will shape and guide the remainder of your work.

As an example of this exercise, the issue at hand is: “What is the basis for the editorial thought process?” This is the main take away or issue that the audience needs to understand and remember.

Now that the main theme has surfaced, the proper resources that answer the five W's and the H. Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How need to be stated. Include facts and references from relevant sources, and if the content is lacking, additional research might be necessary.

Question Prompts

Who? - you, the author.

What? - the process required for editorial thought.

Where? - the present time.

When? - whenever you create a noteworthy presentation.

Why? - to enlighten audiences on your thoughts and ideas.

How? - by utilizing graphical and textual information that you extract from raw data and credible sources.

Once you have accomplished your research and have provided the proper resources to substantiate your thoughts and ideas, you will need to defend your position by providing a list of reasons in order of strength as to why your audience should accept your viewpoint. Substantiate your position with a few knowledgeable references that will lend credibility to your stance.

Supporting and defending your main viewpoint is something you do to satisfy your audience. Supporting arguments adds weight and validity to your main viewpoint by demonstrating how it relates to various situations. Return to your main issue or takeaway, and think about a doubting reader or member of your audience who might question the validity of your claim, or what your claim can do for them. To resolve questions of this sort, you will need to provide specific factual data. However, most of the time, a good example will suffice by allowing your audience to follow your thought process. You don’t need to talk down to your audience, just keep the conversation more like a discussion and less like a deliberation.

As you provide your supporting arguments, you need to know when enough is enough. You do not want to resort to overkill, or you will lose your audience. Two or three credible arguments should suffice. Every supporting argument or example that you use needs to have a clear connection to your main viewpoint or idea.

As you record your thoughts and ideas, several questions will emerge.

First, why did the thoughts and ideas generated from your personal experiences come to be? Did your thoughts and ideas emerge from a moment of euphoria in regards to your work?

Second, why did your creation turn out the way it did? Will this change the way you will do things in the future? The answers to these questions could provide you with a better sense of writing for an audience as opposed to writing for yourself.

Finally, is an issue that emerged from putting your thoughts and ideas down into writing something that your peers might have overlooked? Did you make a mistake in your research or is the issue something that has been overlooked throughout the industry? If further research on the issue does not uncover any other information, maybe the issue at hand was derived from a location others might have ignored.

Capturing your ideas and making them a subject that people will want to read doesn't have anything to do with wording; it's about thinking. When you choose certain words to describe your ideas, you're doing it on purpose as someone who thinks about the many reasons why they do things. This process will give your audience an understanding of how each of your decisions can affect the results. By developing this capability for critical thinking, you're not only recording your thoughts, but each written word can enhance the way you perform in the future.