Copy Editor Supplement

If you’re interested in applying for a copy editor position, edit the following passage as you see fit and attach it to your application:

In “Nature”, Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “I am not solitary while I read and write, though nobody is with me.” At first glance this sentence seems merely contradictory, it is actually quite paradoxical in revealing a truth. Reading and writing are often both very solitary tasks - ones that require no one elses asistance, but yet emerson with all his transendentalist principals does not feel this solitude as he reads and writes. While reading, he is with the author - following his or her journey - seeing whatever the author painted for the reader, experiencing everything the author describes. While writing he is with his own thoughts, but he is also communicating through pen so that others can understand and recieve his message, hence he is perhaps writing for himself, yet not, as there is a purpose in his writing - to be expressed to the public so that they may see what he sees, so they may comprehend what he does, about the world. Thus these solitary tasks are no longer so, though no one is tangibly there, no one’s physical presence is there, their spirits are felt, whether it be the spirit of the author or their narrator revealing the story, or the audience for the writer, listening rapturously as emerson equally as eagerly reveals his message. Indeed, these tasks can not be fully acomplished if thought of as solitary ones for people need to connect with the story in order to wholly appreciate their reading, and writers need to connect with their audience in order to be wholly appreciated.