AP, meet PHP

I’ve finally done it.

All the talk, all the planning, all the dragging my feet — it’s all over. Take that Information Superhighway. The exit to “The red pen meets the Web” is now open.

So just what is “The red pen…”? In short, it’s the musings, trials, tribulations and flat-out failures that a lowly copy editor in training will inevitably endure on her road to multimedia excellence.

And just who is this copy editor? She’s me, Emily Ingram.

• I’ll be a senior this fall at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (And yes, before you ask, we do have more than just cows and corn there. … We also have football.)
• I’m currently interning as a night copy editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock, Ark.
• Before coming here, I wrapped up a year and a half as a copy editing and design intern at the Lincoln Journal Star.
• And before that, I worked for my student newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan, as a copy editor and slot editor.

Over the past few years, I’ve become pretty adept at editing for Associated Press, or AP, style. (Don’t even try to slip a “convince” past me when you really mean “persuade.” Same thing goes for “compared to” and “compared with.”)

However, I also know that when it comes to the Web, I have a lot to learn. I may have English down, but I’m nowhere near fluent in PHP, the scripting language used to create WordPress blogs like the one I’m typing now. Hopefully, over time, I’ll get a bit more comfortable with PHP, as well as with audio and video editing, content management systems and Flash.

As you’ve probably noticed, I don’t have my site fully functioning yet, but I’ve managed to do some tweaking with PHP files for my site. The poll in the tabbed section of the sidebar works, though. Go ahead and test your spelling skills.

Also, I’ve figured out how to edit the footer.php to change the “about me” and “disclaimer” sections.

I’ve started building my links section, too. If you want to read some of the most useful advice on online journalism from someone who knows what she’s talking about, check out Mindy McAdam’s blog “Teaching Online Journalism.” It’s absolutely. positively. the most helpful site I’ve found for journalists looking to gain new media skills.

Her handout featured in this post on editing audio with Audacity, a free program available for download, is super quick and easy. I fiddled around with the program a bit, chopping and slicing the catchy “New Shoes” song by Paulo Nutini. I’ve figured out the basic tools and how to convert stereo tracks into mono.

All in all, not a bad couple days. The blog is up. Slicing and dicing with Audacity made a melodic mess of “New Shoes.” And to make my blogging adventures helpful for more than just Web skills, I’ve decided I’ll wrap up each post with an AP style lesson — sometimes an obscure entry, sometimes one that I see wrong all too often. 

AP style lesson of the day: It’s toward, not towards, people. No s. Save yourself from the extra keystroke.

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