mark Twain response

Point of Editing

History is the treasure from our ancestors and the most important guide to plan our future. Journalism is the representative trace of our history. Mark Twain is very famous writer in 19th century that worked in various fields. He also worked as an editor of journals and newspapers. His two short stories ‘How I Edited An Agriculture Paper Once’ And ‘Journalism In Tennessee’ show the situation of editing journals and newspapers in 19^th century. He portrayed that the journalism of the 19^th century was biased and violent and criticized that papers should be interest to all the classes. In addition, editing gives feedback to writers without missing point.

In short story, Journalism in Tennessee, Mark Twain wrote “You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it calls forth”. (Twain, 6) In the journalism office Twain felt that Tennessee’s editor has the “spirit” which is some type of Tennessee style of writing. In the story, he mentioned about Tennessee writing that “The southern heart is too impulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will wake up another hungry, too, and want somebody for breakfast. Tennessean journalism is too stirring for me”. (Twain, 7) When he was working in the office of Tennessee, he could not understand the spirit and the other editors could not acknowledge of Twain’s writing.

 Newspapers and journals would be different from now in 19th century of Tennessee. Today, some news channels are biased and unfair. However, by Mark Twain’s short story, the journalism of his time was even violent. Twain thought that editing plays important role for the journalism, that would support the writing content, but it should leave the point of the writing.

To edit someone’s writing, especially, for the specialty writing, editor should have some knowledge of it. That is, professional editors should take the responsibility of knowing at least the general information to suggest outline of writing to the authors. Editing is a solid process, which needs to bind certain contents together. In his short story, ‘How I edited An Agriculture Paper Once’, Twain describe that most powerful editing is edit oneself. He wrote “Who edit the agriculture papers, who fail he poetry line, yellow covered novel line, sensation-drama line, city editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poor-house”. (Twain, 6) In his short story, he criticized that editor is just a helpful source to the writers. This represents the circumstances when the editors should give some sort of main point to writers. However, as Twain says on his writing, the best editor is writer himself. This means that the person who writes can explain and easily find out what other words or phrases would suit effectively.   

In conclusion, editing can be a rigid job to make it greater and fancier. The writers normally follow the bottom-line of editors. That is why the editors need certain professional (at least common sense) knowledge on the concerns they are writing about. As Twain stated in his writing, if writer himself starts to edit his writing throughout his own writing, it would be much easier to convince readers and more perfect writing, since it is actually helpful for the content of the writing. Mark Twain portrayed 19th century’s journalism is biased, because of his work in Tennessee. He was hard to adopt Tennessee’s writing spirit and thought that it is wrong. I believe that Mark Twain wanted to describe the editing point and his opinion of the editing through his short stories.