Make the Grade and Eat It Too
In the past, deadline stress meant time for lots of chocolate! It took many years of trial and error to learn how to handle deadlines.
To save time, here are some suggestions of what works for my staff. Some of these great ideas came from the students themselves.
First, sit down with your staff and give them the dates the deadlines must be in the plant. Since the deadline has to be mailed the
Friday morning before the plant deadline, this is your deadline date. Explain to the staff that a C can be earned by finishing their deadline
one week before your due date. If they want to earn a B, they must be finished one week and two days before your due date; and to earn an A,
they must complete it one week and three days before your due date. Since yearbook staffs are normally made up of many students who always
have to have A’s, they will set their deadline for the one week and three days before the day to mail the deadline.
To keep up with students who have already been used in the yearbook, have your staff highlight the names of students and teachers/staff
in pictures or print. The first time highlight with yellow; second time, green; third time, brown; and fourth time, black. This will enable you
to attempt to have everyone in the book as many times as possible.
Besides being on time, getting the pages a week before deadline will give you time to double check for consistency among the layouts and
sections. It will also give the staff a chance to see if any students are being overused and replace them in the layout. Additionally, it
will allow time for computer and camera problems and unforeseen troubles.
Deadline To Do List
- All copy, captions, headlines, graphics and picture boxes have been entered into the computer program.
- Each layout has been edited twice, once by the person in charge of the layout and once by someone else.
- Pictures have been cropped, labeled and placed in the shipping envelope or computer program.
- Envelopes have been labeled and include any special instructions.
- Names of students and staff have been highlighted on the list of students and staff in your school.
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To get ready for the proofs to be returned, place a hard copy of the deadline in a notebook called the “Getting Ready for Proofs” notebook.
This notebook has all the finished pages in it. A staff member that excels in editing should read the pages and proofs once more. Have that
person highlight the mistakes and write the corrections to the outside of the layout. Another person should make all the changes in the computer
and save it on a disk. This will enable you to find the mistakes before the proofs are returned. Also, ask the staff to label the pictures to
allow you to remember the exact location for each.
Now, when the proofs come back, double check the mistakes found, mark them on the proofs and write the corrections in red. If there are no
other corrections, take the disc and proofs and return them. It is a one or two day turn-around.
Using these steps, my staff has found success avoiding deadline stress. We still eat chocolate, but in celebration of meeting
the dreaded deadline!
- Barbara L. Campbell, A.C.
Reynolds Middle School,
Asheville, N.C.
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