I'm not really sure where to put this. Hope you'll consider: Most magazines have their specific themes/cover story in every issue. This is usually the most popular event or the most important and powerful article in all write-ups of the magazine. And the cover story often become the basis of the main illustrations and phrases found in the cover of the magazine. In the case of a school magazine, does it need to have a cover story? If yes, where shall the idea of the cover story be pulled out, when any important event could just be written in the news section? Would it still be fine and appropriate if the cover story is directly unrelated to school, e.g., about Morality, Youth, Computer Age, Faith, Save the Earth,etc., but still originally written and researched by the reporter? (<--- in this case, certainly, the cover of the magazine would conform to the cover story, would the cover of the magazine be fine as a school publication?) If no, how should the cover of the magazine be designed, when there is no cover story? Whether there should be a cover story or none, the result will affect to the cover of the magazine. If both cases would apply, which of the two is better? And would it be fine if someone will concisely explain how the cover should be designed in each case (if any of the two are, indeed, appropriate). Also, regarding cartoons/editorial cartoons/comics/drawings, how could it neatly appear in the magazine? How could it appear as clean stroked, neat and professional, like what we usually see in the newspaper? Are there any kind of drawing materials best suited for this, or pencil or ball pen and scanner would just be fine? Another thing, is editing a poem the same with editing ordinary articles? If no, how should it be edited, or what things should be remembered when editing this piece of work? Actually, I ask these questions for our school magazine, in which, I was appointed as the principal organizer. This is my first time in this position, so, I'm not really an expert of the bests. The general readers of this would be the elementary and high school students of our school. If you have further suggestions, not only for me but for the editorial staff or for the magazine itself, I would appreciate it. Thank you!
Editing poems is going to be different because there's much more artistic liberty with things like capitalization and punctuation. In prose, the grammar rules are pretty straightforward, but in poetry, a lot of the time the SPAG aspect will be toyed with in a way that parallels the message of the poem. So if something is spelled wrong, usually it's okay to fix it (unless it's spelled wrong on purpose to create a double-meaning with something else), or if it's an issue like it's/its or you're/your. But capitalization, commas, etc are a much different game with poetry than with prose. As far as the cover story issue, that type of thing varies from one paper/mag to the next. I don't know if your school has rules about wanting to keep the cover school-related, so you should check. But aside from that, I think it's your discretion to determine which story best suits the theme. Talk to the teacher who sponsors your editing team; he or she will surely be able to give you some guidance.
Thank you for your inputs. Actually, I intentionally plan to ask responses from this forum before I'll talk with our adviser. But thank you, probably, our adviser could really be the one who could give me the best human guidance, as situations from school to school will vary. I will take note your suggestions. Thank you!
