Case Study: The Atlantic/Google
How I helped The Atlantic’s creative content studio by copyediting a magazine for Google in a week
Situation
In October 2023, Atlantic Brand Partners, the creative content studio of The Atlantic, asked me to copyedit a major project with one week from that day: a print magazine on artificial intelligence that ABP was producing for Google. The print magazine would include 16 stories (some interviews, some essays) in total, ranging from about 1,000 to 3,000 words.
Task
But there was an added challenge.
I only had 24 hours to copyedit each story. ABP would send the stories in Google Docs to me piecemeal, and I would edit them immediately: If I received a story by 10 a.m., ABP needed it back by 10 a.m. the next day. If I received a story by midnight, I had to return it by midnight the next day. Designers and other teams were working round the clock on this project.
Action
My agenda for October was already full, but the project sounded too cool to turn down. (I love copyediting print magazines.) So I rearranged my schedule as much as I could by asking my other clients who I knew might have flexible timelines if they would accept a deadline extension. I worked late and woke up early in order to meet ABP’s grueling schedule.
I also created a project management document in Google Sheets that would allow the ABP team and me to track each piece, word count, and deadline and rely on automatic notifications to reduce emails.
During the copyedit, I adhered to The Atlantic style, made corrections for grammar, punctuation, spelling, and syntax, and left comments with larger questions and concerns, as well as suggestions for fixes wherever possible. I caught mathematical/statistical errors. I communicated with editors to resolve larger concerns in a way that worked for all parties involved.
Result
In one week, I copyedited 44,070 words, allowing ABP to create a gorgeous magazine on a super crunched deadline for a major client.
Here is the resulting testimonial from Elizabeth Haq, who oversees editorial content and brand partnerships for ABP: “Thank you sincerely for the wonderful work you put into it. I think it turned out amazing, and the client agrees.”
Another editor who worked on the project, Gabriel Muller, said, “Thanks for all your great work on the Google Magazine. I’m always so impressed by the details you’re able to catch.”
Want to see the finished product for yourself? Check out the magazine and download it here.
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