EDITORIAL
THE STATE OF THE SALTERRAE
by
Mika Rekai,
1T0
A
s this magazine’s editor inchief, I like to believe thatevery issue of the Salterrae
is special. Some Salterraes are feisty
and political, they like to take charge,and are occasionally accused of being
a bully. Other Salterraes are artistic
and aloof, they see their estrange
-ment from the common reader as
proof of their creativity, and are hap
-pily misunderstood. This issue, from
a very early point in its life, neededspecial attention. It needed vigilantsupervision, more patience as it failedto develop at the rate of its peers.Now we use a leash when we take
it to the mall. Of course, as an edi-
tor, I had to ask myself the big ques
-
tion; if all magazines are born with
a certain amount of potential, wherehad this issue been compromised? The answer, of course, lies within
the earliest days of development.Ultimately, this magazine is only as good as the articles we receive,and on the night of the submissiondeadline this month, only ve ar
-ticles full were sent to the editors.
Of course we’ve been all been put
-
ting in the extra hours, but there is
no substitute for a well planned, care-
fully executed article on creative andinformative subject matter. I can,however, appreciate that this hard
to do without a certain amount of
guidance, so here is some advise.
You don’t always have to writeabout Trinity.
In fact, we’d preferit if you didn’t. Some articles are in
-
formative and well researched, yes,but they are generally written by someone is a position to receive or work with special information. Forexample, a Head of Arts knows a
lot about alcohol policy, and a mem-
ber of the Senate might know more
about the discipline code. These ar-
ticles, we like. Most of the articles we receive, however, are generalopinion pieces and they offer very
little that cannot be experienced at
any TCM or town hall. We prefer
to publish articles that offer some-
thing different and more engaging.
Use your classes.
When we be
-
gin studying at the University of To
-
ronto, we are given the opportunity to pick from hundreds of course op
-
tions to learn any number of things.But by second year or so, we are gen
-
erally stuck to our majors, and only
really experience one or two disci-
plines, but that doesn’t mean that
most people cease to be interestedin the other academic areas. So writeabout stuff from your classes, it ben-
ets everyone. You get your name inthe magazine while getting some extrastudying done, and we get to live vi
-
cariously through you, and experienceonly the interesting part of your class.
Write about what you want toknow.
I love James Bond novels,love them. So I decided I wanted
to be the authority on their author,
Ian Fleming. After a few hours of very enjoyable research, I was able to
bust some myths, and share his life
with you, the way I think it should
be approached. Not only did I put
a much article in the magazine, but
I can call people out on their Ian
Fleming bullshit. Win and win. So
if you are interested in say, Napole-
onic era navel warfare, cosmetics in
the nineteen-twenties, or the cur-
rent political situation in the Congo,but never really sat yourself downto learn about it, the Salterrae mightbe your opportunity. Just remember
to share what you learn in an article.
When writing fails, read.
The
best way to know what kind of articlesyou like to write is by reading actualmagazines and newspapers regularly.Next time you’re stuck, open a Globe
iv. the salterrae /
february
2009
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