To whom it may concern,

I have so much love for this newspaper, and for the people who run and ran it. All of you: thank you.

My first exposure to Hilltop Views was helping the current editor-in-chief Anna Pratts write articles. She was dead set on becoming a reporter, and doing a stellar job doing so, but asked for my help with some of the grammar and spelling (I’m an English literature major, and English is Anna’s third language). I didn’t think much of it.

Then I ran for senator of SGA, and the two who interviewed me? Sienna Wight and Lola Claire, then viewpoints and assistant life and arts editors, respectively. Thank you both dearly, because I owe two and a half years of my life to the fact that all three of us are Leos. 

After that summer, I met the scariest, coolest boss I’ve ever had — shoutout Chief … I mean, Claire Lawrence. Claire was so dedicated to this paper she practically lived in the office that year. For the reader’s context, Claire just graduated from UT’s journalism masters program and is pursuing a Ph.D. She’s a goat. 

From then on, HV became a mainstay in my life. I covered events, met people all across campus, learned how to ask unprompted questions, and sneak into buildi… — I mean, do grammar really good.

But besides the writing — and I did a lot of that — being a copy editor was raw fun. Cutting apart sentences, analyzing the building blocks of the English language in such an organic way, exploring the ins and outs of punctuation — it satisfied a part of my mind. And the skills I gained will stick around for quite some time. I’m a nerd for English, not sorry. I like commas and em-dashes.

But as any long-time HV member knows, I am at constant war with AP Style. Obviously, AP is an essential part of American journalism, and we owe a lot to their dedication to the craft of journalism. However… Well, I shouldn’t say that either. Instead, while writing this, I’ll make sure to go towards the wrong neighbourhoods, capitalize the Pope because I can, and use oxford commas. So there.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’m going to do my favorite part: thank and acknowledge everyone for all the lovely time I’ve spent with them. Thank you to all the editors my first year, Melissa, Kennedy… Chloe… and the others I mentioned above, for showing me the ropes and taking me into the folds so readily. Thank you, Alec, for being so open to criticism, and for letting me edit your book. Thank you, Breze, Jack, Emma, Zemira, Gabby, Mia and Enrique (ugh, why are there so many of you?) — my lovely writers, I’m sorry I left so many edits. Tate, Hailey, Michaela, the writer-to-editor pipeline suited you well. Jay, Zemira: we leave it all to you. Thank you dearly.

Anna Pratts — thank you again. You’ve been one of my longest friends here. I’m sorry for leaving you this last semester. But you led well. And you’ll go onto great things in Arizona. You were born for journalism.

And a very, very, very special thank you to Dalia. My co-copy editor, you kept me serious and down to earth. You know AP like the back of your hand and gently bring me back to their nonsense from my own nonsense. Thank you for your calm head and efficient delivery; I don’t know what I would have done without you. Good luck, next EIC.

This is my love — and thank-you letter — to Hilltop Views and copy editing. This paper has changed my life. 

Remember to accept your edits.

Love,
Max

Editor’s note: Many AP Style guidelines were ignored for comedic effect. I promise I did copy edit this article.