Taylor Baugh: Former Editor of the Digital Literature Review

What’s a pilgrim souls? Yeats might say that it’s who we really are, not who we pretend to be. We say it’s someone who isn’t afraid to admit they’re searching, a current student who is on a path, but doesn’t know exactly where it will lead.

By: Marisa Sloan

Taylor Baugh is a senior at Ball State pursuing a BA in Literature and minors in Classical Culture and Creative Writing. She served as an editor for the Digital Literature Review and The Broken Plate last year. She is currently Treasurer for Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society here at Ball State.

What made you become an English major, and what did you think you would get out of it?

I’ve found that I am continuously going back to editing and publishing in the classes that I take. Starting in high school, I was a part of the yearbook and loved the editing aspect of it. Being a part of The Broken Plate and the Digital Literature Review gave me the opportunity to look at editing in a new way with creative writing and in academic work, both of which I enjoyed. I’m having trouble deciding exactly what I want to do for a career, but I’ve been looking into a couple of different options including editing.

What drew you to this immersive learning course?

What initially drew me to the Digital Literature Review was the theme for last year. Many of the books, movies, and television shows I watch have some aspect of apocalypse within them. I thought it would be fun to look at apocalypse and it’s prominence in our culture a little deeper. The second thing that drew me to the course was the chance to do research over one topic for the whole year, which isn’t something that I had been given the chance to do in my other literature classes.

Please describe the immersive project in detail.

The overall goal for the Digital Literature Review was to produce an academic journal with the theme of apocalypse. I was a part of the editing team, so our team was in charge of editing the blogs posts from our classmates, reading through submissions to the journal, deciding which submissions we wanted to publish, and going through copy edits with what we decided to publish. Each person in the class was also required to write one blog post each semester and submit a research paper about a specific topic pertaining to the apocalypse.

What was a unique challenge you encountered during this course, and how did you overcome it?

One of the challenges of the course was choosing which papers we wanted to publish as a group. For the most part we all agreed on which papers we wanted to publish, but there were a few that were harder to choose from. Once it got down to about two or three that we had to choose between, we all just had to sit down and went around in a circle saying what we liked about each one and why it should be chosen over the others or why it shouldn’t. We could only publish so many, but this was a great opportunity to practice making decisions with a rather large group, which isn’t always easy.

What unique skills did you learn over the duration of this course?

By going through and editing so many different papers and writing styles, I learned more about my own writing style and the things I need to look for when editing my own papers now. I also think that this class offered a unique experience in getting to work with the same group of people for a whole year, so it was nice to learn how others work over a long period of time. It gave us the opportunity to really understand where each person was coming from when going about different parts of the project.

What did you find most rewarding about the experience?

The most rewarding part of the Digital Literature Review was getting the opportunity to work closely with a group of people towards one goal. It was really cool to see how all of our hard work paid off in the end with the publication of the journal and being able to present all of our research at the gala in April.

How has this immersive course helped you in internships or job seeking?

I’ve been going back and forth with different careers I want to look into and I took this class to get a closer look at what editing could be like. It’s helped me to realize that I would enjoy working with a group and working on projects where I need to edit or research.

Learn more about the Digital Literature Review, The Broken Plate, and other immersive learning courses in the English Department.

Do you know anyone who you think is a pilgrim soul? Send your suggestions to bsueng@bsu.edu.