By Bill Walsh, The Washington Post

Um, are you sure you want to do this? Copy editing isn't nearly as great a career as one might be led to believe. Then again, I find it hard to imagine doing anything else. If you think you might feel the same way (and you like the idea of working from 3 till midnight), read on.

Three things to get you started:

By Dan Rohn, founder, JournalismJobs.com

1. Sell Yourself.
Make sure to mention at least two or three of your best selling points, such as your resourcefulness or ability to work well on deadline. Provide good examples.

2. Show Knowledge of the Company.
Before the interview, review at least a week's worth of the company's articles or broadcasts. Show that you're already familiar with its audience and the type of stories it is likely to run. If you're interviewing at a job fair, try to get the inside scoop from someone who has already interviewed with them.

3. Ask About Training and Advancement
Find out about development and training programs for young reporters. How does one get promoted? Such questions will show that you're thinking long-term and looking critically at the company.

4. Be Ready to Talk About Your Clips or Demo Tape
Explain how you got your stories, which ones you're most proud of, which ones were most challenging, and what you learned from each one. Employers want to see how you've progressed. You also might want to explain how you beat the competition on a story or how something unfolded.

5. Be a Good Sport
If the interviewer tells you you don't have enough experience, don't try to convince them how great you really are. Listen carefully and thank them for their advice. The tips they provide could prove to be beneficial if you interview with them again.

6. Keep Your Options Open
If your goal is to cover education or politics, but the interviewer tells you the company only has an opening for a crime reporter, don't frown and say you're not interested. Always keep your options open. Especially at job fairs, you're often planting seeds for further communication.

Some Other Things to Keep in Mind:

The biggest mistake script readers make is getting so engrossed in correctly saying the words on the page, they forget to communicate with the human beings on the other side of the paper! They sound stilted, boring and put every one to sleep.

Don't let that happen to you. Here are 8 of my broadcaster's tips to help you sound great:

1. People speaking on the radio for the first time often mistakenly visualize a cast of thousands. People listen in groups of one. When reading to an audience or when speaking on radio, imagine you are speaking to an intimate friend. Really see your friend's face in your mind's eye.
2. Look up occasionally to make eye contact, even if there is only one other person in the room. If you are reading from a script in a studio, read to the recording engineer or anyone else who happens to be there.
3. Communication rides on energy. Speak with your entire body. Gesture frequently, even if no one can see you. When public speaking, if you have a portable mic, move around the stage. Imagine you are an actor in a staged reading or a newscaster on TV.
4. Pause strategically for a few seconds to let your message sink in. While pausing, make eye contact. You can also pause as if searching for your next thought.
5. Ad lib wherever possible. Put the script into your own words.
6. Study the way people talk in casual conversation and emulate these speech patterns while reading from a script. Eavesdrop in restaurants. Notice how vocal dynamics fluctuate: louder, softer. Also notice how the pacing of conversational speech tends to vary and how the range of inflection is wide.
7. When writing your own script, write like people speak -- bad grammar and all (skip the foul language, of course!). Be conversational, not grammatical. I promise I won't tell your high school English teacher.
8. Add a few select non-words to give a more casual impression.

By Walden Siew

Walden Siew, a reporter for Reuters, is a 1995 graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

So you're thinking about getting a graduate degree in journalism. In that case -- if you've done your basic reporting -- you're probably getting a lot of contradictory advice.

The crusty city editor or beat reporter is probably telling you it's a waste of time. "Graduate degree in journalism! You learn everything on the job," a Chicago Sun-Times reporter growled at me long ago. Thanks for the advice, buddy, but his sentiments came too late. I happened to meet him while on a treasure hunt that Northwestern University assigned to their fresh-faced J-school students to learn about the joys of digging through public records.

So, when I say J-school is not a waste of time, well, to say otherwise would be to invalidate a year of my life and more than $15,000 in tuition and expenses.

But besides that, I also happen to believe it's true. Here's why:

1. Experience. The great luxury of graduate school is the chance to work on a variety of beats -- a freedom few reporters have once entrenched in their job. I got to cover state government in Springfield (IL), Chicago politics, business news and also research then-emerging media companies such as America Online. The top J-schools also typically have good instruction on computer-assisted reporting, international programs or specialty training. They often have the latest equipment, which may spoil you. Accustomed to high-speed Internet-access, I was shocked to find Stone Age-era computers at my first newspaper job out of school.

One caveat: If you have experience in newspapers or an undergraduate degree in journalism, grad school may be redundant for you. That's a familiar complaint of some J-school students who did come in with more experience. Otherwise, it can be a great opportunity for discovery.

2. Learn From The Best. Look for schools that can boast journalists with impressive credentials. Get experience you don't get at a newspaper job. Any specialized training will help you down the road, if not immediately at your first job. Pay less attention to the location of the school and more attention to quality of instructors. J-school should give you the opportunity to meet and learn from experts in the field.

3. Networking. There's a long list of those who have tread the path before you; it's remarkable how often you cross paths. It does help. But besides the networking, J-schools attract a lot of quality people from diverse backgrounds, ranging from former lawyers and MBAs to the stereotypical Woodward and Bernstein wannabes. Learn from students, journalists and professors who you admire, and keep in touch. Avoid those you don't.

4. Alumni Services. Along with networking, alumni services often can tell you about new job openings, journalism seminars and the latest trends in your field.

Here's the other side of the story.

1. Cost. Enough said.

2. Experience. Most of what you learn in any formal training is rarely used in "the real world." That old Sun-Times reporter was right in that you probably will learn most of what you need to know on the job. But if we extend that logic, why go to college, or even high school? However, if you know you want to be a sports reporter and have landed your first job at the local paper, you probably are on the best path to getting your dream job.

3. Pay. While a J-school degree may be impressive, it doesn't usually pay off when negotiating a salary or raise. Most newspapers and broadcast jobs pay by experience, and this is especially so for unionized companies. Just another consideration.

Last Advice: Graduate school is a huge investment, both in time and money. Before embarking, make sure you are fairly committed to becoming a journalist. How? If you don't have a lot of experience, get an internship. Freelance stories. Get your feet wet before you take the plunge. Don't go to grad school because you didn't get into law school or don't have anything better to do. Good luck!

Monique Cuvelier is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass. She has written for numerous publications, including Smart Computing/PC Novice, Britannica.com, Family Software Magazine, Motoring and Leisure, Time Out, Aquent Magazine, Portera, CFO Magazine, EYE Magazine, and Apogee Photo Magazine. She is the author of "Consumer Guide's Best Web Sites for Jobs."

With luck, pluck, and skin as thick as whale blubber, you can be a freelance writer. If you're persistent enough and the stars are smiling down on you, seeing your name in print isn't as inaccessible as you might think. But serendipity and talent will take you only so far. You'll need to learn freelancing's own brand of etiquette and adopt a little business sense to succeed. Here are 10 important points to keep in mind when launching your freelance writing career.

1. Network. Freelancing is lonely work, and it's easy to lose touch with other writers. Making friends in the biz, however, can be the best career move you can make. Join some associations like the National Writers Union or correspond with members of a writer's e-mail list to meet people in your area. Besides patting your back when you've done well, friends can pass newspaper and magazine leads to you.

2. Know your rights. Publishing rights are one of the most confusing aspects of freelancing, but it's one of the most important to understand. If a publisher owns the right to your copy, that means you can't sell it anywhere else – some contracts even bar you from writing again on the same topic or demand that you sign away rights for articles already published. In a writer's paradise, you'd retain all rights, allowing you to resell an article to as many magazines or newspapers as will buy it.

Here's a short rundown of rights commonly sold by freelancers, but study other resources for a more comprehensive understanding: Electronic Rights: A publication may publish your work in any electronic medium, from Web sites to CD-ROMs. First Serial Rights: A publication may publish your article for the first time in any periodical, but you retain all other rights. Reprint Rights: A publication may run your story after it has appeared somewhere else. Reprint rights are nonexclusive, meaning you can sell them to many magazines or newspapers.

3. Be professional. Always turn in professional-looking queries and manuscripts, either on a discreet letterhead or on clean, white paper. Also check first to see if a publication is willing to accept electronic submissions. If so, make sure to format them appropriately.

4. Know the difference between "query letter" and "cover letter." A query is meant to entice editors into accepting an article, not to bully them into hiring you. Brash bragging and badgering might help you climb the corporate ladder, but these tactics are as good as a nonstop ticket to the slush pile in the publishing world. Woo editors with your writing prowess, not your capacity for self-flattery.

5. Ask for a raise. I don't know of one magazine or newspaper that will volunteer to give you more money. They're quite happy to let you coast along indeterminately on the same rate you had when you began. After you've built a good relationship with an editor for six months or more, and you've proven you are a trustworthy contributor, ask for a raise. Explain that you've been dependable on deadlines, available for rewrites, and flexible with article focus. Any respectable publication will do the best it can to provide you with at least another $0.05 per word, but if they act insulted that you want more money, walk away.

6. A check in hand is worth... Especially if you have just begun working for a new publication, have a check in hand before proposing another story idea. It's tempting to submit queries to the same magazine when you know the editor likes your style and you're loaded with great ideas, but resist until you feel comfortable about being paid. Many magazines pay upon publication, which means you might have to wait six months or more before your piece appears in print. Others pay upon acceptance, meaning they will cut a check as soon as they decide to run your article, usually about 30 days after submission. If you're not sure the magazine is keeping up with its end of the bargain, hold tight before sending in anything else.

7. Submit your article ahead of time. Try to turn in your articles a week ahead of time. Harried editors love a head start, and they'll be glad they can count on you to not only make deadline, but to beat it. If a week ahead of time isn't possible, at least shoot for the day before.

8. Keep communication open. No doubt, your job is to make the editors' job easy. That's what they hired you. Make it a habit, then, to check in to make sure you're on the right track. This means first submitting an outline, then maybe the first page. If you have any doubt about a source or the direction a story should take, touch base with your editor, either by phone or a quick e-mail.

9. Submit error-free copy. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway.Make absolutely sure your manuscript is rid of errors. It's harder than itsounds. Thanks to word processors and the likelihood of typos, mistakes can infiltrate. Let your article sit an extra day before revising it, read it out loud, have a friend read it to you, do whatever it takes to iron the wrinkles from your articles.

10. Don't be afraid to be late. Believe it or not, editors understand when you can't meet a deadline. Anything can happen, from family emergencies to troublesome sources pulling out at the last minute. As long as you're up-front and give them as much notice as possible that you're late, your editors won't mind.

My pursuit for new co-workers always focuses on the person first, the journalist second. For many reasons, I want to work with good people.