PLANNING YOUR ARTICLE

This brief has been written to ensure the overall coherence of the book. It is meant to guide your thinking and will apply to all articles. If you feel it is necessary to amend the organizational style of your article, please discuss this with the editors to ensure that the changes will be acceptable.

1. STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK. Entries will be arranged alphabetically in four volumes. A fifth volume will offer a substantive and comprehensive set of primary documents important to the history of journalism. A sixth volume will include an extensive master bibliography (annotated), a contributor’s list, and a detailed set of indices.
   
   
   
2. LENGTH/WORD COUNT. Articles will be assigned by length. These are:

A-length article: 4000 words
B-length article: 2500 words
C-length article: 1500 words
D-length article: 1000 words

Each article should conform to the length specified above. When you are assigned your article/s, you will be told its length category. If you absolutely need to depart from the assigned length, please discuss this with the editors ahead of time.

3. READERSHIP. The book is designed for upper-level high school and college students as well as for the general public. You should write for this audience, explaining all specialized terminology. Avoid technical vocabulary and jargon as much as possible.
   
   
   
4. IDENTIFICATION. Do not assume knowledge of individuals when referring to them in texts. Identify them with some sort of descriptive phrase (e.g., “U.S. newspaper publisher”)..
   
   
   
5. INTERPRETATION. As a reference work, the encyclopedia is committed to presenting carefully researched, factual information about your topic. Please avoid presenting your own interpretation of controversial issues or unresolved questions. Rather, seek to summarize all relevant views on such issues. If, in so summarizing, you find it helpful or unavoidable that you suggest your own position, please do so without polemicizing.
   
   
   
6. GENDER NEUTRAL LANGUAGE. The book seeks to use nonsexist language, although writers should not torture a sentence to achieve it. Please follow these general rules:
   1. Avoid sex-specific terminology, such as mankind, and the use of “man” or “men” as the generic for human being. “People” will work fine in most circumstances.
   2. Avoid male pronouns to describe people in general. Also, please avoid the awkward “s/he” construction whenever possible.
      
      
      
7. DATES. Your entry should include references to important dates (and date spans), such as for wars, events, books, films, etc. Please double-check all dates to ensure accuracy.
   
   
   
8. UNDESIRABLE EXPRESSIONS. Avoid expressions that date an article in relation to the time of writing, such as “recent developments,” “ten years ago,” or “A new technology is underway.” Rather, say “In early 2006, plans were laid for a new delivery system.” Also avoid first-person writing (e.g., we, our, etc.).
   
   
   
9. IMAGES. The encyclopedia will include photos as well as a small number of maps and charts. Although we can’t guarantee that your suggestions will make it into the final publication, your ideas will be seriously considered. So feel free to make suggestions for images that might accompany your article, including relevant photos, posters, maps, graphs, cartoons, etc. If you do have a suggestion, please submit a photocopy or electronic copy of the image or data and the title and copyright page (if from a book), and include complete information on its source (make sure also to submit a photocopy of the photo or illustration credit page if applicable, or provide that detail electronically). A brief caption that could be included with it would be welcome. Sage Publications will be responsible for securing permission to use any suggested visual images or statistical data, but any help you can offer in this regard will be greatly appreciated.
   
   
   
10. DOCUMENT VOLUME. The encyclopedia will contain a separate volume containing reproductions of important primary documents—text of legislation, rulings, speeches, etc, as well as pertinent private communications such as letters, diary entries, etc. We welcome suggestions for any such material you feel would be useful to illustrate, explain, or otherwise augment your article---or the project as a whole. It would be best, for obvious reasons, if you sent the material electronically, or if you could point us to an online source for us to download the documents. If you are supplying the document in electronic form, please provide full source information in your covering note or email. Likewise, if you are mailing printed copy, the title and copyright page and complete information on the source is necessary. If the material can be found online or electronically, please point us to a full and functional URL. As with images above, Sage will be responsible for securing permission to use any suggested visual images or statistical data, but if you can offer any help in this regard, it would be greatly appreciated.
    
    
    
11. QUOTING PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL/PERMISSIONS. The use of quotations from copyrighted works, such as from newspapers, magazines, novels, or scholarly works, should be kept to a minimum so as to minimize the need to secure written permissions and to ensure the originality of the articles. If your article requires a quotation of more than a few words, please contact your editor to determine your need to secure written permission for use. See additional notes in “Style Sheet” under “Citations.”
    
    
    
12. ATTRIBUTION. It is not necessary to include parenthetical attributions as is the custom in monograph writing, since this is a reference book and should state and explain the standard information and analysis. However, if you need to cite the source of a theory or particular analysis, do that within the text. (According to the most recent reformulations of McLuhan’s theory by Terrance Gordan, for example, . . .)
    
    
    
13. STATISTICS. Do include the source of statistics cited in your article. This can be done with an intext attribution, as in the above paragraph. The full citation should be included in the bibliography, which will follow the text of your article.