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[captainsblog]

Just in the past week, I got to wondering when they were going to publish the papers from last spring's academic conference on the 50th anniversary of the Mets. 

Wonder no more, Ray; the email came today:

As a result of the success of the conference, we would like to assemble a selection of the papers presented at the conference for publication in a book-length collection.  All papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication, although not all papers may appear in the anthology.  We are working with a potential publisher, and it is their requirements that will determine the length of the book.

Please see the instructions on the attached page for details on formatting and submission of papers.

 Which would be behind this hyar cut:



My additions to the items appear in italics after each one, and relate to what I'm cool with versus have questions for Yoo Aca-demics about:

1.   Authors will have until April 15, 2013 to submit their papers.  Not a problem, since I tried to write the thing in essentially academic paper style. At least there are no potted plant references in it;) 

2.  The maximum length of all final papers is 20 pages, double-spaced and including notes. Mine's 12. Do I pad, or is brevity the soul I should go wit?

 3.  Authors should submit a biographical statement of paragraph length with their final paper. Did that, too- will update it to shamelessly plug the NaNo novel, among udda thingza.

 4.  The final paper must be submitted both in paper copy and as an email attachment using Microsoft Word.  Mail paper to: [snip]. This is like getting points for writing your name. Now watch me screw it up. 

5.  Papers must meet accepted standards of scholarship.  Text should adhere to the guidelines of The Chicago Style Manual.
Ah, here's where I could use an experienced beta. My universe is the Bluebook, aka A Uniform System of Citation, with a bit of AP Stylebook and The Gospel According to Sunstyle corrupting it from even earlier.

6. There is no Rule 6. I'm not kidding. This guy is either coincidentally bad proofreading or has an awesome sense of humor.

 7.  Use endnotes.  Endnotes should also employ The Chicago Style Manual.  Endnote citations must be complete.  I did these, too, and I think I ran them against one of a friend's previous papers to see if they matched.

8.  Do not include a bibliography. Nor will I include an English sheepdog. Whatevs.

9.  A list of items, drawn from your article, for inclusion in the volume index should accompany your final paper. Are they looking for keywords, or index-style referencing? 

10.  Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to use copyrighted material in their papers, if their papers contain material protected by copyright.  Permissions must be signed by the copyright holder.  Originals of written permissions should accompany the final paper.  Permission forms must provide specific and complete identification of the material to be reprinted.  The use of photographs, line drawings, or any other illustrations will require permissions by copyright owners unless you took the photographs or have done the artwork.  When quoting poetry or lyrics from popular songs the use of a line or even a fraction of a line always requires written permission.  I have two quoted sources who are friends, who I assume will cooperate.  Other than that, my original endnotes include references to a scorecard and magazine from the early 70s and to a couple of 2012 websites.  These could be tricky to get permissions on.

11.  Interviews:  If an author quotes from an interviewee (from in-person or letter or e-mail interview), you (the author) must obtain a written release from the interviewee explicitly stating that you (the author) own the interview and that the interviewee understands that there will be no remuneration forthcoming to the interviewee from either the author or the publisher. Oh. This is the one that applies to the one source. I think he'll be good with it.

12.  Quotations from newspaper and magazine articles:  To keep within fair use guidelines, limit a quotation from a newspaper or magazine article to 50 words or less.  If the article is brief, quote no more than a few words. If possible, go back in time and get your paper copyrighted before the original date of publication. 

13.  Quoting from Major League Baseball (MLB) or other official publications:  MLB is strict about its copyrighted publications.  Limit quotes from MLB publications to a few sentences at most. Because MLB certainly wants to piss off the room full of scholars and lifelong fans who gave one of its marquee teams some much needed publicity in some of the darkest of its days.



And there you have it. The dirty dozen (plus the nonexistent Rule 6). All doable in just over a month, but volunteers are eagerly sought to tell me how close I already am and how persnickety I should expect these Dumbledores to be over things like 40-year old jokes about the blue lines in hockey.

On a mostly unrelated note: if you previously got sent my NaNo, please give me your peace, love or understanding (or their opposites if needed) on that rather than taking on this task. Because with one and a half exceptions, nobody who got sent the beta has sent me back anything.  If that's just a kind way of calling it slush, I understand completely. And, after procrastinating for almost three weeks of the NaNo month, I'm hardly one to complain to anyone about taking too long.

Comments

[oxymoron67.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

You;ve gotten further in Academic publishing than I ever have. I do a lot of conferencing, but, since my position is more on the managerial side, I didn't have to publish, so I never tangled with it.

This also means, unfortunately, that I have no advice.

[platypus]

What "copyrighted material" did you actually include that needs a release? Ordinary use of reference material shouldn't require releases, and they were specific later on about brief quotations.

I'm not an acamedic editor, but I am a largely Chicago Manual of Style-based beta. (The fact that it is not called the "Chicago Style Manual" gives me doubts about their rigor. That, and Rule 6.) If you have no better options, I could always look it over for style, but it would be more general writing/text style than making sure the citations and endnotes were formatted perfectly (although I do have multiple editions of Chicago handy, so it's not like I'm incapable of looking it up).

[greenquotebook.livejournal.com]

Guilty party here. I spend so much time in front of this machine that whenever I tried reading your book, my eyes would cross. I have yet to take the time to have it printed to read in bed (my usual reading locale). If you want to send it to someone else to read, I understand. I really, really want to read it. I've just been lazy about taking it to be printed.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Send it over to me and I'll go through it next week. :) I HATE HATE HATE Chicago style but I'm familiar with it. Scorecard, magazines and websites shouldn't require permission, though if it's something like a forum then I always like to email thewm, if possible, to ask informally if it's okay to quote them.