Author Guidelines

General Guidelines for the Successful Entry

 

An encyclopedia entry is designed to provide a brief overview of a topic that is likely to have been the subject of numerous books and articles. So that you might be as concise as possible, please consider the following suggestions:

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• Focus on your subject. You do not need to elaborate on the many ways your topic might relate to other figure, places, or events in Greene County history. Remember your entry will include links to related entries that will help the reader get an understanding of your entry’s broader significance.  

• Focus on Greene County. The impact, influence, or connection of the subject to another place, if not obvious, should be mentioned briefly in the entry.

• Pay attention to your word count. No entry should be more than 600 words unless you receive permission from the editor.

 

Be Encyclopedic

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• Write objectively. If the subject is controversial, explain the controversy as well as conflicting points of view.

• Write clearly. Avoid jargon. The encyclopedia should be usable by scholars and students. When you must include such technical terms in the entry explain them clearly. Do not take for granted that readers are familiar with your subject.

• Include Resources. In the “For additional information” section of your entry, include resources where the reader can use to find more information on the topic. These should not include private papers, but items accessible by the general public. They should include websites only if they are your subject’s official site or a scholarly or academic site devoted to your topic.

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Be Professional

 

• Don’t break copyright laws. Most material published prior to 1920 may be quoted with no copyright problems. As a rule, only brief passages of prose should be quoted from material published 1920 and after.

• Don’t reproduce errors in older texts. Use primary documents whenever possible.

 

Submitting Entries

Send your entry as an email attachment of a Microsoft Word document. If you do not use

Microsoft Word, save the file as a Rich Text Format file (extension .rtf).

 

Include your name, and phone number, and the title of your entry in the body of your email

message. Include an alternate email address if available.