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CW3 Guidelines for Contributors
Corvey Women Writers on the Web: an Electronic Guide to Literature 1796-1834 (CW3) is a resource which combines factual data, textual interpretation, and cultural history, linked to the holdings of the Corvey Library. We welcome material from academics, students, and independent scholars. Contributions will be sent anonymously to two specialists in the field for review, and those accepted will be credited in the manner of a conventional publication.
Contents
· bibliography - primary and secondary works
· biographical sketches
· contextual material - primary and secondary
· critical essay
· images
· keyword classification
· reception - survey
· reviews - primary
· synopses
| Editor: | Emma Clery, Sheffield Hallam University |
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Associate Editor: |
Julie Shaffer, SHU/University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh |
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SHU Editorial Committee: |
Philip Cox, Lisa Hopkins, Robert Miles, Sara Mills, Mary Peace |
| Advisory Panel: | Isobel Armstrong, Stephen Behrendt, Edward Copeland, Stuart Curran, Paula Feldman, Peter Garside, Isobel Grundy, Anne Mellor, James Raven, Rainer Schöwerling, Judy Simons, Clifford Siskin, Jane Spencer, Janet Todd |
Hundreds of women writers were active in the literary marketplace at this time, but until recently only a handful have featured in the accounts of literary historians. Now, thanks to the impact of feminism, historicism and bibliographical studies, we are beginning to know far more about the scope of women's writing, and to understand better the significance of women as writers within the wider culture.
The pace of scholarly excavation has accelerated in the past ten years. Reprints of neglected works and publications making available new findings are constantly appearing. These are the results of the activity of a growing number of researchers throughout the world. But the wheels of conventional publishing are slow to turn, and there are constraints imposed by editorial practices and economic considerations.
The Internet provides the possibility of new kinds of academic publication. Already there are many successful and well-respected electronic scholarly journals. The CW3 is designed as an electronic journal of an organically evolving, varied, and permanent kind: the first of a new genus, perhaps. While maintaining high standards of scholarship, it permits more flexible dissemination of research on romantic-era women's writing. At the same time, the material will unfold the contents of a specific historical library collection and the careers of those authors represented there.
Contributions may take a variety of forms: biographical information, bibliographies, synopses, critical essays, surveys of reception. Primary material in digitized form is also welcome. CW3 will serve as an authoritative reference source while remaining a work-in-process, properly reflecting the open-ended nature of all intellectual enquiry.
((Texts accepted for publication will be issued with an ISBN number and protected by copyright.?)) [Ed: We are currently looking into the issue of copyright.] This will not, however, prevent authors from republishing material elsewhere should they so wish, provided they give appropriate acknowledgement to CW3.
We welcome the following types of contribution:
- biographical, contextual and critical contributions, along with surveys of reception, will be submitted for formal peer review by two leading specialists in the field.
- bibliographies, keyword classifications, and synopses will be reviewed internally by members of the Editorial Committee.
- images and primary reviews.
Contributions should be in electronic form, preferably in HTML format, otherwise as a Microsoft Word document or in Rich Text Format (RTF). Please note that different types of contributions should be sent to different editors, specified on pages for each type of contribution.
For guidelines on format for contributions, refer to our House Style.
Bibliography - Primary and Secondary Works
Contributions may take the form of:
- a comprehensive bibliography of all works by a single author included in CW3;
- a comprehensive or select bibliography of secondary publications on a single author included in CW3, which may be annotated;
- a combination of (1) and (2);
- a bibliography of works relating to a specific text in CW3.
For an example of a combined bibliography, see Ken A. Bugajski's 'Joanna Baillie: An Annotated Bibliography' (available at www-sul.stanford.edu/mirrors/romnet/bwpbaillie.html) published by Romanticism on the Net.
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Julie Shaffer. Bibliographies will be reviewed internally by members of the Editorial Committee.
Contributions may take the form of:
- primary material relating to the life of an author included in CW3, such as early dictionary entries or journal articles (i.e. work not in copyright), prepared as digitized text;
- an original biographical sketch (with references for all sources used), or notes relating new information about an author's life;
- a chronology of the life of an author.
Related images are welcome; please see Images.
For an example of primary material relating to the life of an author from journal entries, see 'Sophia Lee', from the Monthly Mirror.
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Emma Clery. Biographical contributions will be submitted to a formal peer-review process.
Contextual Material - Primary and Secondary
Contributions may take the form of:
- primary material on the general theme of women as professional writers or the reception of women's writing, such as contemporary periodical articles or extracts from diaries, correspondence, and educational treatises;
- new work on the conditions of female literary production, which could include explorations of women's professional relations with publishers, periodicals, and newspapers, methods of marketing, the role of circulating libraries and review journals, etc.
Related images are welcome; please see Images.
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Emma Clery. Contextual contributions will be submitted to a formal peer-review process.
We welcome scholarly articles on works listed in the CW3, and particularly any dealing with work by relatively unknown authors. Contributions can be any length up to about 10,000 words.
Related images are welcome; please see Images.
Use superscript or note numbers in bold in brackets to indicate note numbers in the text or and type notes at the end of the document; for other guidelines to presentation, see House Style.
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Emma Clery. Essays will be submitted to a formal peer-review process.
We welcome the donation of:
- images from the period of women writing or reading;
- portraits of authors included in CW3, or pictures showing aspects of their lives eg relatives, homes, associated locations;
- illustrations from editions of works by women included in the CW3 catalogue.
Where possible please send the image as an electronic file, preferably in high-resolution JPG format; otherwise send a photograph, a slide, or a high quality photocopy. Include full details of your source.
Please note that while engravings taken from early periodicals and published works are out of copyright and can be freely reproduced, other material, such as paintings, drawings and caricatures, can only be reproduced with permission from the owner. In the latter case, permission should be arranged in advance of the donation.
All donations of images will be gratefully acknowledged.
Contributions can be sent to Dr Emma Clery.
Many of the books in the Corvey Collection are virtually unknown and difficult to obtain. As a contribution to CW3, scholars and students at Sheffield Hallam University have developed a system of keyword classifications. Each text used in research is accorded a selection of factual and interpretative keywords. Eventually, the system will provide reseachers using CW3 on the Internet with a means of carrying out detailed searches.
For instance, if researchers want to find works that have colonialism as a central concern, they will be able to select the word from the search engine index, and a 'hit list' of book titles will appear with the word 'colonialism' either in the synopsis or among the keywords attached to it. They might then enter related terms like 'slavery,' or 'West Indies', or 'emigration'.
We would welcome the involvement of those researching women's writing at other institutions, including students. If you are interested in contributing to this aspect of the project, please contact Dr. Emma Clery.
There are two sorts of keyword classifications: factual and interpretive. The following information on choosing keywords is given to undergraduate students involved in the 'Adopt an Author' scheme at Sheffield Hallam University, out of which the student journal, Corinne, evolved; more advanced scholars may, of course, ignore instructions to consult their supervisor.
- Not all of the types of keyword suggested below will be relevant in every case, though a genre classification must always be included.
- There is considerable flexibility in some areas (particularly the interpretative sections), and the collection of examples provided here is by no means exhaustive - invent others when you find it necessary.
- The best thing is to identify anything you find especially important as you pursue your reading, and perhaps (as a reminder to yourself) why you think it is important. The final selection and wording of the keywords can be decided later with help from your supervisor, or the Corvey Project Fellows.
- Bear in mind that future researchers will be consulting your list; keep asking yourself what they might find particularly interesting about the text.
See Emma Parsons' The Convict, or Navy Lieutenant for an example.
Factual Keywords
| Setting(s) | Country, Region, City or Town, Country, geographical landmarks (e.g. the Tower of London, Stonehenge) - one or several, as appropriate. |
| Time/Period(s) | (a)
Past? Contemporary? Future? note all indications of date. (b) Historical events: note the inclusion of real events, e.g. the birthday of George III, the French Revolution. |
| Personae | Characters'
names will probably appear in your synopses, so here provide: real people, e.g. David Garrick, Queen Elizabeth I. Note also disguised or satirical portraits of real people, e.g. Adrian, Earl of Windsor = Percy Shelley in Mary Shelley's The Last Man, Mr Flosky = S.T. Coleridge in Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey (NB: this is information you will probably pick up through contextual reading, rather than on your first reading of the text). |
| Allusions | (a)
note real authors and other literary and non-literary texts mentioned
in passing, giving page reference in the Corvey text. (b) if possible, identify the source of quotations (e.g. using the Chadwyck-Healey database), giving the reference for the source and the page reference for the Corvey text. Use your judgement about these, and pursue your own interests. If there is an occasional proverb or quotation from Shakespeare or the Bible, but you don't see them as very significant, there is no need to spend time on them. But quotations can be useful way of tracing lines of influence from other contemporary or near-contemporary authors. |
| Genre | (a)
Novel, short story, poetry, drama, other. (b) Form: e.g. first person narrative, third person narrative, epistolary, blank verse. When you are dealing with a collection of stories, poems, or plays, identify the form of each where possible, e.g. in the case of poems, whether they are odes, sonnets, ballads, etc. (c) Sub-genres - you can choose a selection of the terms suggested below, or adopt other terms (subject to discussion with your supervisor); if one mode is predominant, type it in capitals and put the rest in lower case. * prose - domestic, sentimental, didactic, gothic, historical, fashionable, political (radical, liberal, conservative, feminist, abolitionist, other?), satirical, orientalist, fantasy, Utopian. * poetry - where relevant, note a prevailing idiom by using the categories from the prose section, e.g. sentimental, gothic, etc. * drama - tragedy, comedy, melodrama, also adding categories from the prose section if relevant. |
Interpretative Keywords
The following categories are unavoidably loose and overlapping. Use the numbered category titles as a framework but do not worry too much about how to place a particular keyword; ultimately they can be grouped together.
When researchers use the CW3 search engine, the keyword they enter will lead them to the relevant text, regardless of where the word is placed in the list.
| Family and Sexuality | Note any family situations or relations that are dealt with particularly fully or strikingly, e.g. marriage, adultery, love triangle, divorce, bigamy, inheritance, disinheritance, adoption, illegitimacy, incest; familialization (a character's viewing or 'adopting' those not related to him/herself as family); cry of blood (innately recognizing family members that characters did not previously know to be family). Note also specific family relations that are central to the text, e.g. mother-son, father-daughter, sister-brother, between sisters. You can choose any other terms, subject to discussion with your supervisor. Remember that the nature of these situations will be described in the synopsis, so there is no need to be too detailed. |
| Leisure and Travel | Keywords might include: theatre, music, 'the season', female 'accomplishments', fashion, reading, drawing, drinking, gambling; the 'Grand Tour', tourism, the taste for the picturesque or the sublime; specific modes of travel if they are prominent (e.g. by carriage, by boat). |
| Economics and Work | Note if any of the following are dealt with particularly fully or centrally: debt, credit, bankruptcy, banking, legacy (if not connected with family inheritance), robbery, slavery, colonialism, men's work (specify), women's work (specify, e.g. needlework, teaching, prostitution). |
| Other Social Institutions | Other forms of institution, apart from the family and economic structures, may be prominent, e.g. Parliament or local government (might include elections), the church (include specific denominations), the army, education (by governess, tutor, or parents; at school, at university), the law and the penal system (prison, execution), medicine (might include hospitals, spas, or treatment of specific diseases). |
| Crime | E.g. murder, assault, rape, kidnap, robbery, forgery, fraud, debt. |
| Other Thematic Concerns | Any of the categories already mentioned in this section can emerge as a theme, i.e. a subject of extended reflection or debate. But it may be appropriate in a few cases to offer a more abstract category, such as 'religious faith', 'misanthropy', 'urban life', or 'poetic vocation'. |
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Emma Clery.
We welcome essays of any length that throw new light on the reception of an individual author's writings. Contributions may take the form of a comprehensive survey of periodical reviews, or examine more closely a specific aspect of reception; for instance, reviews in journals directed at female readers, or the discovery of responses in forms of private writing, such as diaries or correspondence.
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Julie Shaffer.
Contributions of early reviews of works represented in CW3, prepared in digital form, are welcome, and will be gratefully acknowledged. Please be sure to give full details of the source.
For an example, see the review of The Daughters of Isenberg, by Alicia Palmer.
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Julie Shaffer.
In conjunction with the Keyword Classifications, scholars and students at Sheffield Hallam University are currently producing synopses of narrative works, and descriptions of poetry collections included in CW3. Like the keywords, the synopses will eventually become a searchable resource within the Database, enabling researchers to identify rare or unknown texts relevant to their interests.
We would welcome the involvement of researchers into women's writing elsewhere, including students. If you are interested in contributing to this aspect of the project, please contact Dr. Emma Clery.
Guidelines are as follows:
· synopses should be approximately 500 to 1,000 words long;
· stick to bare description, without introducing any context or
critical interpretation;
· if there is a Dedication or Preface to your text, please do,
in the first paragraph, make a summary of its contents, and if it seems
particularly interesting, add a transcript or xerox of the Dedication
or Preface as an appendix.
For an example see the synopsis of Mrs Meeke's The Mysterious Wife by E.J. Clery
Contributions should be submitted to Dr Emma Clery.
As ever in the matter of house style, consistency is the most important rule, in spelling, hyphenation, referencing, capitalization, etc. There is some room for variation provided each contribution is internally consistent.
However, the editorial style for the SHU Corvey Project Website, of which CW3 forms a part, should be followed whenever possible. On the whole, practices are in accordance with the current MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (5th edition, 1999), and this can be used to resolve most queries. An important exception is the system of citation; this and other specialised aspects of text for CW3 are dealt with in the sections which follow.
Endnotes and Citation within the Text
Please use endnotes rather than footnotes. Documents in HTML format do not have the automatic capacity for endnotes found in regular word-processing programmes, and all contributions will need to be converted to HTML. It is therefore important, whatever programme you are using, to keep endnotes to a minimum (only for essential additional information). When using endnotes, use superscript to indicate note numbers in the text, or, if you cannot do so, indicate the note number in bold in brackets, e.g. [3]. The text of the endnote should be keyed in manually at the end of the document. Please also use the author-date system of citation to reference quotations and allusions in your text, e.g. (Hofkosh, 1998: 11) or (Feldman and Kelley, 1995: 21). After the first citation, a frequently-quoted primary text can be indicated with an abbreviation before the page number, e.g. for page 871 of Frances Burney's The Wanderer: (W, 871).
For guidelines to citation of electronic texts, see the MLA Handbook.
Each biographical or critical essay, or study of reception, should be followed by a bibliography of works cited and consulted. Unless the bibliography is very extensive, there is no need to list primary and secondary texts in separate sections. Again, the bibliography should follow the system of author-date citation, e.g.
Burney, Frances. 1991. The Wanderer, ed. Margaret Anne Doody, Robert
L. Mack, Peter Sabor. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Feldman, Paula R., and Theresa M. Kelley, eds. 1995. Romantic Women Writers:
Voices and Countervoices. Hanover: UP of New England.
Hofkosh, Sonia. 1998. Sexual Politics and the Romantic Author. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP.
Electronic Format
Contributions should be submitted in electronic form, preferably in HTML format, otherwise as a Microsoft Word document or in Rich Text Format (RTF).
Formatting Primary Material
Please retain the original format as far as possible, especially in terms of spelling and use of italics. Extended quotations within your primary source, e.g. quotations from a novel included within a review, should be provided in block quote format. If the document capitalises entire words in ways that do not seem significant (e.g. proper names throughout a review), provide them in upper and lower case, as one would in current English practice. Signal page breaks by putting in the new page number in brackets between the last word of the previous page and the first word of the new page, e.g. for a quotation running from page one to page two: 'It is a truth [2] universally acknowledged...'
Spelling Conventions
The Corvey Project Website is based in Britain, and the editorial content therefore follows British spelling conventions. Contributors may use alternative spelling conventions, i.e. American, if they prefer. However, words given in alternative spellings may not be picked up by the CW3 search engine.
Word Length of Submissions
The only types of contribution with specified limits are Keyword Classifications, which should be approximately 20 to 30 words, and Synopses, which should be approximately 500-1,000 words. These contributions are restricted to allow for greater accuracy and efficiency in detailed searches. Otherwise, one of the great benefits of an electronic publication of this sort is its flexibility: there is no restriction of space as there is in printed journals, and no need for a uniform pattern of texts of equal length. They may vary from short notes to substantial critical essays. However, as a rough measure, texts should not in general exceed 10,000 words.
Contributions can be sent via e-mail (as attached file), or on disk to the following addresses:
e-mail: e.j.clery@shu.ac.uk
Corvey Women Writers on the Web
English Studies
Sheffield Hallam University
32 Collegiate Crescent
Sheffield S10 2BP
U.K.
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Until Jan. 15, 2000: |
Thereafter: |
e-mail: j.shaffer@shu.ac.uk |
e-mail: shaffer@uwosh.edu |
Corvey Women Writers on the Web English Studies Sheffield Hallam University 32 Collegiate Crescent Sheffield S10 2BP UK |
Corvey Women Writers on the Web Dept. of English University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Oshkosh, WI 54901 USA |