Style Guide
Table of Contents
2.5 Originality of Scholarship
2.6 Online Sources
INTRODUCTION
We very much appreciate your
willingness to contribute to the African American National Biography (AANB),
which will be the largest repository of black lives ever assembled in our
nation’s history by almost tenfold. There is an
enormous need for an African American national biography. No similar work has
yet been produced that is devoted exclusively to black lives,
or that so fully utilizes the power of so many varied scholarly resources. No
research project, book, or web site has yet sought to be comprehensive in its
quest to document and record black lives, therefore deepening the overall
understanding of the African American contribution to American history and
culture.
African American Lives will fill this cultural void by
providing biographies of African Americans from every discipline and
profession. In the process, it will restore to history the achievements of
thousands of men and women whose stories have been nearly lost to us. African
American studies scholars, along with the talented editors/writers on the
project, are combing through hundreds of years of public records, private
writings, published works, reference resources, and primary scholarship to
discover the names and lives of blacks whose stories have never been told. The
project will, in effect, recover lost dimensions of the black experience. Indeed, the AANB will introduce many people to the likes of
Benjamin F. Roberts, a printer who in 1849 filed a lawsuit to integrate the
Boston public school system so that his daughter could be educated; Henry “Box”
Brown, a Virginia slave who won his freedom by mailing himself to Philadelphia
in a wooden box, then toured the country to promote emancipation; Arizona Dranes, the haunting blues musician whose handful of
recordings from the late 1920s are still sought by collectors today; Mary Ellen
Pleasant, a legendary woman of influence and political power in Gold Rush San
Francisco who used her own money to aid African American railroad strikers and
other black causes—even helping to fund John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry;
Annie Turnbo Malone, who almost single-handedly built
up a large cosmetics company in the early 1900s, became one of the world’s
wealthiest black women, then devoted much of her fortune to philanthropy; Onesimus, a slave who introduced smallpox vaccination to
Cotton Mather; and Benjamin Banneker, America’s first black scientist, a
reclusive mathematician and astronomer who rarely left his mother’s Maryland
farm, but managed to correspond with Thomas Jefferson and publish an almanac
that won him international fame.
A team of editors has been
assembled by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, and we
have reached out to hundreds of academic experts around the country. Your
contribution to this project will help make the African American National Biography a milestone in the field of
African American studies.
Return
to Top
PLANNING YOUR ARTICLE
2.1 Readership
The
encyclopedia will be used by students from the high school to the graduate
school level, librarians, scholars, journalists, writers, and the educated
member of the general public. Write clearly and authoritatively to a general
audience that shares your interest, if not your expertise, in the subject. With
the general reader in mind, avoid technical vocabulary as much as possible.
When technical vocabulary or colloquialisms are necessary, make their meaning
plain within the context of your writing or give equivalents in English.
2.2 Scope description
The
scope description appropriate to your article is part of your contract. It is
meant to guide—not restrict—your thinking. As a specialist, you are encouraged
to shape your article according to your best judgment, although we urge you to
cover the points noted in the scope description. If you wish to expand or
restrict the scope of your article or if you have specific questions about it,
consult directly with your assigning editor. Whether explicitly stated or not,
the scope description’s intention is to relate the topic to African-American
history and culture.
2.3 Word allotment
The
word count for your article is shown in your contract; it applies to your text
only and does not include the bibliography or boxes.
Deviation from your word
allotment—especially if your article is too long—will require editorial
correction. If you find that, despite every effort, you are unable to keep your
article to the number of assigned words, let your assigning editor know. Early
consultation will help avoid cutting or rewriting at a later stage.
A manuscript page, typed or printed out,
double-spaced on 8 ½ by 11-inch paper with generous
margins will contain between 250 and 275 words depending on your font size. The
following scale serves as a rough guide for number of words and pages. At the
end of your manuscript, provide an actual word count if your program can
generate it.
250
words 1 manuscript page
500 2 manuscript pages
750 3
1000 4
2.4 Consensus
of interpretation
Your
interpretation of particular issues is essential to the integrity of your
article; at the same time, as a reference work, the encyclopedia has an
appropriate, your article should alert readers to a debate, its implications,
and where additional information can be found.
2.5 Originality of scholarship
Your article should represent your own original scholarship. If you have written on the same topic for other reference works or in a journal article, try to reword and reorganize to offer a fresh approach to the topic. We realize that there are only so many ways to state facts, but we do not want to include already published material in our reference works. More important, we cannot infringe on the copyrights of other publishers.
The Web makes it easy to search for information and to cut and paste it from other sources. If you do gather information and quotations from the Web, make sure that you identify the sources in whatever records or documents you maintain. Be cautious about the quality of information you find on the Web. It is easy to start research on a topic using Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is not refereed by scholars and the quality of its content is uncertain. Therefore, verify any item of information that you find there—and on similar sites—in trustworthy sources.
We occasionally find that an article contains plagiarized material. Using another author’s exact sentences or phrasing without providing attribution is both plagiarism and copyright infringement. Simply including the source in the bibliography without quoting directly from that source is not considered attribution. Facts can and should be drawn from a variety of sources, but the presentation of the facts must be your own. For writing of this kind, especially in the case of biographies, we understand that facts can be related only in so many ways and that a biography necessitates a structure that may be the same from one book to another, but we expect contributors to submit work that contains their own original phrases and sentences. Simply changing a word or two here and there throughout a paragraph copied and pasted from another source is not sufficient.
2.6 Online sources
Acceptable online sources are sites that are sponsored by or partnered with major educational, research, or government institutions; are authoritative; and contain peer-reviewed scholarship. Other acceptable online sources include subscription-based Web sites like those offered by OUP, Gale, Greenwood, and other major publishers.
While useful for some purposes, such as getting a quick overview of a topic or direction for further research, Wikipedia is not an acceptable source and should not be included in your bibliography. In addition, although they may be of some use in writing your article, press releases and other material retrieved from a Google search should not be included.
It is often difficult to find book-length sources for topics and figures of the contemporary era. In such cases, you may include in the bibliography sources that have a broader scope than the specific individual or topic you are writing about (e.g., books on jazz for entries on jazz musicians; books on contemporary politics for entries on contemporary political figures).
Return
to Top
WRITING YOUR ARTICLE
3.1
Opening paragraph
All
AANB entries will follow a standard format for their opening paragraphs,
beginning with the first sentence. Below is an example of the AANB format for
first sentences:
Parks, Gordon,
Jr. (7 Dec.
1934 - 3 Apr. 1979), filmmaker, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the eldest
son of Sally Alvis and Gordon Parks, Sr., the latter
an award-winning photojournalist, author, composer, and filmmaker.
Each
entry should follow this format: entry term, complete dates of birth and death,
occupation(s) or reasons for renown, place of birth, parents’ names and
occupations, if known. The subject of the entry should be identified at outset
by the name that would usually be used in the historical record. For example, the entry on Joe Louis should
begin “Louis, Joe”; his full formal
name should be given later on: “. . . was born Joseph Louis Barrow….” The rest
of the first paragraph should contain a brief account of the subject’s early
life and education, not an overview of his or her accomplishments.
3.2 Body of text
Present
the subject’s life generally in chronological order, focusing on the primary
events that made the subject a notable person; significant events in private
life should be woven into the chronology. Place the
subject’s life and career into the broader context of history, and especially
African American history, with reference to relevant people, events, movements,
organizations, etc.
3.3 Marriages
Refer
to a marriage by giving the spouse’s name before the marriage, the year the
marriage occurred, and the number of children born to the couple. In the case
of divorce, identify the year a marriage was terminated.
3.4 Death and summation
Cite
the place of death near the end of the text. Place of burial should not be
given unless particularly noteworthy. The date of death, which is identified in
the opening sentence, need not be repeated. The concluding paragraph should not
be a condensation of what you have already said, and it may be redundant to add
anything to the chronological account of the subject’s life. More often than
not, however, an assessment of the subject’s place in history ought to round
out an article.
3.5 Living people
AANB
entries should be timeless. If you are writing about a living subject, be sure
not to end the entry with a magazine-like summation (“he lives in Pittsburgh with his wife
and children”); instead, attempt to write in a style that will remain correct
even after the subject passes on. Attempt to use concrete dates and the simple
past tense, rather than open-ended timelines and the present tense. For
instance, instead of writing “she continues to serve on several corporate
boards,” you should write, “in 1995 she joined the board of Acme Corporation,
one of many corporate boards she served on beginning in the 1990s.”
3.6 Identifying
people, places and things
Most
readers of your article will not be specialists. For their benefit, give,
wherever appropriate, brief explanations to identify people, places, concepts,
and objects mentioned in your article. For example:
Fannie Lou Hamer, a leader
of the Southern Freedom Struggle, . . .
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the African
American female swing band of the 1930s and 1940s, . . .
Signs, the early Black Women’s Studies journal,
. . .
3.7 Dates
Make
generous reference wherever appropriate to dates or periods of major events,
etc. For example:
The National Council of Negro Women, founded in
1935, was long active . . .
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, a fictional retelling of the desperate act of Margaret
Garner in 1835, . . .
3.8 Quotations and
permissions
Whenever
possible, avoid quotation from previously published works protected by
copyright, even if the works are your own. We suggest this for two reasons: (1)
to avoid having to secure written permission to reprint material from
copyrighted sources and (2) to encourage you to write an original article.
Use
quotations only when they are essential to full understanding. If your article
requires extensive quotation from previously published works, contact Anthony
Aiello for guidance.
Indicate
the source, with exact page numbers, for any quoted material as well as for
interpretations and facts taken from secondary sources.
We
will routinely check your article for material that may require permission to
reprint. But the responsibility for determining copyright status of your
sources and for judging the need for permission to reprint it is yours. Submit
letters of permission to us along with your manuscript.
3.9 Citations
The
AANB will not include footnotes. If your article requires an occasional
citation of a specific source, give it in a short form in the text (with the
page number in parentheses) and give the full reference in the bibliography.
For example:
As Anna Julia Cooper suggests in A Voice from the South (p. 39) . . .
Citation
of sources listed in the Further Reading
should give author’s surname and page number:
…where 15,000 people
gathered to hear King declare Meredith’s walk against fear “the greatest
demonstration for freedom ever held in Mississippi”
(Dittmer, p. 402).
If there is more than one
book cited by that author, give a short title reference; e.g. if there were two
books listed by Dittmer, the above reference would be (Dittmer, Local People, p. 405).
For sources not otherwise
listed, give a short parenthetic reference:
…is
in fact an “unrepentant black nationalist” (New York Times, 2 Feb. 2003)
Of this tendency, Lorde
said in an interview, “There’s always someone asking you to underline one piece
of yourself…. But once you do that, then you’ve lost” (Denver Quarterly 16.1 [1981], pp. 10–27).
But
try not to cite sources that are too specialized, academic, or old and
inaccessible.
Biblical quotations: Identify chapter and
verse, and translation, where relevant.
Use AV for the King James version; e.g.: “which
includes the line ‘Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me’ (Psalms 40.13 [AV]).”
Return
to Top
3.10 Plagiarism
The AANB takes very seriously the issue of plagiarism of any print OR online resources. AANB editors will check all entries suspected of plagiarism against original sources. If any author is found to have pl
