Detailed instructions on how to submit and index texts, commentaries and information about authors
This information spans several pages. To browse through them, use the links at the bottom of each page.
A 'text', on this site, is in brief anything citable - anything that might figure in a bibliographic reference in another text. This might be a book, a chapter in a book, a blog, a newspaper article or simply a mimeo document.
Texts are associated with 'authors' and with 'commentaries' (see later in this menu item). The details of the author are standardised to make the author 'citable'. If the author is already present on this site, you can use the existing citable author. Otherwise, first create an entry for the author.
The two defining feature of a 'text' are permanence and accessibility. If somebody wants to track this text down they should be able to find the original. If a bank clerk says over the counter that the bank is about to go bankrupt, that's not a text. If you write a blog saying 'This clerk told me my bank was about to go bankrupt', that's a text. If the TV interviews the manager who says 'we are about to go bankrupt' and puts it on UTube, that's a text. And if they don't put it on Utube and they lose the recording, it's no longer a text, because you can't retrieve it.
We've tried to be as fluid as possible about what a text might be and how you can describe it, but some fields are mandatory and others are standards. The mandatory fields have to be filled in or you can't create the entry. The standards fields (see Metadata) are preferred but you can create an entry without them. The more information you provide, the more useful it will be to other site users.
Title
To create a text, you need to say what it's going to be called on this site. Hence it needs a title - which would normally be its 'public title'. Eg Keynes's book 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money' would be referred to as 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. However some items, particularly blogs, don't have very memorable names - for example "http://debtonation.org/2009/02/debt-detox-purging-and-parasite-cleansing/". In that case, create a title for it - ideally, one that helps cite it, in this case Debt detox, purging and parasite cleansing, which is the title this particular item has on the blog.
Type and subject
One of the big advances that has come with social networking sites is the ability to say extra things about items of interest like films, music and so on by adding keywords, sometimes called tags - for example for music, to say if it's classical, jazz, rock, and so on.
To make this site usable, we want our users to help provide a taxonomy. The website system we use is very flexible in this way. It's pretty intuitive but basically, you can start from the built in 'spine' system called a taxonomy, which we (the site editors) define, and then you add to that with a more flexible system that allows you to add extra categories yourself. These extra categories will be crucial to other users that want to make selections of particular kinds of texts - reading lists, bibliographies, study guides, and so on. So, for example, if your text is about 'Comparative Politics' then you want to flag this up so that any user that is interested in Comparative Politics can narrow her search down to texts like yours. There's more to be said about taxonomies, but we'll create a separate page for that, so that's enough for now.
Our taxonomy is still under development because of time constraints. We have created some rudimentary criteria such as 'History of Economic Thought' or 'World Systems Theory' and we'll add to these as time goes on. For now, it's a test feature. It's in an early stage and, eventually, users will be able to add to it themselves. At present, there are only a fiew taxonomy terms available. Choose one of them - and if you have ideas for others, let us know.
Texts are classified in two ways:
Enter both classifications
Authors
'Authors' are also defined on this site and you, the user, need to create the entries for your author. Someone may have done that - for example Marx and Keynes are already on the site. In that case, the 'citable author' is simply the existing entry. If there is no entry for an author, you can do one or both of two things
It's best to create the author entry first, but you can, instead, create the text entry using plain text for the author, and then, when you have created the author's citable entry, go back and edit your text to put it in there.
Where to find it
These days, a lot of texts are available in different versions and in different places. For example you may find an Amazon entry, an open access archive, a Library of Congress entry, and ISBN, etc. You can create multiple fields. Remember the principle is to provide as much help as you can to a user who wants locate this text. The user may want to buy it, find it in a library, download it, or all three. If you can, provide all this information
Other mandatory stuff
The other mandatory fields are the usual suspects - the year it was 'published' (made accessible), the publisher (for a website, the owner of the site), etc. But if there's anything you don't understand, or think should be added, let us know.
Abstracts, commentaries, reviews, etc
A big feature of this site is the ability to make commentaries about texts. That means, as the site evolves, users will be able to find out more about a text by looking at what other users have said. We hope that they will eventually be able to use this to construct study guides, readings lists, or simply to take notes for their own benefit to supplement their reading. What we've tried to do is group together, in this category, all the different types of information you might want to add about a text. There's a page on this site to tell you more: see [TBA]
Mechanics
Only an authenticated user can create a text. That means you must apply to become one from the 'User Login' menu, usually on the lefthand side of the page. We will then process your application, and provide you with a login. At that point you can start adding stuff. Before that you are welcome to browse and look at it, or send us suggestions from the contact page.
When you are logged in, on the lefthand side of the page (where the login menu sits, if you haven't logged in) you'll see a menu that provides options to create texts, and edit them.
At present, we have only enabled you to edit your own texts. As the system progresses, we'll try to make that more flexible, and delegate as much as we can to site users. We have to be careful about this, because otherwise, you might accidentally undo somebody else's good work.
This page will tell you about adding commentaries. It hasn't been written yet, but some of the information is in the page about creating texts and, if you feel adventurous, you can just try it out anyhow - use the 'create content' item from your menu. Like with texts, you have to be an authenticated user to create a commentary .
One thing to watch out for is that you have to write a commentary about something. You can either comment a text that's already on the system, or you can create your own text entry (of course, avoiding duplication if you can). But you can't create the commentary before the text, at least not the way the site is built at present.
This site contains information about both texts and the authors that wrote the texts. For this reason, it contains entries with information about authors, as well as entries with information about texts. That way, users can, for example
If there is already an entry for an author on the site, you don't need to create a fresh one. Eventually, we'll allow you to edit each other's entries, Wiki-style, but we are at too early a stage to do that just yet. However, if you think we should add information to an author entry, let us know and we will put it in.
IF you want to submit a text, you will need to say who the author is (see the section on text editing). So what information should you supply about the author? Basically, the information that a librarian will look for, if handed a description of a text that the author has written, and asked to find it. You need to enter the author's name as it appears in bibliographical citations. This isn't as easy as it sounds - for example, how would you cite Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
Then, enter additional information - at present the main facility we provide is to add links to places on the internet with information about the author. Try to apply the criterion of relevant information. The aim is not to have anything and everything about the person concerned, but useful stuff that will help somebody trying to build up a picture of her or his system of thought, works, and so on. Also where to buy her or his stuff. So, for example, a link to Amazon, to the Library of Congress record, to a Wikipedia entry, or if there is one, the author's own website.
Accurate representation and right of reply
We want this site to adhere strictly to pluralistic standards. This includes an attempt to represent, as accurately as possible, what is known about a person or a theory, distinguishing interpretation clearly from fact, and supporting both theory and interpretation with evidence.For further information, you are welcome to consult the IWGVT guidelines.
It's inevitable that there will be differences as to what the facts are. We are constructing the site so that, in the event that there are two or more views on a subject or an author, site users will have access to all of them.
As regards authors, this is particularly important since an individual person has a right - if alive, a legal right - not to have you or us put misinformation about them on this site. Please therefore attempt to be as accurate as possible and do not submit links to URLS containing misinformation, libellous material or material of an offensive nature.
We are working to provide a right of reply facility on the site for authors and users alike. Meantime, please apply respect for these principles in sumitting your entry.
This page is a guide to entering details of a text. It explains what we call Metadata
When you enter a text - a book, article, web link, or other type of text, you need to provide additional information, or Metadata: 'Data about Data'. This allows other users to find it, refer to it in citations , in reading lists, and in bibliographies, all of which we plan to generate from this site.
This amounts to a series of additional pieces of information about the document that your entry refers to - for example, the publisher of a text or the year of publication. You can think of it as a library index, which in fact does the same thing. The internet community is in the process of standardising this librarian data, and we want to adhere as far as we can to this standard.
We use the metadata protocol for indexing submissions that has been developed and is maintained by the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) which draws, in turn, on the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol is the emerging standard for research, enabling OAI compliant search engines to create research indexes based on the resources from around the world. However, the journal's contents are also available through Google and other standard, web-wide search engines.
This means that when you generate readings lists or citations from the entries on this site, it can be transferred simply to other web applications such as Zotero, Google Scholars, and so on. Eventually, we will automate this process so you can generate citations lists and bibliographic entries with a single click. The Dublin Core consists of 15 metadata elements that are used to identify and describe documents.
The elements include traditional indexing terms for identifying documents, such as Author, Title, Description (Abstract), Subject, allowing for more detailed or granular indexing by also including elements such as Type, Coverage, and Sponsor. The Journal Manager and Editor of the journal have selected which metadata elements are appropriate for this journal and have provided examples of each — based on the journal's scope and focus — to guide Authors.
You should enter the abstract separately. The idea behind this is that actually, there are several different ways of summarising or talking about a text and so, we do not want to confine our users to a single one. If you go look at a text entry in detail, you will find in it a list of all the commentaries on it, and this includes abstract. However, you can enter, along with a Metadata, a brief description of it so that when people are browsing for it, they can get a picture of what it is. Think of this description as a sales tag, rather than a literary work.
You don't have to enter all the detailed information in the Dublin Core, and one of our plans is to have 'librarian' users (you're welcome to volunteeer) who will go through the data fixing up missing links. Who knows, we may find a 'bot for it. Until then, put in whatever you can - the more you add, th easier you make the life of other users.
If you want to submit a proposal for a book to the series editors, contact us using the contact form from the main menu. Please also request an account from the login menu. When you are a site member, you will be able to download the proposal form attached to this page, fill it out, and send it to us. You need to be a site member first so that you can interact with the site - which you will need to do while preparing your book.
Please also download, and include in your submission, the marketing information form that is attached to this page. This is an important part of submitting a proposal. Your book proposal will be considered in the following stages:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Authors Book Proposal AB.doc | 15.94 KB |
| Pluto Making a Business Plan 2.doc | 22.5 KB |