Ethics and Issues Surrounding Emerging Civil War Guest Writing
With content released every day on the Emerging Civil War website, there is always the question of where our next article will come from. With a bench of dozens of writers and historians as active members, everyone does their part to contribute. Besides our active members, we also regularly publish articles from guest authors. While the regular reader of Emerging Civil War may be familiar with us featuring guest authors, you may not be familiar with the process to get these authors and their work onto the site.
Emerging Civil War has two real missions. The first is to make access to information about the Civil War available to a wider audience. We do this with our books, podcasts, online articles, and symposium. Our other mission is to find and help support emerging voices in the field studying the Civil War era – hence the emerging in Emerging Civil War.
That does not mean that guest authors get to write whatever they want, however they want, and it does not mean that their writing is not checked. As an organization, Emerging Civil War’s editors have an ethical responsibility to evaluate everything that appears on our website.
As a result, every guest writer’s work goes through an evaluation via our editorial board – a multidisciplinary team that looks at everything from content to grammar to factchecking to style. The day jobs of our editorial board members include professor, park ranger, tour guide, newspaper editor, archivist, and graduate student. As of this writing, our editorial board members have collectively written 12 books on the Civil War. Of our team of eight editorial board members, at least four look at each submission.
Our editors also go beyond saying someone’s writing is good enough or not. Each editor provides me an overall summary of their recommendation to publish and leaves detailed comments within each submission document. We check everything from quotations and citations to copyright status of imagery to overall argument and why it matters. Just like we feel each guest author has an ethical responsibility to write their best, we also feel that same responsibility to provide the best possible look at everything.
To add to that ethical responsibility, everything is evaluated on a double-blind process. Editors have no idea who wrote a submission, and writers have no idea who looked at their work. When our editors recognize someone’s writing as coming from a friend or acquaintance, they often recuse themselves from a final recommendation, just to be sure everyone gets the same fair evaluation.
This all may seem like a lot of work, and it is. Editors spend a couple hours each week looking at guest writing, and I spend another few hours at least communicating everything to everyone in the process and drafting and formatting guest articles on the website itself. But we feel that the ECW evaluation process helps our organization provide better articles for the public, while also allowing those emerging voices to get their feet wet, get some real feedback from more experienced historians, and receive a chance to get their own name out there in the community. We feel this to be our ethical responsibility.
Here are some anecdotes from some of our more recent guest authors about how the ECW editorial board evaluation process helped them as a writer and historian. Their testimony is proof enough that the process is worth all the time and effort:
Arie De Young: The ECW editorial board evaluation process helps develop clarity within my works. All writing seeks to convey ideas, making it crucial that interpretation is successfully transferred from author to reader. The review board provides feedback that ensures my meaning is clearly understood before publication.
Collin Hayward: It’s a common saying in academia that it’s easier to write long than to write short. ECW’s submission standards have helped me keep my writing tight and to cut unnecessary fluff, which is helpful for any writer. As a historian, I appreciate the responsiveness and rigor of their peer review.
Devan Sommerville: For an aspiring historical writer, the editorial review process strikes the right balance between accessibility and rigor. Editorial review brings greater precision to my evidence and prose. It offers exciting ideas for future investigation. Absorbing and reflecting this input provides a strong motivation to further develop my craft.
Madeline Feierstein (now a full contributing member!): I have been able to grow as an independent researcher due to the multi-step editing process at Emerging Civil War. My drafts are reviewed by several parties, allowing each editor to comment on a particular part of the article. In fact, I appreciate when the editors build on or reply to comments made by the person who received the draft before them. This affirms that comments are not “unjustified” and that any cracks in my work are caught. This process has ensured that not only my best work is put forward, but that it is viewed first and foremost through the eyes of a reader. I have learned greatly on how to better polish my writing in my personal editing stages because of past edits provided by ECW.
Riley Sullivan: Going through the ECW editorial process has helped me improve as a writer as I get to see my article through different perspectives. Often, when I write on a topic, I might not elaborate on an item that I do not believe is important to the narrative. The ECW board helps me see these flaws and demonstrate the importance of explaining even the smallest of details to improve the quality of my work.
Tina Daniels: I found the edits extremely helpful to me. They sharpened my writing and helped me tighten up the piece. I appreciated the time and work they took to read and comment.
If you would like to submit your own writing to Emerging Civil War, check out our submission guidelines.
