SUFFRAGE AND THE MEDIA STYLE GUIDELINES

 

 

Style Guide:

 

GENERAL NOTES: Please include a featured image with every book, and every entry except Academic Papers (unless the paper has truly compelling images.) That way they will show up in browse. If you are unable to find a good cover image of a primary, suffrage era book, (e.g. The Bostonians), use a compelling author headshot.

Try to keep

 

  • Abbreviations:

 

      • “Washington, DC,” not “Washington, D.C.”
      • Pages:
        • “p.” denotes a single page; “pp.” refers to a range of pages

 

  • Dates:

 

      • Spell out the full name of the month
      • Write the day of the month as a cardinal numeral, not an ordinal one (e.g. “February 5,” not “February 5th”)
      • Put a comma before the year
      • Template: August 18, 1920
    • Decades:
      • See apostrophe guidelines below
      • To avoid confusion, write out all four digits whenever possible, e.g. “the 1920s,” instead of “the ‘20s”

 

  • Images:

 

    • For sources that consist primarily of an image, include both a square image as a thumbnail and a full-size image. To do this:
  1. Scroll down to Media, then select and upload the full-size image related to the source
  2. Take a square screenshot of the image (for display on the site’s homepage and while browsing sources) and upload it as the featured image.
  3. You can refer to the example below:

 

  • Names:

 

      • On first reference to someone, use their full name. In subsequent references, use only their last name, except where necessary to avoid confusion.
        • E.g. “Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded The Revolution in 1868. Stanton and Anthony had trouble supporting the paper financially, and it went under after just four years in print.”

 

  • Numbers:

 

      • In general, spell out the numbers one through nine, and use figures for numbers 10 and up.
    • Punctuation:
      • Apostrophes:
        • For possessives, see Associated Press guidelines
        • When referring to decades, don’t use an apostrophe before the S
          • E.g. “the 1920s,” not “the 1920’s”
      • Commas:
      • Em Dash:
        • Use the full em dash (—) rather than two hyphens when making a dash
          • To type an em dash on a Mac, hold down the Shift and Option keys and press the Minus key.
      • Hyphens:
        • Be careful not to use hyphens in place of an em dash
        • Use hyphens to link all the words in a compound adjective: “The five-volume report called for cleaning up the area over a 10-year period.”
        • Do not use a hyphen if the construction includes “very” or an adverb ending in –ly
          • E.g. “a very big project,” “barely legal procedures”

 

  • Names of Books, Publications, etc.

 

    • Italicize the titles/names of articles, books, films, newspapers, etc.
    • Don’t capitalize or italicize “the” before the name of a publication whose formal name doesn’t actually include “the” (e.g. when referring to the women’s suffrage newspaper Woman’s Journal, we’d write, “the Woman’s Journal,” not “The Woman’s Journal”)
  • Titles of Discrete Works:
    • For newspaper articles, chapters of books, and the like, use quotations marks, e.g. “Chapter Six: On the Subjection of Women,” in Collected Works of J.S. Mills

 

 

 

Source Entry Templates

 

  • Book Chapter:
    • For the main title, write:

 

“The Name of the Chapter,” in The Full Name of the Book

 

      • E.g. “Suffrage Newspapers,” in Taking Their Place: A Documentary History of Women and Journalism, 2nd ed.
    • For the Subtitle, write a full citation for the book, using this template:

 

Author’s First and Last Name. Name of the Book: Including Subtitle. City of Publication: Publisher’s Name, publication year. (Pages of chapter, when possible).

 

        • E.g. Maurine H. Beasley. Women of the Washington Press: Politics, Prejudice, and Persistence. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2012. (pp. 25-56).
    • Film Citation:
      • For the main title, write the film’s title
      • For the Subtitle, use this format: Film’s Title. Director: Director’s Full Name. Performer: Actor(s) Full Name(s). Production Company Name, year published.
        • E.g.: A Busy Day. Director: Mack Sennett. Performer: Charlie Chaplin. Keystone, 1914.

 

  • Newspaper Article:

 

    • For the main title, write the name of the article
    • For the Subtitle, use this format: Author’s Full Name. [if author is named] “Article Title.” Newspaper Title [City of publication] Month Day, Year Published.

 

 

 

 

 

Checklist—Before You Submit a Draft for Copy-Editing:

 

 

  • Select Type (Primary Source or Secondary Source)
  • Select Era (Post-Suffrage Era or Suffrage Era)
  • Select Media

 

        • A source may fit more than one of these categories; select all that apply

 

  • Make sure you’ve entered a Title and Subtitle
  • Check links:

 

  1. Are they accessible to average user?
  2. If possible, are they open source/public domain, rather than copyrighted or behind a paywall?
  3. Are they live, permanent links?
  4. Are they set to open in a new tab?
          • click on the link in WordPress, then click the “Edit” button, then click the button for “Link Options,” and check “Open Link in New Tab” in the dialogue box that appears
        • When linking to an academic article, use the DOI link, when possible—the URLs you see in your browser when using sites like SAGE are often temporary and may lead to dead ends in a matter of days—and include the DOI at the bottom of the source entry in this format:
          • DOI: 10.1111/j.1542-734X.1997.00089.x
          • If a permalink is provided, supply it.
      • Accessibility:
        • Whenever possible, an open source/free/public domain version of (or link or PDF to) a Source is preferable to one where the user has to pay; when paying is the only option, still include a hyperlinked explanation of how to access the resource, including public libraries and Interlibrary Loan. For undigitized archival resources, provide a simple explanation of how to access through the repository by linking to its “how to.”
      • When working with Dropbox docs:
        • After you’ve entered a source into the site, rename the corresponding document in Dropbox, putting “ENTERED” before the current document name
      • Check that the entry matches the style guidelines, especially for titles, dates, etc.

 

  • Check spelling and grammar
  • Use the Preview feature to check the entry for problems