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Guidelines for Readers of SAA Manuscripts
SAA will assign one to three readers to review most manuscripts being published
by SAA. The readers will be assigned by the Publications Editor with recommendations
from the Chair of the Publications Board and the author. One reader will be
a member of the Board and the author will suggest one reader. Usually one or
two of the readers will have expertise in the particular subject matter of
the manuscript and one will represent a more general audience.
The Publications Editor will be responsible for communicating with the readers,
providing copies of the manuscript, setting deadlines, collecting the reviews,
and forwarding suggestions to the author. In some cases, a reader may communicate
directly with the author (with copies sent first to the Publications Editor),
and, in other cases, a reader may choose to remain anonymous. This does not
preclude the author working with as many additional reviewers as the author
feels is necessary. However, the formal reviews of the readers assigned by
the Publications Editor will be used by the Publications Editor (in consultation
with the chair of the Publications Board and members of the Board) to determine
both major and minor changes that will be presented to the author. Some changes
may be considered mandatory and may require the manuscript to be rewritten
before publication will proceed.
Responsibilities of the readers:
- Readers will focus their comments primarily upon concerns regarding content.
Sometimes the line between copyediting and content editing overlaps. Thus
the readers should call attention to sentences or paragraphs that are unclear
or note whether sentence structure, terminology, or grammatical errors detract
from the author’s meaning. These may be issues that a copyeditor unfamiliar
with the subject matter likely will not detect.
- The readers should primarily examine the interpretation of the author.
If the book is a manual, does it reflect best practices and provide appropriate
options for the varied circumstances of archivists in diverse settings? Especially
if the book is more theoretical, does it reflect debates in the profession
and the literature on the topic? Simply put, is the book a fair and solid
treatment of the subject at hand? It is especially important to catch any
technical inaccuracies. An SAA manual may be the one book a repository buys
on a topic and guide a generation of archivists.
- The readers should examine the sources consulted by the author. Are there
major omissions from the bibliography or citations? Readers should spot check
footnotes whenever sources are readily at hand, and, if discrepancies are
found the Publications Editor may recommend a comprehensive review. Readers
should examine the manuscript overall to determine if the appropriate citations
are provided and whether any plagiarism issues exist.
- SAA provides copyediting services during the production stage; readers
do not need to copy edit manuscripts. In particular, readers do not need
to provide detailed comments on capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and
footnote style. Of course, readers should feel free to mark obvious errors
of this nature and minor things like typos as they work through the manuscript.
The Publications Editor will determine deadlines for reviews and generally
will be six to eight weeks following the receipt of the manuscript.
—Approved by Publications Board, August 29, 2001.
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