The Ohio State University Press Guidelines for the Volume Editor

Collections of essays by multiple authors often present the publisher with many more problems than do single-author books. Having to deal with several styles of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, citation, and so on can slow down the copy editing and production processes. If careful attention is not paid to uniformity in the early stages of manuscript preparation, the costs incurred in producing the book can become excessive (thereby increasing the list price) and can result in a book riddles with inconsistencies. In the interest of seeing the volume go through production as smoothly as possible, we expect the volume editor to do the following:

1. Obtain a publishing agreement from each contributor to the volume. We will provide you with the forms to be sent to contributors.

2. Obtain written permission from copyright holders to reproduce material that have been previously copyrighted: for example, earlier versions of essays published elsewhere, illustrations, tables, long quotations, or poems reproduced in their entirety.

3. Give each essay a preliminary review before the contributor begins to revise. At this stage you should think about the whole volume: that is to say, you should decide such matters as what note citation style will be used throughout the book; whether you will want contributors to provide a reference list to their chapters, whether to provide a general bibliography or reference list as a separate section at the back of the book, or whether none is needed (we discourage including a reference list with some chapters but not with others); how you will handle terminology specific to your field of study; and the like. Regardless of what styles you choose, all chapters should be typed on the same size paper, preferably 8 ½ x 11”, double-spaced. If you are unfamiliar with standard procedures for book manuscript preparation (which in many cases are unlike those for journal articles or dissertations), we will send you our guidelines. When in doubt, refer to the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition. We strongly urge you to provide your contributors with guidelines for preparing their final manuscripts following the styles you have chosen.

4. Edit each paper, especially those written by foreign-born authors, for sense and grammar, and check reference lists and notes for uniformity of style. If the contributor has written an essay in a foreign language, translate it or hire someone to do it. If you have edited a contribution heavily, have pages with many editorial changes retyped.

5. Send manuscripts on which you have performed substantive editing (for example, rewriting or reorganizing) back to the contributors for their approval before you submit the volume to the Press.

6. Gather the final manuscript, all illustrations, permissions letters, and publishing agreement forms from contributors for submission to the Press, preferably all at once.

7. Provide a list of contributors and their affiliations, title page, table of contents, preface, acknowledgments, and introduction.

8. Let us know whether contributors are to receive a complimentary copy of the volume, and provide mailing addresses to which books are to be sent.

9. Review the manuscript after it has been edited by the Press’s copy editor, and send the edited manuscript to the contributors for their approval. Set a strict deadline for return of the essays to you. It is at this stage that contributors should make minor revisions if they wish to do so—not at the page proof stage, after type has been set. We will furnish guidelines to you for reviewing copy editing, and we suggest you send them to the contributors along with their edited essays. If it seems more expedient that you only review and approve all edited manuscripts, it is wise to have a clear understanding with the contributors and to obtain their agreement to the arrangement early.

10. Read the page proofs. We ask that you do not send page proofs to contributors; we will have set a schedule for production of the volume and publication date after sending the manuscript to the typesetter, and any lateness in returning page proofs will delay publication.

11. Prepare the manuscript index, or pay to have it done.