This course seeks:

1. To prepare students to apply their knowledge and interest in history to areas of professional practice and potential employment.
2. To orient students to the preparation of manuscripts for publication in various forms.
3. To help students acquire techniques and methodologies of professional historians.
4. To develop critical thinking and editing skills.
5. To help students understand the roots of their discipline by examining writing and argument about the past in journals.

[H = Historia; HO = Historia Online; N = History at Eastern newsletter]

History as writing and argument about the past (production teams established--copy gathered)

week 1. introducing history; introducing publishing

• Jan. 13. Assignment 1: Design a new or revised flyer for Historia submissions–a Call for Papers–(1 page, due Jan. 22)
• Jan. 15. Assignment 2: Compare and contrast two journals for design, organization, and content (2 pages, due Jan. 27); "Printing: History and Development, Overview" (handout); Journal exercise (bring to class a volume of your assigned history journal)

week 2. the CFP (call for papers)

• Jan. 22. Marius, intro.; and one of the following sections of History of Publishing website–The Impact of Print, Print and the Reformation, Elizabethan Censorship, Print in the Civil War, 18th Century Publishing, Print in an Industrial Age, or 20th Century Publishing (bring to class printout of one of subsections); Historia flyers exercise

week 3. the history of publishing

• Jan. 27. Marius, ch. 1. Assignment 3: Compare and contrast two pasts articles in Historia, using at least 5 of Marius's 14 points in chapter 1 (2 pages, due Feb. 3); (editorial duties established)
• Jan. 29. Darnton, "What Is the History of Books?"; or Feather, "The Book in History and the History of the Book" (handout/reserve) [H & HO: Final CFPs posted; N: memos requesting submissions sent out]

From:  Printing and the Mind of Man. Assembled At the British Museum and at Earls Court London, 16-27 July 1963 (British Museum, 1963)

The book, the exhibit, and the review (production teams begin editing copy and contact authors)

week 4. the history of history

• Feb. 3. Marius, chs. 3-4. Assignment 4; HTML exercise
• Feb. 5. Evans, "The History of History" (handout/reserve); HTML exercise; Footnoting exercise

week 5. book reviewing in print and online

• Feb. 12. Marius, chs. 5-6; Moxley, "How to Write Book Reviews" (handout); (production timelines due)

week 6. reviewing museums and exhibits

• Feb. 17. Marius, ch. 7; Klemp, "Museum and Exhibit Reviews"; or Darnton, "The Great Book Massacre" (reserve/handouts); (html exercise due)
  Feb. 19. Eisenstein, "Conclusion: Scripture and Nature Transformed" (graduates, handout/reserve); On Eisenstein, Printing Revolution (undergraduates & graduates, online); Proofing exercise

week 7. locating and constructing bibliographies

• Feb. 26. Marius, ch. 8. (divide up submitted articles for critiquing); Assignment 4 due.

Edition of Cicero, 1521, featuring colophon of famous publishers Aldus, and early use of italic instead of German black-letter typeface

The article and the journal (production teams begin design process and complete editing)

week 8. crafting journal articles: the theory

• March 3. Moxley, "How to Attack Manuscripts Like an Editor or Reviewer" (handout/reserve); Pagemaker exercise
• March 5. Mid-Term Exam: Revising, Footnoting, and Proofreaders' marks

week 9. crafting journal articles: examples

• March 19. Moxley, "How to Edit Documents Like a Copy Editor" (handout/reserve) [H: submissions edited and ranked]

week 10. journal editorial practices

• March 26. [H: draft articles copy-edited and suggestions noted; HO & N: meeting to decide on basic layout and style]; (Pagemaker exercise due)

week 11. journal editorial decisions over time

• March 31. Assignment 5: Analyze a particular journal over twenty years. Write an essay comparing and contrasting the earliest 5, ad middle 5, and the most recent 5 volumes (years) of one history journal. The essay should have a single, historical argument. [This may be modified for analysis of a "source" journal like Harper's for U.S. track students–see professor] (6-page undergraduates; 10-page graduates, due April 16)
  April 2. Examples of analyses of the history of history journals, special issue of Maryland Historian (Fall 1975); or other journal (handout/reserve) [H: edited drafts returned to authors with suggestions; N: contact those not returning memos and begin entering copy into computer program]

From Aled Jones, Powers of the Press:  Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth-Century England (1996), 71.

Production and publishing (production teams finish design, graphics, permissions, and credits on disk; product sent to printer or put on web)

"Articles are the least interesting part of a journal; the layout is what counts." (Lucien Fevre, on beginning Annales)

week 12. layout and intent: the newsletter

• April 9. Articles on typeface and layout (handouts); [HO: History of Historia and back issues put on web; N: write additional copy]

week 13. layout and intent: the journal

• April 14. [H: final drafts collected and computer-entered; rejected drafts returned]
• April 16. [H: article reviews, editorial written; N & HO: layout decisions]

week 14. a university press in action

• April 23. Darnton, "Publishing: A Survival Strategy for Academic Authors" (handout/reserve); [H: final drafts computer-entered; HO & N: new cover and art work, TOC, and Abstracts put on web]

From Thomas L. Bonn, UnderCover:  An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacks (1982).

Critiquing scheduling, production, and content of Historia, newsletter, and website

"The art of printing, which diffuses so general a light, augmenting with the growing day, and of so penetrating a nature, that all the window shutters, which despotism and priestcraft can oppose to keep it out, prove insufficient." -Benjamin Franklin

week 15. getting the word out

• April 28. [H & N: submission of final dummy copy and presentation; HO: presentation of final new website]
• April 30 summing up

• Evaluation: The course is assignment- and participation-driven. (Participation is 20%.) There is no final. Instead the students will prepare and edit their own reviews, articles (historiography of editorial practices of one journal in their field), and sample web page in order to demonstrate competency in documentation conventions, analysis, and formatting skills (40%). In addition, the students will work in teams on assembling content, editing, layout, and producing student journal and newsletter both in print and online (three teams, 30%). A mid-term exam (10%) will focus on a rather standardized test of proofing, footnoting, and revising skills. Graduate students, in addition to having added tasks as team leaders, will be responsible for presenting and critiquing additional exemplary journal articles.

• Note: Students needing credit for either United States or European/world history must select journals, articles, and book reviews in that field for assignments 1, 2, 3, and 4. I will circulate a sign-up sheet/contract the second week of class and will then give your preference to the undergraduate or graduate advisor as well as the department chair to make sure it is noted on your study plan.

• We must get the word out. Both the Newsletter and Historia must be published by the end of the semester. Production teams may have to meet in 2726 Coleman or elsewhere to work on this outside class time. Accordingly, we will not meet every class time (see outline above). Much of our organization and discussion can be done now online. Accordingly, I will set up an online discussion group for this course. As a first step, I would like everyone to email me with his or her M-F schedule by January 27. (Anyone with a documented disability should let me know the first week of class so that we can make appropriate accommodations.)