Agora: Contributor Guidelines 2010

Themes and deadlines

Issue 1: Modern History

Contributor deadline: MON 7 DECEMBER 2009

In schools 8 February

Issue 2: History in Art and Literature

Contributor deadline: MON 15 FEBRUARY

In schools Mon 26 April

Issue 3: Time and Place

Contributor deadline: MON 17 MAY

In schools Mon 12 July

Issue 4: History Communities

Contributor deadline: MON 2 AUGUST

In schools Mon 11 October

Agora is the quarterly journal of the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria. Over the past forty years Agora has become a leading journal for debate and discourse in the history teaching community in Australia. Our contributors include teachers, academics, curators, freelance writers, public servants and museum and gallery educators. Each edition has a theme relevant to History teaching – see below for 2009 themes and deadlines. As its name suggests, Agora aims to be a market place, or meeting point, for teachers and educators around the country.

Agora now contains a refereed section, Sungraphô, for original research articles. Sungraphô items are peer-reviewed by members of an editorial board and meet the C1 classification set by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Sections

Agora has four sections. These are:

Sungraphô: Peer-reviewed research articles

Thema: Theme-based and discursive articles

Praktikos: Teaching ideas

Kritikos: Reviews of teaching resources

Contributors may write for different sections at different times.

Your article

With the exception of book reviews, please follow the guidelines below when writing for Agora:

Title

No more than 10 words.

Author details

List your name and current place of employment (or ‘retired’ if applicable.)

Precede line

In one sentence or question, summarise the focus of your article. i.e. ‘How might historiography shape the practice of teachers?’ or ‘Pollution and degradation have long been a part of the Yarra’s history.’

Format

A Microsoft Word document sent by email is preferred – NO formatting.

Pictures (opt.)

If sending photographs of students, you must get SPECIFIC permission from parents to publish the photograph in Agora. A general permission form for school-related publications is NOT sufficient.

If you would like to include images that have already been published elsewhere, please give the editor several weeks’ notice. If sending your own photos, email them in separate jpeg or tif files (not imbedded in a Word document).

Length

Sungraphô: 3000–4000 words

Thema, Praktikos: 1500-4000 words

Kritikos: 500-2000 words

Referencing

Agora conforms to the Chicago Manual of Style (15^th Edition). If you are referring to published sources, the following model should be followed.

Sample footnotes

1. Stuart Macintyre, A History for a Nation: Ernest Scott and the Making of Australian History (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2005), 77-8.

2. Ernst Badian, “Thucydides and the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: A Historian’s Brief,” in Conflict, Antithesis and the Ancient Historian, ed. June W. Allison (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990), 46.

3. Edward Peters and Walter P. Simons, “The New Huizinga and the Old Middle Ages,” Speculum 74 (1999): 588.

4. Macintyre, History for a Nation, 14.

5. Encyclopaedia Britannica: www.britannica.com. Accessed 12 June 2007.

Please note that Sungraphô articles require endnotes rather than footnotes.

Sample bibliography (NOT required for Sungraphô articles)

Badian, Ernst. “Thucydides and the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: A Historian’s Brief.” In Conflict, Antithesis and the Ancient Historian, edited by June W. Allison, 46-91. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1990.

Encyclopaedia Britannica: www.britannica.com.

Macintyre, Stuart. A History for a Nation: Ernest Scott and the Making of Australian History. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1994.

Peters, Edward and Walter P. Simons, “The New Huizinga and the Old Middle Ages.” Speculum 74 (1999): 587-620.

The Chicago Manual of Style (15^th Edition) can be viewed in full at: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html).

Tone and content

Contributors should seek to ensure that material is appropriate in a general sense to practising history teachers and educators. Tone may vary from a formal, academic style to a more informal style, depending on the nature of the material. Articles submitted must be the original work of the author – where reference is made to the work of others this must be acknowledged. Standard copyright rules apply. Contributors are asked to adopt a respectful and fair-minded approach when discussing the work of others, and this should be evident in the tone of the writing. Writers of reviews are expected to cite specific examples to support judgements made and to discuss the merits of the work as a whole. Contributors with close links to institutions or companies should avoid reviewing work published by these bodies. Reviewers may keep materials once review has been received.

Sungraphô

Items appearing in the Sungraphô section of Agora are refereed articles that satisfy the C1 classification of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Submissions to Sungraphô must constitute original pieces of research. This section of the journal is not based on issue themes. Submissions are accepted from interstate and overseas. All manuscripts submitted to Sungraphô will be reviewed (double-blind) by two independent experts. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a covering letter. The name of the author must NOT appear on the manuscript. Articles must NOT have been published elsewhere.

Sungraphô editorial board

Anna Clark, Monash University

Carmel Fahey, The University of Sydney

Catherine Harris, Deakin University

May Leckey, The University of Melbourne

Ronald Ridley, The University of Melbourne

Ruth Sandwell, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,

University of Toronto

Michael Spurr, Oxford University Press

Tony Taylor, Monash University

Rosalie Triolo, Monash University

John Whitehouse, The University of Melbourne (Editor-in-Chief)

Joseph Zajda, Australian Catholic University

For more advice on contributing to Sungraphô, please contact John Whitehouse, Editor-in-Chief, at j.whitehouse@unimelb.edu.au or on Tel. 8344 8398.

Disclaimer

The HTAV endeavours to publish all articles in their original form. However, we reserve the right to edit submissions in the interests of clarity or brevity. Authors will be contacted in the case of significant changes to wording. The editor may reject a submission, or hold an item over for later publication.

For all Agora queries contact Ingrid Purnell, Editor, at i.purnell@htav.asn.au or on Tel. 9417 3422.