DHQ Submission Guidelines | Text Guidelines | Interactive Media Guidelines

DHQ Submission Guidelines

>> Print Guidelines

• Overview
• Types of submission
• Rules and legal matters
• Formats of submission
  • Text-centric submissions
  • Media-centric submissions
• Submission logistics
  • By email
  • On the web
• Review and publication process
  • Review and revision
  • Encoding
  • Copyediting
  • Final review
  • Publication

Overview

DHQ welcomes a wide variety of submissions in a wide variety of formats. The guidelines below spell out our expectations and requirements. However, we are also interested in ongoing experimentation with different modes of journal authoring and publishing. We encourage authors to help us experiment. If you have a good idea that doesn't fit into our current guidelines, let us know! We'll be happy to discuss it.

Types of submission

DHQ includes several different sections containing different kinds of material. All of these may be written in a conventional journal format, or they may be formally experimental. The most significant sections for which we accept submissions are:

Articles:

Article-length pieces describing original research.

Editorials:

Essays of any length expressing an opinion or exploring an issue.

Reviews:

Reviews of other publications (digital or print), tools, artworks, conferences, and other relevant material.

Interactive media:

Interactive media works including digital art, hypertext literature, criticism, and interactive experiments. Separate calls for submissions will be posted for this area, and specific guidelines for interactive media submissions.

All of these types of submissions may be in text-centric or media-centric formats, as described below.

Rules and legal matters

Submission of a manuscript will be held to imply that it contains unpublished original material and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Submissions may be of any length.

The author of any work published by DHQ grants to DHQ a perpetual, non-exclusive right to publish the work under a Creative Commons license with the following provisions:

• anyone may copy, display, and distribute the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as they credit the source appropriately; for commercial reuse, explicit permission is required
• the work may not be redistributed in modified form (except by the author)

Since DHQ is a freely-accessible resource on the Internet, the question of offprints should not generally arise. Should authors' works be printed or redistributed in any restricted form or limited edition, all efforts will be made to provide authors with copies, offprints or their equivalent such as access rights.

Formats of submission

DHQ is an entirely digital journal, and to ensure that we can maintain long-term access to the journal's content, materials will be published and stored wherever possible in XML and standards-based multimedia formats. For purposes of managing the publication, we distinguish between two types of submission:

Text-centric submissions

These are submissions whose base format is text; they may include "ordinary multimedia" as simple links from the text. "Ordinary multimedia" includes image, sound, and video files in standard formats (see list below).

We accept text-centric submissions in a range of formats, listed here in order of preference. Submissions in XML can usually be processed more quickly and reliably, and will help us keep production costs down. In addition, we can provide reliable long-term archiving support for these formats.

• XML files encoded in the DHQ markup language [click here for a description, downloadable schema, templates, and sample documents]
• XML files encoded in TEI
• XML files encoded in other languages: DocBook, HTML, etc.
• RTF
• Word-processing files: please save these as RTF before submitting them.
• TeX and LaTeX

To ask about any other formats: please send email to [email protected].

Acceptable image formats include the following web-ready formats: PNG, JPG, GIF, PDF and SVG.

See text style guidelines for more information.

Media-centric submissions

These are submissions whose base format is something other than text. They may include "extraordinary multimedia" (multimedia in non-standard formats) and may involve more complex interactive behavior. While we will make a strong effort to maintain access to materials in these formats, in some cases it may not be possible to preserve all of their functionality. Some of these submissions may go beyond our ability to publish, and in those cases we will work with authors of accepted pieces to produce a collaborative publication in which some components are published and maintained at other sites.

Submission logistics

You may submit materials to DHQ in the following ways:

By email

You may send an email attachment to [email protected]. Please follow these instructions:

1. In the body of your email, include the following information:
   • The names and affiliations of all of the authors
   • The title of the submission
   • The section to which it is being submitted (articles, editorials, reviews)
   • The language in which it is written
   • The format in which it is being submitted
   • The filenames of the files being submitted
2. All files should be named with the surname of the primary author, the current year, and a letter if necessary to distinguish between multiple files, e.g. Jones_2005a.xml. Submissions consisting of multiple files should be compressed into a zip archive.

On the web

DHQ will soon provide a web submission form.

Review and publication process

Review and revision

All materials will be peer-reviewed. The review process will yield one of the following outcomes:

• The submission is accepted for publication as is. The reviewers may have suggestions for improving the piece, and you are free to take their advice if you choose.
• The submission is considered worth publishing, but needs revision based on the reviewers' feedback. The editors will work with you to improve the submission until it is ready for publication. If you prefer not to make the recommended changes, you may withdraw the submission.
• The submission is declined as unsuitable.

The editors of DHQ are committed to working with authors to bring out the best potential in their work, and will provide mentors for young scholars or those new to the field.

During the revision process, proofs may be exchanged in XML or other formats, depending on the nature of the submission and the convenience of the author and editors.

Encoding

Following revision, all materials accepted for publication will be encoded in the DHQ XML markup language if they are not already in that format. A proof version of each piece will be posted internally.

Copyediting

All accepted materials will be copyedited for style and consistency.

Final review

A final draft of each accepted piece will be posted on an internal web site so that the author can review it prior to publication. This is largely to ensure that the encoding process has not altered any essential features of the piece. The author will typically have a week to check the piece and confirm its accuracy. Any final changes may be made at this time.

Publication

All materials will be published at the DHQ site as soon as they are given final approval. Each piece will be assigned a publication number consisting of the year and a serial number. The journal does not have "issues" in the conventional sense, but at quarterly intervals, a public announcement of new content will be made. Materials from previous years will become part of the DHQ archive (available for reading and searching) and will also be archived permanently in digital repositories at the University of Illinois and at Brown University.