Welcome to Clio and the Contemporary! Here are a few steps you can expect to take once you become an author on the site. (Want to pitch a piece? Send us an email using the Contact page.)
Set up your Gravatar. From any page on the site except the home page, you’ll see a list of authors on the right-hand side of your screen. Find your author Gravatar and:
— upload a photo of you.
— edit your name so it appears as your professional name (first and last)
— add a brief professional bio. This should be no more than 4-6 sentences. Please include your education, field, current affiliation, and any relevant teaching experience, research interests, or publications.
** Note: It can take a few minutes for Gravatars to update, so if you have changed your name, photo, and bio but don’t see the update, wait a few minutes and refresh.
Peruse the site. As historians writing for a like-minded audience, we aim for a tone that is authoritative, measured, and pithy. We also welcome humor! However, we caution against writing that is overly casual. If your style reflects that of a personal blog rather than professional advice or insight, we may ask you to rephrase. Watch out for a lot of “I” usage (“I do this…”; “I’ve found that…”) or references to your personal timeline as an academic. “Consider x when planning a course that includes y” is preferable to “When I first taught class z four years ago, I found that c was helpful.”
Compose your piece. We offer these word count parameters as guides.
— “How-to,” advice, and thought pieces in our Academia, Alt-Ac, Surviving Grad School, or Teaching categories: 250 words (such as a 10-point list) to 2000 words.
—Contemporary Issues, History Articles, or Reviews: 800 to 4000 words, excluding captions, endnotes, and “Further Reading” lists.
—Sample assignments: less than 800 words.
—Syllabi: no word count guidelines. Please eliminate boilerplate text that is not content-specific, such as course policies or university protocol.
If your submission is longer than our guidelines suggest, we may ask you to consider reframing it as a two-part or serialized piece.
Prepare for submission. Compose your post in Word and email completed posts to the editors for copyediting. Your submission should include all images (including captions), embedded videos, and hyperlinks. (During the copyediting process, we will ask you to submit a horizontal featured image, 4-6 “tags,” and a one-sentence excerpt. Email these to your editor for approval.)
Get ready to upload and format your post. After you submit your post via email, it may require multiple rounds of copyediting. When copyedits and revisions are complete, you will upload your post to the site, using these formatting guidelines and this checklist. In the meantime, we invite you to start a post by clicking “Write” and familiarize yourself with the site’s software.
We’re delighted that you will be writing for C&C. Welcome to the team!
Clio and the Contemporary 