At All of Us, we are looking for diverse contributions to our blog. Anyone may submit a pitch or blog post for consideration, including scholars, undergraduates, secondary school teachers, members of the public, activists, and more. If you have any suggestions or comments for the blog, please get in touch with us by sending an email to us at: contribute@AllOfUsDHA.org.
Below, we provide more details about our expectations and guidelines for submissions.
Q: What does AOU publish?
We publish original material that has not been published elsewhere and is related to the mission of the Disability History Association and All of Us. We publish items that fall within the categories listed below, but we are always open to new ideas and suggestions.
1. Historical Research Based Articles (800-1,200 words) might address:
- The historical investigation or analysis of ableism in attitude, policy and practice
- The historical intersections between disability, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class
- How disabled people’s lives and experiences have been transformed by historical events (e.g. disability and war)
- Disability and disabled people as drivers of historical change/transformation
- Representations of disabled historical subjects in popular culture
2. Reflections on Disability History (flexible word length) might address:
- Narrations of disabled lives from historical lens (individual biographies)
- Disability history in public space (museums, artifacts, institutions, asylums, online exhibitions)
- Personal narratives or creative expressions of, by, or about people with disabilities inspired by or that shed new light on disability history
- Critical ruminations on the meaning of disability in various times and places.
3. Reflections or Methods on Teaching Disability History (500-800 words) might address:
- Thoughts or how-tos on teaching disability history by anyone who teaches disability history (secondary school teacher, government official, university instructor, activist or advocate, etc.).
- Thoughts or how-tos on making any class more accessible for students.
4. Responses to Current Events (500-800 words) might address:
- Disability history in the news
- Historically anchored or historically informed responses to national/international issues
- Historically anchored or historically informed assessments of new technological/medical/cultural developments
5. Themed Special Issues (recruitment by CFP, overseen by editors) might address:
- Stayed tuned for CFPs!
6. Reflections on Careers or Research might address:
- Thoughts from historians on why they practice or teach disability history
Q: What is the submission process?
If you would like to write for All of Us, please send us a pitch, or a three-five sentence description of what you’d like to write about and why. We’ll get back to you within a few days about whether we will consider a full-length submission. We strive for relatively quick turnaround, but the time needed for peer review or peer editing and revisions can vary. Periodically, we post undergraduate and other work that we edit in-house (rather than send to peer review). Editorial content written by our editors is also reviewed and edited in house.
Q: Do you publish material that has been published elsewhere?
No, we only publish original material.
Q: Do you publish everything that is submitted?
We aspire to publish a range of essays related to disability history from a variety of perspective. We reserve the right to reject submissions and drafts at any point in the publication process if we decide the work does not meet our criteria. If your prospective post isn’t a good fit, we will suggest alternative outlets if known.
Q: What are your style guidelines?
Posts should adhere to the following guidelines:
- Posts should be submitted as Word documents only.
- Research posts should be 800-1200 words long.
- Shorter posts of 500-800 words may be considered, if they are considered reflections on Disability or Disability History in the News or teaching-related posts.
- Longer posts may be considered as a two-part series, if the content merits additional space and lends itself to division into two parts.
- Alternate formats (such as photo-based blogs) are welcomed so long as the blog robustly models inclusive design.
- Posts should be written in active voice, using clear, concise language and short paragraphs. Posts must be jargon-free and comprehensible to a non-specialist audience. All field-specific terms must be defined.
- Post titles should be 5-7 words long and descriptive of the post content.
- Sources should be integrated using hyperlinks when possible, or using the Chicago Manual of Style Author-Date formatting style which requires in-line parenthetical citations together with a corresponding bibliography at the end of the post. For basic guidelines on this format see the Chicago Manual website at: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html.
- Authors may also choose to include a ‘Further Reading’ or ‘Additional Sources’ section also formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, if they find it relevant, useful or important.
- Authors must include one or more images relevant to the text, when possible. Images should be submitted as separate files as .jpg or .jpeg files, 300 dpi or better (other formats are more difficult to work with). The images should not be embedded in the Word document of the post but sent in a separate zipped file. Authors are to ensure that they have permission to use, and always credit image creators repositories (e.g. Source: Author Name, Description, Date, Repository, Creator / Credit / Permission).
- Posts should utilize accessible formatting:
- Authors must include text descriptions (“alt text”) along with source information for any and all images.
- If any videos are included, they must be closed captioned.
- Authors should include information for a byline: their name, their institutional affiliation and position, and their preferred email for correspondence about the post. Include a brief 2-4 sentence biography, including links to webpages and any social media profiles to be included.
Q: Will authors get paid for their work?
No, we do not offer monetary compensation for submissions.
Q: What is the blog’s copyright policy?
Authors will hold copyright of their work. If authors repost this material elsewhere, we request that they note where it was originally published.
