A Note for Undergraduate Students and Their Advisers Wanting to Present Their Papers and Publish in the FCH Annals: Journal of the Florida Conference of Historians
We assume that most undergraduate papers presented at the annual meeting of the Florida Conference of Historians and then submitted for publication in the FCH Annals have their origins in projects designed to fulfill class or senior thesis requirements. Thus, our editors expect the quality of papers we publish will be higher than normally thought acceptable for class and even thesis papers.
Students who originally wrote papers for purposes other than publication in the Annals need to rethink their work before submission. Fundamentally, they must conform their papers to the FCH style sheet. It is good training for students to work according to the expectations of editors, thus increasing their chances of acceptance for publication.
We hope that advisers will work with their students to revise their papers. At a minimum, students should show evidence of having judiciously used grammar-editing and spell-check programs such as those found in Microsoft Word. Working with Writing Centers and other similar resources available at most schools will improve student submissions and heighten their chances of publication and even, perhaps, of winning the prize for best published paper. Well-organized papers, properly researched and documented, with simple, clear, and direct prose is the goal.
On another note, please make your students aware of predatory publishers of open access journals, who demand authors pay before publishing their articles. They will approach all presenters listed in a conference program, and naive undergraduates are especially vulnerable. For more information, please read the American Historical Association's statement on this issue.
We have dramatically improved the quality of the FCH Annals and its respect within the scholarly community. This reflects well on the Florida Conference of Historians and all those associated with it. We want to produce something that will give us all pride. Please help us.
Students who originally wrote papers for purposes other than publication in the Annals need to rethink their work before submission. Fundamentally, they must conform their papers to the FCH style sheet. It is good training for students to work according to the expectations of editors, thus increasing their chances of acceptance for publication.
We hope that advisers will work with their students to revise their papers. At a minimum, students should show evidence of having judiciously used grammar-editing and spell-check programs such as those found in Microsoft Word. Working with Writing Centers and other similar resources available at most schools will improve student submissions and heighten their chances of publication and even, perhaps, of winning the prize for best published paper. Well-organized papers, properly researched and documented, with simple, clear, and direct prose is the goal.
On another note, please make your students aware of predatory publishers of open access journals, who demand authors pay before publishing their articles. They will approach all presenters listed in a conference program, and naive undergraduates are especially vulnerable. For more information, please read the American Historical Association's statement on this issue.
We have dramatically improved the quality of the FCH Annals and its respect within the scholarly community. This reflects well on the Florida Conference of Historians and all those associated with it. We want to produce something that will give us all pride. Please help us.