Guidelines for Authors
We recommend that authors read through the submission guidelines below prior to composing an article and then review the same guidelines before submitting the final draft. Authors often overlook a point or two in the guidelines, which adds time to the reviewing and formatting process. The most common mistakes are to omit the opening summary, to use footnotes, and to use hyperlinks to websites outside the encyclopedia.
Table of Contents
1. General
a. Author Copyright and Licensing Agreement
The author of an article enters into an agreement with the IEP such that:
- The author grants exclusive and perpetual license to the IEP to use and distribute the article through Internet media.
- This license covers the present version/edition of the IEP, all future versions/editions of the IEP, and all derivations of the IEP in the present media format as well as other possible formats such as new IEP sites, printed works, DVD, and CD ROM.
- The author receives no financial payment for his/her article from the IEP.
- Authors retain copyright to their article and the right to publish the article in a format that does not compete with the IEP in nature and scope. Authors must inform the IEP general editors of any secondary publishing opportunity and also inform the secondary publisher about the author’s prior agreement with the IEP. You, as the author, can use all or any part of your IEP article elsewhere. However, you need to be careful that you do not accidently sign over the copyrights of that material to your publisher whose standard contract may say that none of your material be published elsewhere. If this happens, then the IEP could have to remove your article. The best way to avoid that is by including an acknowledgement somewhere in your new article or book that says that the passages in question are revised versions of articles in the IEP and appear in your book by permission of the IEP.
- The IEP reserves the right to grant permission to reprint articles at the request of third-parties (such as universities or book publishers), particularly when the third-party publication is in keeping with the nonprofit and educational mission of the IEP; for-profit requests will be deferred to the author.
- The IEP reserves the right to discontinue using an article. This might be required for various reasons, such as if the author is not able to revise the article and the editors determine that a revision is needed.
b. Length
Most articles on the IEP are 6,000 – 10,000 words. Articles on minor topics should be at least 4,000 words in length, not counting bibliographical material. Those on the most important topics should be between 8,000 and 12,000 words. There are no space restrictions, and authors are encouraged to err on the side of being too long rather than too short. Major philosophers may require a series of articles to adequately cover the scope of their contributions; see for example the sets of articles on Aristotle and Hume.
c. Article’s Purpose
The purpose of your article is to present information accepted by colleagues working in the area. An encyclopedia article is not the place to defend an original thesis. Your article will explain the topic in language the reader can understand, and it will present the important distinctions, the main results, and the main points of view on controversial issues. Your article should call attention to related topics and should provide some references in case the reader wishes to read further on your topic.
2. Content
a. Level of Sophistication
The Encyclopedia’s articles should be written with the intention that most of the article can be understood by advanced undergraduates majoring in philosophy and by other scholars who are not working in the field covered by that article. The IEP articles are written by experts but not for experts in analogy to the way the Scientific American magazine is written by scientific experts but not primarily for scientific experts. For topics that are unavoidably technical, such as an article on Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity or on Ramsey sentences in logic, the goal should be to make the early parts easy going so that the technically unsophisticated reader will still profit from reading much of the article.
b. Opening Summary
Preceding the table of contents, the beginning of each article should contain a summary of the article in 200 to 500 words. The purpose of the summary is to give readers a quick overview of your topic. See the article on Descartes as an example. You have three goals to achieve simultaneously: (1) to convey some understanding of your topic to those readers who will read the summary with no intention of reading the entire article, (2) to say something intriguing that will make readers want to continue reading beyond the summary, and (3) to give readers who do intend to read the full article some idea of the territory ahead. Think of the opening summary as functioning as a brief entry that might appear in a philosophy dictionary.
Here is what not to do in the opening summary. Do not focus primarily on saying your topic or your philosopher is influential and important. Instead add more information about what philosophical contributions are made and how. Put yourself in the shoes of a reader who probably will not be reading your full article but only its opening summary and who wants to learn something about what issues are covered and in what manner. For articles on an individual philosopher, focus on what theses the philosopher defended, and what style of doing philosophy were represented. It would be preferable not to include quotations and citations but to make your points in your own words. The more detailed quotations and citations can be included later in your article.
c. Structure of Articles on People
The body of the article should begin with a biography of the philosopher. The bulk of the article will consist of a discussion of the philosopher’s main philosophical contributions; in most cases a topical presentation of this material is preferred over a strictly chronological presentation. The discussion might include influences on the philosopher, traditional criticisms of the philosopher, and the impact of the philosopher on later philosophers. See the article on Francis Bacon as an example. As in the Bacon article, you are encouraged to include a copyright-free picture with your own article.
d. Structure of Articles on Topics
The opening sentence of the summary paragraph should be a general definition of the term being used, such as, “The term ‘category’ means ultimate or fundamental division.” The opening of the article body should say something about the origin of the term, the context in which the term is used, or alternative definitions of the term. The article will typically consist of a chronological survey of philosophical theories relating to the term. Where appropriate, include traditional criticisms of the theories in question. Please see the article on Logical Paradoxes as an example.
3. Style
a. Formal Style
All articles should be written in a formal, yet simple style, such as that used in the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or the Encyclopedia of Philosophy edited by Paul Edwards. Avoid slang. Avoid reference to yourself, as in “I find this argument to be unconvincing,” or “As I’ve shown in the previous paragraph….”
b. Simple Style
Articles should be written in a straightforward style that is accessible to intelligent but general readers. Although the IEP is regularly visited by professional philosophers, many users of the IEP are philosophy students or philosophically curious web surfers. To best serve these latter users, authors should minimize unnecessary technical vocabulary.
c. Minimize Use of Quotations and References
The expectation is that authors will paraphrase and interpret and not primarily excerpt or quote. Do not adopt the attitude that every claim needs to be supported by a reference (that is, a citation). Encyclopedia articles are different than journal articles in the sense that they aren’t expected to defend all their remarks, but rather are expected simply to lay out the accepted wisdom on the topic. If an article has a decent annotated bibliography, then the IEP would publish the article even if it were to have no in-line citations. On the other hand, sometimes it can be helpful to readers of an encyclopedia article to offer citations or references for key points; the editors won’t remove any of these if they are included.
d. Stylistic Conventions
Spelling and punctuation using U.S. English conventions (rather than U.K. English conventions) are preferred. Footnotes and endnotes are not allowed. Convert any footnotes into in-line citations to the bibliography. Avoid using underlining or bold face, and restrict special font formatting to italics. Be sparing in your use of italics for emphasis. Minimize the use of in-text references such as “…as we shall see in section (4) second paragraph below and also in section (6).” For a more detailed list of IEP stylistic preferences, please see our Help Sheet for Copyediting Articles.
4. Format
a. Table of Contents and Section Headings
When your article is formatted, the sections headings in the body of the article will be generated automatically from the table of contents. So, if you’ve changed your article by adding a section since you composed your table of contents, that section might be missed during the formatting process. Ditto for a change in the heading (headline, or title) of a section. For typical articles, those between 4,000 and 10,000 words, please use between 5 and 15 section headings. Less than five will make the article difficult to follow. More than 15 will make the contents list too complex and, in most cases, make some of the sections too short and thus appear visually awkward. Use capitals and small case, not all capitals. Use of subheadings is optional. That is, the table of contents can either be flat or hierarchical. For an example of a flat table, see the article on Hume, David: Life and Writings. For an example of a hierarchical table, see the article on the Aztec Philosophy. In either case, use the following numbering convention:
- Heading One
- Subheading One
- Subsubheading One
- Subsubsubheading One
- Subsubsubheading Two
- Subsubheading Two
- Subsubsubheading One
- Subsubsubheading Two
- Subsubheading One
- Subheading Two
- Subheading One
- Heading Two
- Heading Three
- References and Further Reading
Although a hierarchical table of contents may have up to four levels, we encourage you to restrict yours to at most two levels (that is, to only headings and subheadings) for visual elegance. The final heading of the article must be called “References and Further Reading.”
b. References and Bibliographies
Bibliographies should be brief and, preferably, annotated. Long, unannotated lists of all the major works in a field are usually unhelpful to all except a professional researcher, who already will have such references available from elsewhere. We suggest that you follow MLA format. But other formats are acceptable. More readers are more likely to use your bibliography if each entry is annotated with a short sentence describing the nature of the work cited; see Fallibilism for an example of how to do this. Listing a zillion unannotated references simply confuses the reader who is searching for a little more information about your topic. The heading for the bibliography must be “References and Further Reading,” but it may contain subheadings. Typical subheadings are “Primary Sources” and “Secondary Sources.” Italicize all names of books and journals; do not use underlining. Do not use dashes in place of author names, although this is commonly done in journals. Do not include references that are forthcoming.
c. Hyperlinks
When appropriate, include hyperlinks in your article to other IEP articles. Please see the article on Comparative Philosophy as an example. You may simply indicate where hyperlinks are inserted; you do not need to include the actual html coding. However, do not include any hyperlinks to non-IEP web sites. The IEP aims at being a self-contained resource, rather than a link list. Also, because external links require continual updating, we hope to avoid this time-consuming task.
d. Graphics, Photos, and Charts
Authors are encouraged to include graphics in their articles, provided they do not infringe on copyrights. See the article on Francis Bacon as an example. The graphics (including photos, charts and tables) need to be in either .jpg or .gif format. The IEP staff cannot create graphics, but can crop a graphic and make simple adjustments to a graphic’s size and border.
e. Foreign Language Terms
Authors should minimize the use of italics with foreign language terms. Regarding diacritical marks, use those that have html codes. Replace other diacritical marks with ordinary letters. Please see our helpsheets on Chinese and Indian languages.
f. Description of Author
Your name will appear at the end of the article along with your email address and your university’s name. Do not include your title (for example, “associate professor”), your department name (for example “Department of Humanities and Philosophy”), your university’s street address, or your personal webpage address.
g. Acknowledgments
Do not include acknowledgements to colleagues who provided input on your article, nor to institutions that provided you with funding. Thank them privately.
5. Miscellaneous
a. Sending Articles and Pictures
If possible, please send your article in MS Word as an e-mail attachment, and add attachments for all the graphics, photos, and charts. The editors will then reformat the article to fit the standard IEP graphic design and layout.
If you submit your article along with a photograph to be used in your article, then you should send the general editors a note asserting that the photo is in the public domain and so no longer under copyright or that you are the photographer and that you and the person photographed agree that the copyright for the photograph will belong with the author and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The version of the photograph that would appear in the IEP might be resized or altered in some other way, and, in any case, would not become open source or public domain.
b. Authors Who Are Non-Native English Speakers
Authors who do not speak English as their primary language must have their articles revised by a native English speaker, or equivalent, prior to submission.
c. Editing After Acceptance
The acceptance process for articles is described in the page on the Submissions Page. After acceptance, the IEP staff copy edits the article before publication, but the author is not sent proofs, as is the case in journal articles. Instead, the changes are made, and the article is provisionally posted in the Encyclopedia; then in the early days of the publication (before Google and other search engines re-index the IEP site to include new articles) the author is notified and encouraged to read the article and request changes.
After the article is submitted and accepted by the area editor, the general editors and their copy editors will usually make minor stylistic changes that are intended not to affect the article’s content. The general editors have the right of final acceptance of all articles. In carrying out a unified plan for the entire IEP, the general editors may solicit additional peer reviews of submitted articles, and request that authors make additional changes. At any time the general editors may also alter article titles and revise the opening summary of articles. After your article is published, feel free to come back in later weeks or years and request further changes, including changes of content. You may make any minor content changes you wish. Major changes in content should be approved by the area editor. Examples of major changes would be the elimination of several paragraphs covering a particular topic, the addition of a lengthy discussion of a new topic, or a reorganization that requires addition or deletion of a heading or subheading in the table of contents. A minor change is one that improves the presentation of a point and that does not involve the alteration or removal of a heading or subheading. To keep our staff from reformatting [re-HTML-izing] the entire article from a wordprocessor document, we request that authors make minor changes by sending the area editor a list of desired changes in an email or an attached Word document. For more major changes or extensive minor changes, authors are encouraged to make changes directly to the HTML source code after saving the posted document. You may access the HTML source code through various web browsers; with Internet Explorer, this is done by going to “Page | View Source” in the pull down menu. We request that you revise the HTML source in either Wordpad or Notepad; doing so in Word, Wordperfect, or an HTML conversion tool often will introduce stray HTML codes upon saving.
d. Atypical Review and Publication Delays
Authors should contact their area editor if, after submission, there is an unusually long delay at a particular juncture in the process from the article’s initial submission to its final appearance on the IEP website. Each submission typically passes through five hands (area editor, reviewer, general editor, copy editor, formatter). While we strive to maintain an efficient production process, occasionally there are unexpected delays as a result of scheduling issues with our all-volunteer staff. In the rare event that this occurs, the author should send a follow up email if there is a delay of more than one month at any given stage.