Editorial Guidelines

American Guides Project

County Heritage Guides

County Heritage Guides are non-commercial online guides, consisting of text and photos, which educate, inform & entertain our users about the details of local historic, cultural and environmental heritage; not just places recognized by authorities for their “significance,” but those valued by communities and their citizens for many reasons. Access is free to the public. We encourage potential contributors to review the latest version of this guide, and a few of the original State Guides – a number of which are available on our web site. You’ll find that we use this same model for content and organization of the County Guides.

A parallel program is our Student Guide Series, With few editorial restrictions, we encourage teachers to use this as a publishing outlet for student works, perhaps in conjunction with programs like the Library of Congress’ Teaching With Primary Sources. Teachers are responsible for editing and selecting works to be published in the Student Guides. Student Guides are linked from the County Home Page, and are organized by Community/School and Classroom/Year. Project Staff may choose to incorporate certain student work into the formal County Heritage Guide. Alternatively, any teacher, class or individual students may work directly with our County Partner under our regular program. If you are a teacher or principal, and would like to participate, please contact the Director.

Over 3,000 counties and similar districts exist all across the USA. These are the organizing structure for this Series - like the States, these governmental units are contiguous, non-overlapping entities. Many existing heritage institutions operate at the county level, and it’s typical to find neighboring counties working together across state lines on heritage issues. We work closely with state and city institutions, but our County Partners offer to represent the County as a whole, even if they are a city library or museum. You will find a current list of Partners on our web site.

As our local representative, each County Partner is a key contributor to our success. County Partners recruit researchers and authors, help plan the content of their County Guide, and review proposed submissions. The Project is the editor in chief, but we generally defer to our local Partner’s decisions. As an author/researcher, your first stop should be your local Partner (certainly before you begin working on something, we don’t need to duplicate efforts). If you aren’t getting enough support there, ask a member of our staff to help. If there’s no Partner organization in your county, help us find a willing Partner!

This Project is designed to be “modular.” We aren’t developing any Guide as a single publication, like a traditional book. If the first content submitted is a paragraph about the wetland point of interest on your family’s farm, it may well be published first. But maybe you do want to write a natural history (a whole chapter) of your county – sign up for that responsibility with your Partner. So we may have a spotty Guide for your County while in development, but that’s ok in a digital age.

The most important factor is what turns you on – if you’re enthusiastic you’ll do a better job, and we’ll all enjoy what you bring to the table. In my local Boulder County, we’ll get coverage of Walker Ranch, but someone’s also likely to submit the story of the Boulder Bolder, or Kinetics, more recent cultural traditions…A major goal of the Project is to uncover many types of heritage resources unknown to the general public- so we expect you’ll surprise our editors now & then!

We understand people have different skills & interests, and time is a commodity in short supply. This is a community effort, not your personal book; everything submitted will eventually be contributed to the public domain. Therefore, it makes sense to work in teams, divide & conquer – it’s more fun and gets many more people participating in the Project, which is the whole idea!

So if you like researching, reading and interviewing, feel free to do the part you like. And if you want to get exposed to many subjects, sign up to serve as an editor, locally or regionally. Our County Partner and project Staff will try to help you find your ideal role, and there is plenty to do!

We are flexible about the writing quality. Most will be no better than most works produced by any local historical society, while others may benefit from highly talented teams. Our focus is on descriptive, factual content, and interesting stories, not writing styles. Our editorial staff may rework submissions due to style considerations, to eliminate duplication, or to reference other parts of our Guides, or for other reasons, using their judgment. Our Partner or Staff may ask authors to make modifications based on a number of factors, and authors should stand ready to do so. The judgment of our Project-level editorial staff will rule in any dispute. Below is a “laundry list” of more specific requirements; we will add or amend as the Series is developed:

• This is a work of non-fiction. Facts should be supported by your listed sources.

• Sites or viewing points should be identified by address, if applicable, along with GPS location in parantheses.

• Our standard for GPS format is the WGS 84 Datum, Decimal Degrees (example W 144.1234, N 39.4567).

• Abbreviate directions such as “N or SE from point x”, “turn R on county road 8”

• Sources should be formally referenced at end of your submitted article. No footnotes.

• Contributors will sign a release granting full copyright to the Project for anything submitted to the Project.

• All contributors to a section are credited as a group, with a list of names, alphabetical order.

• Interview transcripts, photos and quotes are acceptable if you provide permission statements.

Currently, we have little guidance for these sections, as they can, and will, vary widely. The following outline is tentative, at best. We recommend, again, that you review the original American Guides for ideas; you’ll find many good ideas there, but also some very bad examples. The final organization and content of this section is worked out between Project management and your County Partner.

General sections may include, but are not limited to these sub-sections for the County as a whole:

These are point-to-point travel opportunities, with stories & explanations on the way. May be road routes, bike paths, hiking trails, etc.

It’s an editorial decision whether to place a Point of Interest by itself, or just mention it on a Tour; however, in general the Points of Interest includes those you can enter or “tour” themselves, while points noted here will be those only “visible from the road,” etc. All POI’s should have GPS coordinates noted. If you’re pointing out a view, provide the GPS location from which you’re viewing (and direction you’re looking!). If your Tour connects with others, or crosses County lines, let your Partner know so we can try to connect across sections and Guides.

POI’s may be in town, a place nearby, or a favorite vacation spot; historic, cultural, or environmental POI’s. Even if a site is already recognized, you can still add value by adding data alone, which will go into our National Heritage Database.

Name: The name to be used in the Guide as title of the site. We prefer the common name used locally to refer to the site. Yancey’s Farm, or Site of Union Pacific Train Accident, or nature - Former Site of Wetlands, for instance.

Address: Street Address. If this is an area, other geographic description, explain in the reference section.

Significant Year: Original construction year. Date of Event. Date designated/established. Explain in narrative.

Sources/References: Other researchers may utilize this reference material or cite AG works, so please list the sources of information: government documents, news articles, or interviews; any standard bibliographic reference format will do.

The content of a narrative is up to you; but our editors may combine two submissions about the same place, or otherwise modify your work. Usually, this section is a history of the POI, a biography of a related person/family, a description of this natural feature, how formed, etc. However, it may also describe plants, animals, and geological features, or things like equipment, cooking styles, songs, etc. See the original AGS books on our web site for many examples. The length may vary from a short paragraph up to about 500 words. We’ll credit you (and perhaps others) at the end of the narrative.

A sub-section is created for each neighborhood or community, with generally the same format as the County Guide Section I-III above. However, the General section will not have titled sub-sections, generally be not more than 4-5 pages. POI and Tours are County or Community, not both – classification is determined by the Partner & Project Editors.

In this section, we offer the latest known/reported status of a site, and any requests for investment, protection or other information relevant to preserving or developing our heritage. These will also be link back to relevant details within the Guides, and to external resources and organizations.