Author Application
about contexts blogs
Contexts, with its tradition of bringing sociology and the public sphere together, is proud to announce a new experiment in online scholarship and community: Contexts Blogs, a community of sociology blogs aiming to take the Contexts mission to a new level.
Blogs come in all shapes and sizes, from diary-style musings on anything under the sun to expert tomes aimed at educating and informing; from anonymous single-author blogs to large group blogs with dozens of authors or more. Without the 72-page constraint of our print publication, the possibilities for contexts.org are endless. We want to see blogs that advance the core mission of Contexts, whatever form they may take.
While we're open about format and style, we do want each blog on contexts.org to embody the goals of Contexts. In short, we want blogs that bring sociological theory and research to bear on life in today's world. We want blogs to do this in an accessible manner that appeals to generalists within our discipline and to educated publics such as students, policymakers, and the media. Additionally, most blogs don't last very long: we want blog authors who are committed to their blogs for the long haul.
what's the deal?
What are the terms of service for Contexts Blogs? Here are the basics:
- Your blog, along with the rest of contexts.org, will be hosted on fast, secure servers provided free-of-charge to Contexts by the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota.
Contexts Blogs run on the WordPress blogging platform. Contexts' web editor, Jon Smajda, is responsible for all maintenance of the site, so you only need to worry about writing great content for your blog, not learning the ins and outs of HTML, CSS, PHP, or any other acronym. Jon also manages a how-to blog, Contech, to help you master the basics of blogging.
Blog authors, not Contexts and not the ASA, will own the copyright to their materials. By default, Contexts Blogs have a Creative Commons licence, though authors can choose from several licensing options.- The editors of Contexts will not exercise direct editorial oversight of your blog. However, we expect that blogs will remain true to the mission of Contexts and maintain our high editorial standards. In the rare and unexpected circumstance that a blog on contexts.org fails to meet these standards, we reserve the right to remove your blog from contexts.org.
- If at any time, you decide to move your blog to a new domain and webhost, we will provide you with all the necessary data from your contexts.org blog (entries, comments, etc.).
application process
If you're interested in blogging on contexts.org, here's what we need from you:
- A one-page summary describing your blog. Answer the following questions:
- What is your blog's subject matter, format, style and title?
- Who will write for your blog?
- And, most importantly, how will your blog contribute to achieving the goals of Contexts?
- 3-5 sample blog posts. If you already have a blog, you may submit posts from that blog for your samples, but please include them in a cleanly formatted, single text document (i.e. don't send us a list of URLs to follow).
Email the following materials to web@contexts.org