[MR] Oak 2008 Issue 1 is available!

[Becky McEllistrem]

May I interrupt our current discussion?

It is with great excitement that I announce our first issue of the Oak for the year 2008.

The PDF file is available at:

http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/

It is called Oak 2008 (Issue 24).

In this issue Master Ruaidhri an Cu proves he’s an outstanding researcher with his documentation for Hope and Despair as well as Bruce and the Spider. Mistress Kiri reminds us that her abilities continue to be incredible with her article called Chinese, Turkic and Near Eastern Influences on Mongolian Court Cuisine of the 14th Century.

And just as exciting – Baronne Marie-Therese Normande offering us her skills as artist and creating the electronic Oak’s first cover.  Of course Master Tirloch and Mistress Anne continue to help with proofing and layout.  I'm always very grateful to our contributors.  Thank you!

 The submission deadline for the second issue of this year’s Oak will be the first weekend in November.

Did you notice the article submission deadline for this issue was in April and the newsletter got published in June?  So did I.  I have always announced a submission deadline but never a publication deadline.  Why?  Because I wanted the electronic publication process to iron itself out and gain experience with several issues before setting schedules.  At this stage I am still not setting a hard-core publication deadline.  However it is my intent to have an issue published 1 month after the submission deadline.  The difficulty in setting a publication deadline for a newsletter like this likes in the all-volunteer organization structure and the volume of work that might or might not be involved depending on the submissions.

   Even if an article is close to publication status, we can still have several "polishing up" issues ex: page numbers forgotten in one or two references but not all of them, etc.  We also can still have layout issues and may other items to discuss before final publication.  I could possibly create templates but I believe the author is responsible for content and the editor/staff is responsible for the formatting.  I also worry about stifling creativity of new authors, so I try to be as flexible as possible within required publication law.

   There are a couple of people that have mentioned an interest in helping out so I am creating more reviewer positions.  These are people that will help with a variety of steps including: checking for plagiarism issues, helping with fact checking, double-checking reference format and other items.

I already have some help.  The Order of the Laurel continues to be extremely supportive.  I still do the final review, however in this case sometimes you just want a couple more pairs of eyes in the process.  Some publication experience is preferred but not required.  The best candidate for a reviewer position is the slow reader who likes to delve into details.  Examples might be the book herald or the exchequer.  Attendance at events is not required but helpful.

If you’re interested in being a reviewer please write me privately.  We typically don’t have a lot of work to do until after the submission deadline, so I won’t have immediate assignments.  Come November we’ll be very busy.

Lady Rebecca the Contrary
Oak Editor