Editorial Guidelines for Symposium
- Articles that appear in Symposium must first and foremost be works of scholarship and interpretation of Great Books. The home for articles on contemporary authors is The Wright Side.
- Symposium articles being works of scholarship, student essays of personal reflection or personal confession are not appropriate for this journal. These should be submitted instead to the college literary magazine, The Wright Side.
- One founding principle of Symposium is that objective truth exists and is discoverable by human beings including community college students and faculty, Therefore, preference for publication is to be given to articles that present a fresh point of view that is clearly grounded in objective truth, fact and logic. The highly subjective and the work so eccentric as to be ungrounded in truth, fact, and logic are to be referred to The Wright Side.
- Preference for publication is to be given to articles which discuss authors and works that are less frequently taught. For example, an article on the play Ajax by Sophocles is to appear before an article of equal quality on Oedipus Rex. An essay on "A Woman’s Kingdom" by Chekhov is to appear before an essay of equal value that concerns "Lady With A Pet Dog."
- Student articles on the same literary work are not to appear in subsequent issues. For example, an article on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is not to appear in Symposium more often than once every three years.
- The rules for editorial revision by Symposium faculty are those of most other intellectual journals. That is, the ideas presented by contributors ate not to be changed by the editorial staff. However, a patently weak paragraph is to be rewritten by the editors. They also have a responsibility to include when necessary a transition sentence. They also must rearrange the order of paragraphs if to do so substantially improves the logic of the exposition. Above all, articles are to be free from jargon, grammatical errors, repetitiveness, clichés, irrelevancies and errors of fact.
- The M.L.A. parenthetical style is to govern questions of style and works cited. Editors have an obligation to make sure no bibliographical errors appear in the final product.
- Symposium is to essentially resemble nationally recognized scholarly journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Georgia Review. There ought therefore not to be stapled spines, glossy covers, or an 8.5 x11 format. The only exception permitted will be if a lack of funds would otherwise mean an issue could not appear. Even in this case every effort must be made to produce a journal that resembles the specifications spelled out above.
- Editorial duties will include making sure student addresses and phone numbers are on file in case it is necessary to contact a student about a question, an award or where to deliver the two complimentary copies to which each contributor is entitled.
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