Scholarly Editing: The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing
Editor-in-Chief Noelle A. Baker
Statement of Purpose
Scholarly Editing:The Annual of the Association for Documentary Editing is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal archived by the U.S. Library of Congress and distributed by the University of Virginia Press. The journal is committed to all aspects of textual scholarship and recovery, including the preservation of texts and artifacts that represent and celebrate the lives of and contributions from and about Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples; Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; women; LGBTQ+ individuals; and peoples of the Global South. In addition to projects that illustrate the traditional range of editorial methodologies and practices, we welcome those that feature rare or marginal texts, texts that dislodge the single-author model, oral histories and tales, community recovery, creative works of “rememory,” and the decolonizing of artistic works, archives, records, and editions for the discoverability of racialized and underrepresented stories and cultural artifacts.
The editors are committed to amplifying the work of diverse voices. We particularly encourage contributions from marginalized, silenced, or overlooked groups. We welcome work in all disciplines—from new and established projects, individuals at any stage of their career, and those who engage in public history or otherwise seek to advance knowledge beyond the academy.
The content published in the journal includes essays; micro-editions; reviews of print and digital editions, digital projects, and tools that enhance recovery work; teaching materials; and transcripts of interviews and conversations. The journal’s eclectic, multidisciplinary approach makes it an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the theory, practice, and pedagogy of recovery and editing, including educators, students, researchers, scholars, historians, archivists, editors, information professionals, digital humanists, local genealogists, and community members.
Statement on Diversity and Anti-Racism
The editors of Scholarly Editing recognize that Black, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples; Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; women; LGBTQ+ individuals; and the peoples and cultures of the Global South are underrepresented in the field of scholarly editing. That paucity of representation is a telling indicator of systemic and institutional racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination.
We recognize that our editorial and advisory boards are insufficiently diverse, and we will invite underrepresented voices as we add to these bodies. We commit to supporting historically underrepresented and racialized groups and peoples and the recovery of their primary materials, and we further commit to several anti-racist and anti-colonialist actions, moving forward. As our Rolling Call for Contributions details in greater depth, in all journal sections we seek decolonialist analyses and content from and about underrepresented groups. Likewise, we are inviting members of underrepresented groups to serve as peer reviewers for contributions to the journal.
Peer Review
All content published in Scholarly Editing is rigorously reviewed by at least two scholars with expertise relevant to the submission under review. Essays are subject to a standard double-blind review process. A different procedure is followed for micro-editions. The editors select promising editions from submitted proposals. For selected editions, the journal’s technical editor and micro-edition co-editors work with the edition’s editor(s) to put the edition online at an unpublished URL. Thereafter, the edition undergoes a double-blind review. Reviewers evaluate the edition’s content in addition to its editorial theory and methodology. Reviewers of essays and micro-editions recommend that the journal accept the submission as-is, accept it only after revision, or reject it.
All reviews are shared with contributors after evaluation by the editor-in-chief to ensure their compliance with the journal’s ethical standards for peer review. Submissions that are accepted as-is or after appropriate revision are edited by one or more members of the editorial board as well as the journal’s copy editor before publication in Scholarly Editing.
Open Access
Between 2012 and 2017, content was published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Since 2022, content has been published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Contributors retain all rights to their original content. For every edition published in Scholarly Editing, readers may access the user interface developed for web publication and the XML file containing the core metadata for the edition.
Image credits
Banner: British Museum, Am2006,Drg.85
Volume 43 image: Lesbians of Color/3rd World Lesbians, Their Lovers/Friends, Everyone. (Photograph by Mich Ling, 2023), flier to support a fundraiser for a lesbian of color’s child custody case from Merle Woo's papers, a collection currently being processed at The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. Reprinted by permission of Merle Woo.
Rolling Call for Contributions image: Snail woodcut by Dora Carrington, appearing at the end of the Hogarth Press 1917 version of Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall." British Library, Cup.401.f.24. Virginia Woolf: © The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf. Leonard Woolf: © The University of Sussex and The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Leonard Woolf.
Volume 42
Our editorial board is delighted to publish a new issue of Scholarly Editing. With Volume 42, the journal continues to expand its topical, geographical, and chronological breadth; amplify the work of diverse voices; and advance all aspects of textual scholarship and recovery. This volume includes a micro-edition that is likely the first scholarly edition of a born-digital interactive work of fiction; conversations with scholars of Indigenous languages and Black heritage spaces; insights into the life of a free Black soldier serving in the US Civil War; experiments that foster empathy and tolerance; the challenges of using generative AI in textual studies and recovery projects; and much more. With this volume we are also pleased to announce that the US Library of Congress is now archiving Scholarly Editing, and we have begun a partnership with the University of Virginia Press, the journal’s new distributor. We hope readers enjoy these diverse works of recovery. We believe that in these challenging times for free speech, artistic freedom, and intellectual inquiry, our work—and our readers’ engagement with it—is of critical importance.
Rolling Call for Contributions
The editorial team invites ongoing contributions for peer review to Scholarly Editing. We welcome transcripts of conversations and interviews between recovery practitioners; essays on the theory, practice, and pedagogy of recovery; reviews of print and digital editions, digital humanities projects, and the digital tools that enhance recovery; and small-scale editions of the understudied authors, texts, and documents that reflect our diverse and multifaceted cultural heritages.