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00. Feedback Instructions

1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 8 The American Yawp is a highly collaborative project. Hundreds of contributors, dozens of editors, and hundreds of commenters have worked to build this content. We are excited to continue that collaboration and ensure that our text reflects the very best of current historical scholarship. Each summer, our editorial team integrates feedback from scholars and instructors to produce an improved draft for the following academic year. And so we need your help.

2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 2 What’s missing? What’s extraneous? What sounds awkward? What’s just flat-out wrong?

3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 4 As you find something that could be improved, just click the speech bubble to the right of the paragraph and let us know what you think. Copy-editing will be useful, but we especially need your content-expertise. Global reflections and suggestions on what to add or trim are appreciated (and can be made by clicking on “Special Pages” in the table of contents and selecting “General Comments”), but practical contributions will be the most helpful. If you find a clunky sentence, please suggest smoother prose. If you think the framing of a topic could be handled better, suggest alternate language. If you think we need to add additional content, please consider drafting possible sentences or a paragraph.

4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Putting together a textbook is hard work, and synthesis inevitably frustrates specialists. We are committed to capturing innovative scholarship, but we must do so in a manner that balances detail with summary, narrative with analysis, and complexity with accessibility. Every addition will require a corresponding subtraction, so we appreciate suggestions for streamlining material just as much as suggestions on what we should add. Ultimately, this is the job of our editors, but we welcome your insight not only as educators, but as specialists in your areas of expertise.

5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 1 With your help, the American Yawp can show that a collaborative, affordable, and online textbook can maintain the highest standards of professional excellence, harness the potential of a digital platform, and still alleviate the increasingly onerous financial burdens facing our students.