Main Points

History is Now

Earth Chronicle thrives on submissions. Each of us is responsible for making this site work. Everyone has something they are good at, or something they know about: history, dance, science, books, religion, rap music, the internet, fly fishing, baseball, precision machine tooling, etc. We need everyone’s expertise, including your interests and special talents to build Earth Chronicle; submissions are critical, testing our new beta features is important, and there are many other jobs that we need done...

Submit Articles or Media Content for Our Library

Earth Chronicle grows when a volunteer who knows a lot about baseball submits an article about a baseball player, or explains late-inning coaching strategies, or a makes a video of good batting techniques. Earth Chronicle grows when a volunteer who knows a lot about quantum physics submits an article about the latest findings, or a diagram that makes an important concept clear to beginners, or a submits a public domain image they've found from the Hubble Telescope - finding NASA images in the public domain is a lot harder than you think. Our library grows when a musician submits an article about a musical genre that inspires them, or a video of their own concert, or mp3s of songs and / or musical loops they've created. Our library grows when a scuba diver submits an essay on the latest equipment, or a video of their diving techniques, or a collection of the underwater photographs they took on their most recent trip. Remember, our goal is to provide a place where hard facts and amazing media resources can be found with clear explanations. It is Critical to complete your work accurately so it will be understood and trusted by those who read it. If you would like to submit articles, click here for more info!

We're also seeking amazing public domain media resources for our collection. If you would like to submit media content, click here to find out how! We accept any of the following: images and digital photography, including nature images, vacation photos; Art work in images, Flash, or any other medium that we can post, including images of real media (ie non-digital) art; Audio files and source recordings including music, sound effects, sound loops, speeches, lectures, etc.; Video files from footage of where you took your most recent vacation to edited video production footage of comedy, drama, or other entertainment.

Note: All work submitted to Earth Chronicle becomes public domain. You can still publish or sell your work and / or files afterward. Yet whatever happens, the material you've submitted will be available for everyone, especially you, to use. And you will be authoritatively defined on Earth Chronicle for your role in the material's publication.

This does mean that you need to be careful if you cite someone else’s work. If the work you cite is legally part of the public domain, you can cite as much as you need - though you still need to cite the material properly. However provided you use only short passages (the industry standard for "short" is quotations less than 300 words), you can mention an idea of someone else’s or quote an important sentence or two even if the work is not in the public domain (assuming other articles have not overused the source already). In fact, this frequently isn't as big a problem as it sounds, because we like to trace the history of ideas as much as possible. So if you're having trouble, your research can often get you out of it. Find out where ideas in your articles come from. If you can trace an idea to a work in the public domain, you can make longer citations of that work. However, you can also avoid most of these problems by describing the ideas you're trying to talk about in your own words. When it makes sense to cite someone else, just be respectful and conscientious when using works that are copyrighted (or copylefted); and always provide appropriate citations for everything.

Revise Our New Content!

There are also many other ways you can help if you wish to volunteer. We need...

Proofreaders: We need proofreaders to check every submission for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Some people have excellent grammar and spelling, some people have studied mechanics professionally, and some have excellent software that allows them to ferret out language errors in an article. However, even if an author were to fall into all three groups, it's always better for someone with skill and a fresh pair of eyes to look at any article. This is critical because, every article needs to be correct before it can be posted. Otherwise, they won’t look competent and professional. That's why everything has to be checked by a real, honest to gosh human. Spelling and grammar checks are wonderful tools, as is a thesaurus. I use them myself, but they are tools, not a substitute for your expertise. If you have the proofreading skills to pinpoint errors and fix up our articles for publication, click here for more info!

Editors: While proofreaders check every submission for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc., editors check every submission for Readability. Every essay is going to be read by lots of people, so it should be well written, not just "correct". There are all kinds of "grammatically acceptable" ways to write that just aren't a good idea. Editors begin where proofreaders leave off to ensure that submissions are clear, concise, and understandable. Editors also help authors find their voice, because no one wants to read every article in the same dry, "correct" tone. This includes media experts capable of editing images, audio, Flash, and / or video so that they are at their best before they're posted. Otherwise, they won’t do any good to anyone. That's why everything has to be checked by a real, honest to gosh human. If you have the editing skills to pinpoint what's good in an article or media file, polish it, and bring out its shine, click here for more info!

Researchers: We need researchers to check the factual content of every essay. Proofreaders check submissions so that all spelling and grammar is correct. Editors check submissions so that all articles are clear and easy to understand. These are important language checks for every article, but researchers make sure the content is right. This may be the most important job at Earth Chronicle. It's the soul of our website, and makes us a cut above the rest. If it's on our website you know you can trust it; our researchers are the ones who make sure that this happens. In fact, the process of researching an article, if its done correctly, will probably lead to one or more articles giving more background and tracking the history of the ideas in the original article. We encourage people to crossover, and certainly if you're learning everything you need to know in order to verify the content of an article, write additional articles yourself; that's a way for you to share what you find interesting. This is also, an excellent way for scholars, professors, and excited students to create interesting drafts of papers with quality proofreading and research support. If you’re interested in conducting research for Earth Chronicle, or sharing research that you're doing, click here for more info!

Design and Develop Earth Chronicle!

Feedback: We need everyone to give us feedback about how our site looks and works. There are people to provide professional website design and construction expertise. But unless we hear from you we don't know what the techie folks should be doing. Earth Chronicle has lots of wonderful ideas and information to share. We need to know what's important to you, so we can prioritize our projects more effectively. And we need supporters to look over Earth Chronicle and give us feedback; not only the website, but the new projects we're preparing. Check out the ideas on Earth Chronicle Beta site where we try our new ideas. We need you to test them out, and tell us your opinions. So stop by the Beta site and let us know what you think.

Web Designers: There are all kinds of improvements we're looking to make, and major new library features that we’re looking to add. They need design experts who know how to envision and create them using GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Fontforge, Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and host of other technologies. We need usability experts to conduct usability and UI testing and provide detailed recommendations. Are you interested in getting exposure for your design skills and building your portfolio while expanding Earth Chronicle? Click here for more info!

Web Developers: Once we have all these great designs and all this wonderful feedback, we need people who can transform dreams into reality, layouts into CSS, desires into application logic, functionality into programming code. There are improvements we’re looking to make, and there are major new features we’re looking to add to our library. We need great front end and back end developers to plan out and make them happen. We need experts to conduct unit and integration testing. Would you like to add to your portfolio while developing Earth Chronicle? Click here for more info!