Admin Post: Volunteers Needed: Reference Readers

[dawn_felagund]

We are currently seeking volunteers who wish to assist as reference readers in our Reference Library!

Our Reference Library is a refereed section of the site, meaning that all content is reviewed by an editor before being posted. Reference readers assist with fact-checking and helping to improve new essays being added to the Reference Library.

If you love diving deep into research and enjoy reading meta about Tolkien's world, this may be a job for you!

How does reference reading work?

Whenever we have a new essay for the Reference section, our reference editors will review it first. If we decide to accept the essay, we solicit the help of two or more reference readers who will do the following:

• Fact-check the essay to ensure that all references can be easily found where the essay says they are.


• Provide any feedback on how the author can improve the content of the essay. For example, is there a stronger quote or better source that they may have overlooked? Do they need to address a common counterargument in order to make a strong case for a particular point of view?

Reference readers do not accept or reject essays. If an essay makes it to the reference readers, we are expecting to publish it on our site. You will not be passing judgment on the work of others but helping to make it the best it can possibly be before it is published in our Reference Library. Please note that reference readers do not copyedit or provide feedback on the quality of writing in the essay.

As a reference reader, you choose which projects you want to work on, and there is no minimum requirement to stay on the active reference reader list. We will contact you whenever we have a new essay in need of reference readers. If you are interested, simply respond and we will send the essay and further instructions to you.

We welcome all interested Tolkien fans, from beginners to veterans. In addition, we will help provide you with access to books and other materials that you need to do your job.

The full reference reader job description can be found in the Reference section of our site. If you're interested, please contact us at loremaster@silmarillionwritersguild.org or comment here with the email address you'd like us to use to contact you. (Comments are screened.)

Questions are welcome here as well. We will unscreen any comments with questions, as long as they don't contain an email address, so that others may benefit from the replies, unless you tell us you'd like us to keep the comment screened.

If there are other groups that may be interested in this, feel free to signal boost.