Introduction

We're looking for people passionate about ideas to volunteer to edit The Daily Muse for a fortnight. We call our volunteer editors 'Guest Muses'. Guest Muses have the opportunity to help the development of an exciting and ambitious new project which aims to bring the ideas of history's greatest thinkers and writers to the attention of thousands of people worldwide. If you're interested in becoming a Guest Muse, please read on.

Information for Prospective Guest Muses

Who can be a Guest Muse?
A Guest Muse is usually an expert in a field relating to one of the newsletter's themes. For a theme of 'Democracy', for example, we would usually invite a philosopher or political scientist who specialises in political theory. However, we invite anyone who has a passion for a particular topic to apply; formal academic training is not a prerequisite.

How do I become a Guest Muse?
Most Guest Muses are individually invited to join the program. However, if you are interested in becoming a Guest Muse, please send an expression of interest note to the Muse. Please specify in the note the theme (or themes) for which you would like to be involved. This can be either:

A theme which we have already selected--consult the introduction for a list of themes we are likely to run in the forthcoming year, and the calendar for a breakdown of themes which are scheduled to run in the coming months, OR
A theme of your own choosing.

The Muse will usually request some further information from you, such as your qualifications or background in fields relating to the theme. Sometimes, the Muse will ask you to draft a couple 'sample issues' of the newsletter. Once the Muse is satisfied that you'll be able to be a successful Guest Muse, he'll consult with you on your availability and slot your theme into our calendar. A few weeks before your theme is due to run, we'll ask you to enter the quotations you've chosen into our online system (see below).

Are Guest Muses Paid?
No; Guest Muses are voluntary contributors to the newsletter. However, to thank Guest Muses for their service, we usually send them a gift such as a book voucher or a complimentary copy of our software. Additionally, becoming a Guest Muse is an excellent way of engaging with your favourite topic. Selecting quotes is interesting and stimulating, and you'll be able to involve yourself in discussions about the quotes you select. Becoming a Guest Muse is also an excellent way of being acknowledged as an expert in your field--you'll be announced as the Guest Muse in the first newsletter of your theme, and given special moderator status in the discussion areas of the website. 

Responsibilities of Guest Muses

The primary responsibility of Guest Muses is to select quotations for their theme, and enter these quotations along with any necessary supplementary information. Guidelines for selecting and entering quotes is provided in the next section. In addition, however, we expect Guest Muses to:

Interact with other users in the discussion area of the website for the duration of the theme.
Moderate the discussion area for the duration of the theme. Moderation involves deleting posts which are offensive or of no value in the discussion, correcting posting errors and assisting to resolve disputes between users.
Provide the Muse with a brief report at the end of the theme. The report should include some information on whether you enjoyed the experience of being a Guest Muse, whether you were able to use the online administrative area successfully, and any important information about your actions as moderator of the discussion area.

Guidelines

(1)  SELECTING QUOTES   
Most themes run for a fortnight (some themes run for only a week; see the calendar for details). Issues are dispatched five days a week, which means that, for fortnight-long themes, ten quotes are required.

Relationship to the theme   All the quotes should, of course, be related to the theme. It is perfectly acceptable to include quotes which have only an indirect connection to the theme; our fortnight of quotes on the internet, for example, included several quotes from pre-internet philosophers about technology in general.

Acceptable sources   There are no firm restrictions on the sources from which quotes can be drawn. Typically, most quotes are taken from the writings of well-known philosophers and authors, but it is acceptable to select quotes from the works of lesser-known writers, or writers in other fields (such as history, or economics). It is also sometimes acceptable to quote people who are not writers at all, such as politicians or entertainers, if their words contribute to an understanding of the theme.

Finding and citing quotes   Wherever possible, rely on the writer's complete work. If it is practical, find and quote from the text itself (book, magazine or journal article, etc.). If this is not possible, find the quote from an authoritative source. It is often useful to consult a dictionary of quotations for ideas--have a look at books such as The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, The Oxford Dictionary of Thematic Quotations, The Penguin Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations and Quotationary (Random House). It may be useful to browse the quotations part of the references section of your local library.

There are also a few very useful sources online: by far the best is Bartleby.com's collection of more than 80,000 quotations which includes the enormous Colombia World of Quotations. It may sometimes be useful to Google for quotes on your theme; often, the best way to do this is to search for the phrase, "quotes on [theme]", e.g. "quotes on democracy". However, please be careful about sourcing quotes from nonauthorative internet sources. Personal quotations websites very often list quotes incorrectly. You should always double-check the quote with a respected source. Many websites also do not provide full citation information for the quote (they often just provide the author's name), which is inadequate.

Preferred quotes   Wherever possible, the quotes you select should be:

short
easy to read and understand, and
accessible (not requiring any background knowledge)

This does not mean that only pithy one-line quotes are acceptable. It is, of course, important to provide quotes which are long enough to give the reader a good impression of the writer's argument, and which include not only the conclusion of the argument but also some of the reasoning involved. However, these demands should be balanced against the need to provide quotes which can be quickly and easily read and understood by subscribers. Most subscribers glance at the newsletter for only a few moments while checking their email every morning--a series of newsletters with long and difficult quotes would be too demanding on their time. 

Additionally, quotes with one or more of the following characteristics should be preferred:

thought-provoking
humourous
controversial
topical

Quotes with these characteristics tend to be better received by subscribers and tend to result in more interesting discussion on the website. Try to include at least one humourous quote in your series; and, rather than selecting quotes which express obvious truths, select quotes which will stimulate readers because they are controversial or topical.

Guest Muses who are faced with a theme which relates to a well-established area of academic inquiry (such as 'Knowledge', or 'Feminism'), should resist the temptation to select quotes which provide an academic overview of the field. It is much more important to select quotes which are individually stimulating rather than to try and select provide a mini-course on the field. Each series of quotes is not meant to teach subscribers the theme, but to expose them to a variety of interesting ideas.

(2)  ORDERING QUOTES   
After drawing up a shortlist of possible quotes, it is next necessary to consider the order in which they will appear. There are no firm rules on how quotes should be ordered. Here are some suggested ways:

chronologically, especially if the quotes answer each other, or if the quotes show the clear development of an idea over a period of time
thematically, if there is an obvious distinction in the content of the quotes (if, for example, half of the quotes support a particular proposition and the other half oppose it) 
dialectically, (i.e. in the format of Philosopher A followed by Philosopher B, A, B, A, B, ...) if there is an important dialogue between different points of view

Although it is certainly desirable that the quotes should be well-organised, do not exclude quotes simply on the basis that they don't easily fit with your planned structure. Always remember that it is most important to include individually interesting quotes.

(3)  PROVIDING SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION  
It may be necessary to provide additional information about a quote or its author. This should be done sparingly. The fact that a quote requires a lengthy explanation is often a good indicator that it should not be included in the first place (see above on selecting quotes which are easy to understand). Where it is necessary to provide supplementary information, provide only that information which is necessary to understand and appreciate the quote. Three types of supplementary information are generally provided:

Biographical information on the author of the quote, if the author is not well-known and if the information helps understanding the quote.

Explanatory notes, if additional information is needed in order for the quote to be properly understood and appreciated, or if the quote needs to be placed in context.

Comments to stimulate discussion. It is sometimes a good idea to pose a question or make a few controversial comments in order to encourage users to discuss the quote. This is particularly the case if the quote expresses an obvious truth (or an obvious falsehood) or for some other reason does not lend itself well to discussion.

Entering quotes

(1)  ACCESSING THE ADMINISTRATIVE AREA
The Muse will provide you with a URL and password to access our secure administrative area, where you will be able to directly add your quotes (and other information) to our database. You must complete this process at least one week before your first newsletter is due to be dispatched.

(2)  ENTERING DATA FOR THE FIRST ISSUE
Once you have entered the administrative area, locate the entry for your first newsletter, and click [edit]. You will be presented with a form with the following fields:

dispatch date: the date (in M/D/YYYY format) when the newsletter will be sent, without any leading zeroes. It should be pre-entered and there is usually no need to change it.

e.g. 1/19/2004

theme (short): the short title for your theme. The first letter is capitalised. It should be pre-entered and there is usually no need to change it.

e.g. Democracy, Philosophy of mind

theme (long): the long description of your theme. This field should be filled in only for the first newsletter of a new theme. It functions as an overview of the quotes you've selected for the next fortnight.

e.g. For the next fortnight we present quotes on democracy. The quotes are, generally, critical of democracy; illustrating that, despite the prevalence of supposed democratic forms of government in modern times, democracy has been and continues to be out of favour with many philosophers. Whether we should continue to live in democracies, and whether we should continue to promote the introduction of democracy in other parts of the world are surely among the most important questions of this century. For this reason, we would especially like to invite subscribers to discuss this fortnight's quotes on the website.

advertisement: the advertisement which will be included in the newsletter. This field is usually blank; occasionally, the Muse will enter an ad. There is no need to change this field.

quote: the quote itself. Do not include inverted commas or any citation information.

e.g. Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

author: the author of the quote. If the author is listed in the drop-down box, select him or her and do not fill in the subsequent fields. If the author is not listed in the drop-down box, enter the author's first name and last name and date of birth and death (if dates of birth and/or death are B.C., check the "B.C." box). If there is no author for the quote, enter "Anonymous" in the last name field and leave the other fields blank.

source: the citation for the quote. The author's name and dates are have already been provided; enter here only:

(1) The name of the text from which the quote has been drawn. If the quote is from a poem, article, the name should be placed in single inverted commas; if the name is from a novel, play, feature film, etc. (names that would in usual practice be italicised), no inverted commas should be used.

(2) Any important citation information, such as the chapter or act number of the text. Page and line numbers are not necessary. If the text is in translation, the name of the translator should be included and prefixed by "tr."

(3) A bracketed date of publication for the text. If no date of publication is known, omit the date of publication.

e.g. 'The Agnostic' (1965)
Hamlet (1960), Act 2, spoken by Hamlet
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
Introduction to The Intimate Journals of Charles Baudelaire, tr. Christopher Isherwood (1930)

extra: any supplementary information. See above on when you should include supplementary information. When entering the information, please follow these formatting guidelines:

(1) When entering biographical information, prefix the information with the words "ABOUT THE AUTHOR" and three spaces.

(1) When entering explanatory notes, prefix the information with the words "NOTES" and three spaces.

(1) When entering comments to stimulate discussion, prefix the comments with the words "IDEAS TO THINK ABOUT" and three spaces.

e.g.  ABOUT THE AUTHOR   Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the nineteenth President of the United States.
 NOTES   In this passage Hobbes reaches his famous conclusion that the state of nature is a war of every man against every man. Hobbes reaches this conclusion after supposing that human beings are essentially self-interested, and that, since the weakest man has enough strength to kill even the strongest, people will necessarily attack others for safety, gain, and reputation.
 IDEAS TO THINK ABOUT   If Oupensky's view of time is correct, would time travel be possible?

(2)  ENTERING DATA FOR SUBSEQUENT ISSUES
Once you have finished entering all the necessary data for your first quote, click Process. If there are no errors with your submission, you should receive a message notifying you that changes to the issue were successful. Go back, locate the entry for your next quote, and click [edit]. Follow the same procedure as above for this and all other quotes for your theme.