Editorial Policies

Language Conventions

As language and cultural awareness evolve, the editorial policies at the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas evolve, too, and we are looking at how the language and naming conventions we employ align with current thinking in the publishing world.

A particular change we are committed to moving forward is capitalizing Black. Since the beginning, we have followed the Chicago Manual of Style for our editorial guidance, and the Manual said this in a June 2020 statement: “Specifically, we now prefer to write Black with a capital B when it refers to racial and ethnic identity.” The EOA also will move toward more “person-centered” language when possible, e.g., enslaved person, person with disabilities.

While we will use these updated style conventions in our language going forward, we must note that it is not feasible to go back to all of our more than 7,000 existing entries and make these changes. We simply do not have the staff time or resources to do that. But we will use these updated style choices as new entries are published on the site and take the time to update existing entries as we can.

Public Comments

The CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas (EOA), a project of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), welcomes readable, relevant remarks that can add extra information to an entry or offer another viewpoint. We also welcome relevant information about a personal connection to the subject of an entry. Comments offer a chance for people to share their expertise, thoughts, and experiences with us, further illuminating our topics. To submit a comment, click on “Add Public Comment” at the bottom of any entry.

The comments feature is moderated by the EOA’s editorial staff. Comments will be edited for EOA style and for clarity, and they will be posted at the staff’s discretion. Comments are not fact-checked by the EOA staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the EOA or of CALS. That said, we will avoid posting comments with obviously erroneous information.

The following will not be allowed in comments: name-calling, personal attacks, vulgarity, commercial promotion, impersonations, or incoherence. In comments on our site and on our CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas Facebook page, we adhere to the CALS Social Media Guidelines: https://cals.org/social-media-guidelines.

Comments can be submitted anonymously, but we prefer posting names and hometowns along with comments. We ask for contact information in case we need to email a commenter to clarify something, but we do not post or share this information. If a person contacts us wanting to communicate with someone who has made a comment, we will send the commenter an email with that person’s information in case the commenter wants to connect.

Since comments are moderated, they will not appear on the site until they have been approved. If they are approved, comments are typically posted within three business days of submission.