The articles in the Problem Names Project discuss various names and naming practices about which there are common misconceptions concerning their use in the Middle Ages or Renaissance. For example, some names and naming practices that many people today believe to be medieval are purely modern. Other names and naming practices which were used in one medieval culture are now mistakenly believed to have been used in others. Other common misconceptions concern the medieval pronunciation of a name or whether it was used by men or women in the Middle Ages. If there are common misconceptions about any aspect of the pre-1600 use of a name or naming practice, it may be a "Problem Name".
If you are interested in writing an article about a problem name, please contact Sharon Krossa. Usually, Problem Names authors are members of The Academy of Saint Gabriel, but non-members may also help with the project.
Usually, much of the research for the article will already have been done by Academy members in the course of their research for clients. As various names are identified as candidates for Problem Names, people volunteer to write up the research into an article. Sometimes people volunteer to do major research into the name as well as write up the article, but for many names this is not neccessary.
Draft versions of articles are posted to the Academy mailing list for comment. While the final article will be posted to the Web in HTML format, drafts should be done in plain ASCII. See Guidelines for Problem Names Articles. The subject lines of draft articles should be in this form:
Problem Names: Flirbble -- Draft 1
Flirbble, of course, should be replaced by the main name being discussed in the article and the draft number amended as appropriate.
Academy members will then comment on the draft. Comments may be about the style or clarity of the article, spelling, and punctuation, as well as about factual content. The author incorporates these comments into a new draft, which is also posted for comment.
This cycle of drafts and commentary continues until a complete draft emerges that elicits no more comments. This is then put into HTML format for posting to the web. (This is usually done by Sharon Krossa or Josh Mittleman, but authors are free to do their own web formatting if they wish. See the HTML Template.)
Guidelines for Problem Names Articles
HTML Template
(Note that the template does not have a link back to this page because Problem Names articles do not have a direct link to this page. Use your browser's Back button instead.)
Current List of Problem Names and Naming Practices Topics
Problem Names Project articles are published by Sharon L. Krossa (contact), with the assistance of The Academy of Saint Gabriel.
© 1996-2006. All rights reserved. Copyright of this article belongs to its author(s) as indicated above. Please do not copy or redistribute without proper permission!
http://www.MedievalScotland.org/problem/names/guides/index.shtml