In order to allow the Editorial Board to track all of the articles that are being published at the various USU publications, we have adopted the use of the website Trello. Trello is a task management system that tracks individual tasks online through the use of what are called “boards” and “cards.” As a Pressworker, you are responsible, in part, for the advancement of your work through the review and publication process. If the process stalls because an Editor appears to have forgotten about you, take the initiative to remind them. They will not resent it — likely, they will feel a deep sense of guilt about having failed to live up to their duty as one of the Editors and will attempt to remedy the deficiency immediately.
Outside submissions are tracked by the Editors themselves. Because you are part of the PressOrg, you are expected to take a higher degree of ownership over your own work and its progress. That is to say, you are the Press, as much as any of the Editors.
Getting Access to Trello
If you are a newly minted Pressworker or Pressworker Candidate (or you are an old hand who has never been given access to Trello), you should ask one of the Editors to send you an invite. This can be done by link or by email; either way, an email is required to sign up. Once you have signed up, you should change your display name to match the pen name you use on the USU Discord server.
New Articles
All articles for the Red Clarion should begin in the “In Progress” list. As soon as you touch pen to paper to write about something and you believe an article will likely result, you should create a blank card under the “In Progress” list. It can have a WIP title. You should assign yourself to the card by clicking the “join” button to confirm that it’s yours and to get updates when it moves. If you’re working in a google doc (which your finished article should always be), you should link the google doc to the card. Feel free to link any other research, etc. as well.
You should assign at least one “type” tag (agitation or propaganda) and one “content” tag to your article. This may be revised later, but provides guidance to the Editors.
Naming Conventions
Articles should always have a sequence in brackets before the title. For incomplete articles this should be [(EXTERNAL) AUTHOR PEN NAME]. Since you’re a Pressworker, your sequence will not have the external marker. Once an article is scheduled for publication it will have a publication date sequence in the YEAR-MONTH-DAY format. Completed articles will thus have a sequence like this: [2023-07-01 NAME] before their title.
Article Status
Your article will pass through a number of different statuses as you work on it, generally starting with “In Progress.” If you decide you can’t complete it and need to put it down for a while, it can be moved to “Backburner.” The article status is encapsulated by the list in which it is housed, with the lists indicating it is progressively closer to being published as the article moves rightwards.
Ready for EB Consideration. The author should move the card to this list when the draft of the article is complete. Entering this list signals the Editors that they should begin their review.
Author Review of EB Suggestions. Only an Editor will move the card to this list. They will review the article, make suggested edits or notes, and then alert you that those notes need review. When you have finished reviewing them, if the article meets the Editors approval, they will move the card to the next list.
Ready for Line Edits. This list signals a line editor to review the article. When the editor is done reading and making suggestions, the article will be moved to the next list.
Author Review of Asst Editor Suggestions. You’ll review the last line editor suggestions and, once you’re done discussing them with the line editor, move your card to the Awaiting Approval column.
Awaiting Approval. The card will remain in this column until the Editorial Board approves it for publishing.
Approved. An Editor will move your card to this column when the article has been approved. It will live here until it has been actually scheduled to post on the website (that is, when a draft with a scheduled publication time has been submitted).
Scheduled. Once the draft has been submitted to the website, but before the article is published, an Editor will keep it in this column. Once an article has been scheduled, it’s name will have the [202x-xx-xx] date stamp added to its title.
Published. Once the article is published, it will be moved to this column, where it will remain until the end of the month.
Archived. An Editor will move the card of your published article to this column when the month is out.