Digital English is an evolving handbook for university English teachers. We welcome submissions of approximately 1000 words, of classroom exercises, online activities, assessment strategies, and course design ideas. We seek submissions in the areas of:

  • Creative e-tivities
  • Digital storytelling
  • Discussion boards and webinars
  • Blogs
  • Quizzes
  • Wikis and other community knowledge generators
  • Mobile technology in the physical classroom
  • Databases, graphs and distant reading tools
  • Troubleshooting
  • Using Learning Management Systems (Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas) creatively and effectively
  • Online course design

We welcome submissions that work with a specific author, topic or genre (Wordsworth, critical race theory, Hollywood musicals), but will particularly value exercises that can be adapted to a variety of authors, subjects, periods, modes and critical frameworks. Our ideal submission is: written in engaging and informal language immediately accessible to the user; has a short, snappy title; provides step-by-step instructions; and reflects on how it works – did the students enjoy this activity? how did they demonstrate their learning? what was your experience? what kinds of discussions or questions did it generate?

Authors should prepare their submission using the template here and according to the Digital English Style Guide.

Digital English Style Guide

Digital English will use MLA Handbook 8thEdition and the Oxford English Dictionary Onlineas style and spelling guides.

  • 12-point Times or Times New Roman for all text (including main title, subheadings, quotes, notes, and bibliography).
  • Main title in bold, italics eg What’s that Word?
  • Subheadings should be in bold eg Overview
  • Ensure the author’s name and affiliation are at the top of the page, immediately after the main title
  • Leave two lines between the author line and the first line of the submission
  • All text should be double-spaced (including the notes and bibliography).
  • All text should be aligned left; do not indent the first line of the paragraph.
  • Quotes of five or more lines should be set off from the surrounding text (i.e., extracted) and indented exactly one-half inch from the margins. Adjust the margins for this; do not use spaces or tabs.
  • Do not use hyphens to break words at the ends of lines; let lines wrap naturally.
  • Remove any headers or footers in the manuscript.
  • Remove any special formatting in Microsoft Word, such as preset styles or page templates.
  • Format all citations in MLA
  • At the top of the page, please nominate a list of broad-based “tags” by which the piece can be categorised (these could be technical, pedagogical, or literary: eg #tools, #sampleassignments, #curriculumdesign, #earlymodern, #socialmedia, #genre
  • If you have cited online sources, please include a stable URL in the works cited list