Become an Associate Editor

As our Associate Editors and Senior Editors pages show, IDEA relies on many volunteer collaborators, working without compensation, simply for the reward of the work itself, and perhaps for the publishing credit or the consultancy opportunities it brings.

Professionals in voice, speech, dialects, linguistics, and allied disciplines serve as the authorities on the dialects in the areas they represent, collecting the samples that form the archive. Many are available for consultancy and coaching.

Though many editors are associated with a certain area, all are free to submit samples from anywhere around the world.

IDEA’s editors select the speakers, record them, analyze and describe the samples, and transcribe the subjects’ speech, sometime phonetically, but more often simply orthographically. We create personal pages for our editors where we publish their biographies, photographs, contact details, and a complete record of their publications.

The status of associate editor is achieved once a person has contributed five high-quality samples to IDEA and expressed an interest in continuing to contribute. And once an associate editor has contributed 40 samples, he or she is awarded the title of senior editor.

If you would like to join us in this exciting research and publishing activity, please read our Submission Guidelines and Recording Guidelines.

If you then feel confident that you have the skills and the dedication to undertake the responsibilities, please go to the Submissions page and submit your first sample!

We hope to hear from you soon!