Guidelines on Surveys

1. The volume editor, in consultation with the series editor, prepares a two-page questionnaire.
   
   
2. The MLA makes copies of the questionnaire and mails approximately three hundred of them to names either randomly selected from the appropriate MLA divisional mailing list or supplied by the volume editor.
   
   
3. In conjunction with the mailing, a notice appears in the MLA Newsletter announcing that the Publications Committee has authorized preparation of the title and that interested MLA members should write to the series editor to participate in the survey. The volume editor places similar notices in appropriate publications and professional news outlets.
   
   
4. About fifty questionnaires are sent to the volume editor to be used as needed. Some questionnaires should be sent to persons actively interested in teaching the subject of the volume, including eminent scholars in the field, a selection of whom should, ideally, be among the contributors to the book. Other questionnaires may be used as reminders or to fill in any obvious gaps in the survey response. The volume editor is free to make additional copies of the questionnaire.
   
   
5. All completed questionnaires are sent to the volume editor. (If there are coeditors, one should be designated to receive the questionnaires.) The volume editor should feel free to write follow-up letters to survey respondents to ascertain further information before preparing a tentative list of contributors.