SIDEBARS

Your project may be designed to include sidebars. If it is not, but you think your work would benefit from including them, please discuss this with your editor.

What are Sidebars?

This Is a Sidebar

Sidebars are short, set-off pieces from the main text of a work. They are commonly seen in newspaper and magazine articles, as well as in books. In Greenwood reference works, they are usually shaded, boxed, or otherwise attractively designed self-contained sections interspersed throughout the text.

Sidebars are designed to highlight certain aspects of the text, bring up interesting related information, break up the text, and encourage browsing in the same way that photographs and other images function in publications.

Sidebars can be directly or indirectly related to the text. They might be summaries of the text or lists related to the text. They might include statistics or rankings. They might be excerpts from a work that is discussed in the text. They might profile a person who is involved with the topic of the text, whether or not the person is specifically mentioned there. Sidebars are sometimes amusing, or provide interesting or offbeat sidelights to the discussion.

Length and Format

They should be placed near entries or passages on the related topics. They are easiest to work with when they are relatively brief (100-200 words), although they can run (in some cases) up to 350 words. Do not go over this number of words, because it causes problems with page layouts. If you have something longer than 350 words, but you still think that it belongs as a sidebar, please discuss this with your editor.

Please assign a heading to your sidebar. Depending on your sidebar content, the heading should be intriguing or attention getting.

Sidebars are not the place for lengthy citations of sources, nor should they be signed, unless they are written by someone other than the author of the main text.

To indicate sidebars in your text, type ⟨begin sidebar⟩ before the sidebar and ⟨end sidebar⟩ at the end.

Example

Here's an example of how to code a sidebar in the manuscript.

....Eichler won awards from the American Institute of Architects, the National Association of Home Builders, Life magazine, and others.

⟨begin sidebar⟩

Shamed into Better House Design: Eichler Houses

Joseph L. Eichler (1900–74) was born in New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants. In 1925 he and his wife moved to San Francisco where Eichler became chief financial officer for the West Coast branch of his wife's family's dairy and poultry business. From 1942 to 1945 the Eichler family lived in a rented house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Eichlers were so captivated by Wright's architecture that after they moved out of the house they hired architect Robert Anshen, a follower of Wright, to design a house for them. Meanwhile, Eichler left the dairy and poultry company after it was sold, and in 1947 he purchased a tract of land and began building houses. When Anshen saw some of the houses under construction he was unimpressed. According to Eichler's son Ned, Anshen said to Joseph Eichler: "How can someone like you, who loves real architecture, build this crap? Why don't you let me do some houses for you?" (Ditto 1995, 56). Eichler accepted the challenge, and Anshen designed the first of the houses that would soon be known as "Eichlers."⟨end sidebar⟩

The average developer was more cautious than Joseph Eichler in embracing modernism, just as most Americans were more conservative than Californians regarding the appearance of their homes....