Your material does not have to be camera-ready before it can be posted to Jewish Writing for critiquing. After all, we are going to butcher it (for your own benefit, of course).
On the other hand, it should be good. It should be very good. It should be the best you can produce. It doesn't make much sense for us to work hard to fix some of the sloppy mistakes that you may have made by not reviewing it properly. We don't want to critique your rough draft. It's not worth your time or ours. If we see it, it should be good.
Furthermore, if it is not prepared properly, then some of us won't be able to critique it properly. We won't be able to see the forest for the trees. You won't get our best input on the really important issues, since we're busy handling the stuff you should have done anyhow.
We also understand that you may have to make changes in the manuscripts later on, based on the demands of the publisher or as a result of subsequent changes to the story line. Don't worry. That's not a problem.
We understand that the publisher will want those changes. We also want you to add changes, such as including a credit statement about Jewish Writing.
On the other hand...
Do not submit a manuscript for critiquing until somebody has already reviewed and proofread it.
You should present high-quality work to Jewish Writing.
You want to tap our brains for the content of what you are writing, not for the nitty-gritty crossing-the-ts-and-dotting-the-is.
Don't make life difficult for those who will critique your work.
Do your job well, and then we'll be able to do our job well.
Don't worry. When we're finished, there will still be plenty of work for proofreaders.
There's more
A rough, unproofread draft shows disrespect for the rest of us on Jewish Writing group, and it is a waste of our time.
You do want to remain a respected member of the group, don't you?
True, Jewish Writing is designed to check the content and flow of your manuscript. However, a poorly-written document is distracting, and some of us may have difficulty dealing with the real issues.
Run your document through a spell-checker before it is submitted. Be sure that it handles similar words or homonyms correctly.
After having your word processor check the spelling, you'll have to convert the document to another format. You will not be able to submit the material in that word processor format.
