Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why should I give you my Great American Novel?
   Because it IS American! No, seriously, we need examples of American fiction writing in order to do language research. This research will make for better textbooks, dictionaries, and help teach computers to read. You want your computer to be able to read, don't you?
2. If I give you my novel, is it still mine?
   Absolutely, you retain the full copyright to your work. We only ask for permission to use it as part of the ANC for research purposes. This should not be counted as any kind of publication for purposes of copyright or the sale of other rights.
3. What would keep someone from reading my whole novel using the ANC and stealing all my good ideas?
   1. Nothing. But then what prevents someone from going to the library and reading all of Stephen King's books and stealing all of his good ideas? Anyone wanting to read your novel likely has much better options than obtaining a copy of the ANC.
   2. To help protect the rights of the copyright holders authors may request that only a sample of their document(s) be included. In this case a maximum of 40,000 words will be included from each document. If the document is shorter than 40,000 words 10% of the content will be removed. If the document is shorter than 5,000 word the document will be included in its entirety. (If we start removing text from short documents they start to lose their value for linguistic research.)
4. Will giving my novel to the ANC make me rich or famous?
   No. While attribution for your contribution will be given, the ANC is not going to "publish" your work. Your text will be a statistical sample amid thousands of others. No user of the ANC is going to read your novel.
5. Why do you need my demographic information?
   Demographic information (your age, gender, national origin, and race) helps us determine if there are trends or significant differences in the way that different groups write American English.
6. I am not a native speaker of American English. Can I give you my novel anyway?
   No, thank you. We are only interested in texts written by native speakers of American English.
7. I have written my novel in (Esperanto, Klingon, French). Do you want it?
   No, thank you. We only want texts written in American English.
8. I'm happy to *sell* you my novel! What are you offering?
   We can only accept donated work at this time.
9. I have (10/100/1000)K words of (IM Chat, Email, nonfiction writing, essays, school papers, letters to the editor). Do you want it?
   Yes. Please see the Contributor's guidelines for more details.
10. This sounds like a great project. Where can I read more about the use of language corpora?
    We have provided a bibliography of Corpus linguistics and language teaching for your reading pleasure.