STYLE POINTS FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Please append a brief note to your contribution for the journal section ‘Notes on Contributors’.

Book reviews should also have a header with full price and format (e.g. hb, epub) details of the book being reviewed. Include no. of pages and ISBN.

Use - ise endings where available (realise, recognise)
Use an en rule – with space either side – for parenthetical dashes
Use single quote marks throughout; double only for ‘quotes “within” quotes’
At the end of a sentence use a single space following a sentence point (full stop/period) rather than two. Similarly use a single space after : or ;
End paragraphs with a single paragraph symbol (carrier return), with no following space or tab
For an ellipsis (…) use a single character (Ctrl+Alt+. in MS Word) with one space before and after the ellipsis if the sentence continues. The ellipsis should follow a point if ending a sentence.…

Typographic style and layout can be left to the Editor. Contributors should use a plain typeface for their article in its entirety, including quotations.

Relative placing of quotation marks and punctuation
Signs of punctuation used with words within quotation marks should be placed according to the sense. When there is one quotation within another, and both end with the sentence, put the punctuation mark before the first of the closing quotation marks. But sentence points should not invariably be placed within the quotation mark at the end of an extract: We need not ‘follow a multitude to do evil’.

When a long sentence is quoted, introduced by quite a short phrase, the closing point should be placed at the end of the quoted sentence: Jesus said, ‘Do not think that I have come to annul the Law and the Prophets; I have come to fulfil them.’

acronyms/abbreviations:
In general don’t use points: BBC, RADA, RSC, TLS, UK, USA
exceptions: A.D., B.C., M.P., St., Dr., Mr., Mrs.

hyphenation:
eighteenth century verse
historically minded, sincerely held
late Victorian
no-one
postcolonial
postmodern
post-structuralist

possessives: add ’s except in Classical names: Dickens’s, but Ulysses’, Alcibiades’, Jesus’ words

capitalisation:
Romantics
Western (cap. when a political concept; l.c. if geographical)

Quotations
Prose:
In general, only display prose quotations of over c. 40 words. The first line should only be indented if a new paragraph begins in the original; otherwise, begin full left.
Avoid using ellipses at the start of quotes (whether displayed or run on within the text): it can be assumed that a prose quote isn’t taken from the very start of a work. An ellipsis … indicating that you have broken the quotation does not need square brackets […] unless you need thus to make a textual point, e.g. when the author being quoted has used ellipses, in which case yours should be marked by square brackets. An ellipsis indicates an editorial omission.

Poetry:
Any length of quotation can be displayed, though if a lot of short quotations are given consider whether they may be better run on in the text. In run-on quotes, indicate line divisions with a solidus / with space either side.

References/Notes
Reviews: dispense with footnotes and page references.
Use references sparingly. At first citation give full details in a note (see templates below). For briefer references subsequently, the first citation may say something like ‘hereafter referred to as …’ If your  footnotes are comprehensive a bibliographical list as found at the end of some lengthy works and monographs, will not be necessary. If it’s available use the Insert Footnote feature in MS Word (with Arabic number format) to create a linked reference. The superscript number for a footnote follows the punctuation or quotation mark.
Give place (town) of publication if it isn’t London, or evident, e.g. Cambridge University Press does not need a preliminary ‘Cambridge’.
Subsequent references to frequently cited works should be given in parentheses in the text. Avoid using a bare number: (p. 99) (l. 300) not (99) (300).
 

Templates
Books
Zachary Leader (ed.), On Modern British Fiction, OUP, 2002, p. 123. Notice that parentheses and colons are not used for the place of publication.
An author’s surname should follow the Christian/forename/initials since references are not sorted into an alphabetically ordered list as they are in some bibliographies. Samuel Johnson, not Johnson, Samuel.

Chapters in edited books:
David Riede, ‘Transgression, Authority, and the Church of Literature in Carlyle’, in Jerome J. McGann (ed.), Victorian Connections, Charlottesville, Va., 1989, pp. 99-130. Commas rather than parenthesis for the place of publication.

Editions of works:
The George Eliot Letters, ed. Gordon S. Haight, 9 vols., New Haven, 1954-78, ii. 126.
If you are quoting from an edition other than the first, the original year of publication may be given in square parentheses before date of the edition referred to: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings [1966], 1983.

Journal articles (spell out journal titles in full):
Janice L. Haney, ‘“Shadow-Hunting”: Romantic Irony, Sartor Resartus and Victorian Romanticism’, Studies in Romanticism, 17 (1978), 300-30: 327.

A-Z
A.D. (not C.E.)
age: 30 years old
analyse (not -yze)
B.C. (not B.C.E.)
BBC
Bible

Biblical

bishop of Ely, but Bishop Patrick
Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, VII. 99; individual tales roman: Monk’s Tale
date: 22 July 2006
dénouement

the devil
duke of Northumberland
earl of Leicester
eighteenth century (not 18th)
eighteenth century verse (no hyphen)
enquiry (not in-)
focusing
Gospel (message), gospel (the genre, four gospels), but the Gospel of Matthew (title)
historically minded, sincerely held (no hyphen)
in so far (three words)
judgement (e)
late Victorian
M.P.
no-one (hyphen)
numbers: spell out up to 100 except ages (30 years old), percentages (30 per cent), and statistical passages generally
offstage
onstage
paralyse (not -yze)
per cent: 30 per cent
play text
play-goer
postcolonial
postmodern, modernism, modernist
post-structural.

Adapted from Essays in Criticism’s Style Notes http://www.oxfordjournals.org/escrit/for_authors/index.html
and New Hart’s Rules: The Handbook for Writers and Editors, OUP, 2005, adapted from R.M. Ritter, The Oxford Guide to Style, OUP, 2002. Consult New Hart’s Rules for all the finer points of style.