Author guidelines

  1. Preparing for submission
  2. Acceptable use of AI-assisted technologies in articles
  3. Article types
  4. Formatting your Research Article
  5. Formatting your Registered Report
  6. Figures, tables, file size and formatting
  7. English language
  8. Data availability statement
  9. Depositing your data
  10. Image permissions and copyright
  11. Referencing style
  12. House style

 

Preparing for submission

We place very few restrictions on the way authors prepare their manuscript for submission and it is not necessary to try to replicate the published format of the journal (this is not a good use of a researcher’s time).

To submit your manuscript, please complete the journal submission form and upload the required files. Each file must be uploaded separately within the system.

At a minimum, your submission must include:

  1. Manuscript (editable version).
    Microsoft Word file (.doc or .docx) or LaTeX file.

 

  1. Manuscript (PDF version).
    A clean, identical PDF version of your manuscript. This version will be used for the preprint.

 

  1. Covering letter.
    Addressed to the Editors (accepted formats: .doc, .docx, LaTeX, or PDF).

 

  1. Additional figure files (if applicable).
    Any high quality/raw figure files that will be useful for production.

 

All authors submitting to the journal must read and accept the UCL Press Journals Editorial Policy and consent to the Journal's Contributor Agreement.

When you are ready you can submit here:

Start Submission

 

Covering letter

All submissions must include a covering letter. The covering letter must be uploaded as a separate file (as a figure/data file in the submission form) and must not be included within the manuscript PDF. It should briefly outline to the Editors:

  • The manuscript’s purpose and main findings.
  • Its key themes and contribution to the field.
  • The context and framing of the research.
  • Any relevant discussion points for the Editor.
  • Any disclosures, including potential conflicts of interest.

 

ORCiD

ORCiD helps researchers record and report their work by providing researchers with a personal unique identifier that can be kept throughout their career. UCL Press journals now implement ORCiD in publications and authors are encouraged to register with ORCiD and enter their ORCiD details into their submission as a URL link or ORCiD number. To register, follow the instructions on the ORCiD web pages at https://orcid.org.

 

Acceptable use of AI-assisted technologies in articles

Please refer to UCL Press's Principles on the use of AI-assisted technologies in articles here.

Broadly, the use of AI-assisted technologies and tools should not replace key authoring tasks and applying AI technology should be done with transparency and human oversight. All the work should be reviewed and edited carefully, because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect, incomplete or biased.

 

Article types

Article type Description
Research article

Detailed studies reporting research classified as primary literature. This can also include challenge and theory articles reporting research classified as primary literature, specifically showing how a certain challenge, an/or tested hypothesis/theory was investigated.

Further guidance on how to format your Research Article can be found below.
Registered Reports

JXPrag welcomes Registered Reports for direct replication studies only. Conceptual replications are not eligible under this article type.

Registered Reports are a recognised article type used by journals worldwide to improve research transparency and reproducibility. Under this model, study proposals are peer reviewed and accepted before data are collected, with publication contingent on adherence to the approved protocol rather than on study outcomes.

A direct replication aims to reproduce all salient methodological features of a previously published study, including but not limited to the study design, experimental procedures, materials, outcome measures, and analysis plan (see: https://experimentology.io/003-replication.html).

Authors are encouraged to consult the general Registered Report guidelines developed by the Center for Open Science (https://www.cos.io/initiatives/registered-reports) before submitting.

Further guidance on how to format your Registered Report can be found below.

 

Formatting your Research Article

If approved by the Editors-in-Chief and after initial editorial checks, the submitted PDF will be posted online as a preprint to the journal’s preprint server, ready for open peer review. Please see here for further information about how peer review works in the journal.

Your main text/body file should include the following – which can also be used as a checklist to ensure that the manuscript has all the information necessary for successful review and publication (please also consider page and continuous line numbers):

 

  1. Abstract
    Present the abstract as an overview of your article (up to 250 words), giving a summary of the contents and major themes. (Note that this will ultimately be used by search engines, and it will form part of the meta-data that will be seen first by people searching your article.)

 

  1. Keywords
    All articles must include a list of key words, up to a maximum of ten.

 

  1. Main body of text
    The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner (e.g. Introduction, Materials, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions). A clear introduction section should provide non-specialists in the subject with an understanding of the topic and a background to the issue(s) involved.

 

  1. Abbreviations and Acronyms
    All abbreviations and acronyms are defined in text when first introduced.

 

  1. Headings and Sub-headings
    Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.

 

  1. Notes
    Use endnotes, not footnotes, for any additional notes and information. These appear at the end of the main text, before References. All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

 

  1. Tables, Figures, Alt Text and Figure Captions
    These can be included within the text or can be deposited into a data repository and cited in text (please see the below point 10 about including a Data availability statement). Please make sure to include Alt Text for any figure, table or image included in your article (please see the below section on Figures for further guidance).

    The journal does not accept Supporting Information or any supplementary files submitted alongside the manuscript. Authors must not upload appendices or supplementary materials either within the manuscript file or as separate files. Submissions that include such materials will not be considered.

 

  1. Funding and Acknowledgement Statements
    All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared, including any project codes.

 

  1. Authorship Contribution
    Authors are required to include an authorship statement in their article to outline how each author contributed to the article, after any acknowledgements in the article.

 

  1. Data Availability Statement
    All essential data and materials should be included directly within the manuscript. Any additional data or materials that cannot be incorporated into the manuscript (for example, due to size or format – see here for guidance on very large figures and tables) must be deposited in a suitable publicly accessible repository. Authors must include a Data Availability Statement describing where and how the data supporting the findings can be accessed. Deposited materials must be clearly cited within the manuscript using appropriate links or persistent identifiers (e.g. DOIs). For further guidance, on how to include this in your manuscript, please refer to our instructions on preparing a Data Availability Statement.

    The journal does not accept Supporting Information or any supplementary files submitted alongside the manuscript. Authors must not upload appendices or supplementary materials either within the manuscript file or as separate files. Submissions that include such materials will not be considered.

 

  1. Declarations and Conflict of Interests Statement
    Clearly state the following in the article as sub headings:

 

    1. Conflicts of Interest
      Clearly declare any possible conflicts of interest, including but not limited to financial and non-financial competing interests. Where there are no conflicts of interests or competing interests, authors must clearly declare this under the same heading. For further information, please refer to the journal’s Editorial Policy at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/jxprag/site/journal-policies

 

    1. Ethics Approval
      Authors are required to show in their articles that they have received ethical approval for their research from all relevant institutional review boards and that they have followed appropriate personal data protection regulations (e.g. EU General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act 2018) in the handling of personal data. Where such committees do not operate, authors are responsible for providing evidence of their adherence to relevant ethical guidelines for the subject. Where ethics approval is not needed a statement should be included to declare this.

 

    1. Consent for Publication
      For all articles involving human subjects, including any images, videos, and any other personal and identifiable information, authors must have secured informed consent to participate in the study and to publication before submitting to the journal, and a statement declaring this must be included in the article.

 

  1. Reference list
    The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics follows the APA Author-date style (https://apastyle.apa.org).

 

Formatting Registered Reports

Registered Reports are submitted and published in two peer‑reviewed stages (Stage 1 and Stage 2), separating the evaluation of the study design from the assessment of the results.

A Stage 1 article presents the study protocol and analysis plan before data collection, while a Stage 2 article incorporates the approved Stage 1 content alongside the study results, discussion and conclusions. Both stages are peer reviewed and, if approved, published in the journal. The underlying data collected and reported in Stage 2 are made publicly available in appropriate repositories.

Authors are encouraged to consult the general Registered Report guidelines developed by the Center for Open Science (https://www.cos.io/initiatives/registered-reports) before submitting.

 

Stage 1: Study proposal (prior to data collection)

For Stage 1, authors must outline in their submission that the manuscript is being submitted as a Stage 1 Registered Report for a replication study and what study is being replicated, including a concise summary of the original article plus the reference to it. Authors must also confirm that no data collection has commenced for the proposed replication study and that they will archive all data in a freely accessible repository, to be made publicly available no later than Stage 2 acceptance.

 

Manuscript content

Stage 1 manuscripts should only include the following:

  1. Title
    Please clearly indicate that the submission is a Registered Report (Stage 1) by using the following format: “[your title] Registered Report – Stage 1”.

 

  1. Abstract
    Present the abstract as an overview of your article (up to 250 words), giving a summary of the contents and major themes. (Note that this will ultimately be used by search engines, and it will form part of the meta-data that will be seen first by people searching your article.)

 

  1. Keywords
    All articles must list a maximum of up to ten key words.

 

  1. Introduction
    Provide a concise yet comprehensive review of the relevant literature that motivates the research question. This section should clearly articulate the theoretical or empirical background, define the gap in existing knowledge, and explain the significance of the proposed study. The introduction must explicitly state the study’s objectives and clearly formulated hypotheses or research questions.

 

  1. Methods
    Include a detailed and transparent description of the proposed study design. Describe the full analysis plan in advance, including any and all preprocessing steps, statistical models, outcome measures and decision criteria. If data, materials, or analysis code will be shared publicly, specify the repository and access conditions ahead of time in your manuscript.

 

  1. Abbreviations and Acronyms
    All abbreviations and acronyms are defined in text when first introduced.

 

  1. Headings and Sub-headings
    Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.

 

  1. Tables, Figures, Alt Text and Figure Captions
    These can be included within the text or can be deposited into a data repository and cited in text (please see the below point 10 about including a Data availability statement). Please make sure to include Alt Text for any figure, table or image included in your article (please see the below section on Figures for further guidance).

    The journal does not accept Supporting Information or any supplementary files submitted alongside the manuscript. Authors must not upload appendices or supplementary materials either within the manuscript file or as separate files. Submissions that include such materials will not be considered.

 

  1. Notes
    Use endnotes, not footnotes, for any additional notes and information. These appear at the end of the main text, before References. All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

 

  1. Funding and Acknowledgement Statements
    All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared, including any project codes.

 

  1. Authorship Contribution
    Authors are required to include an authorship statement in their article to outline how each author contributed to the article, after any acknowledgements in the article.

 

  1. Declarations and Conflict of Interests Statement
    Clearly state the following in the article as sub headings:

 

    1. Conflicts of Interest
      Clearly declare any possible conflicts of interest, including but not limited to financial and non-financial competing interests. Where there are no conflicts of interests or competing interests, authors must clearly declare this under the same heading. For further information, please refer to the journal’s Editorial Policy at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/jxprag/site/journal-policies

 

    1. Ethics Approval
      Authors are required to show in their articles that they have received ethical approval for their research from all relevant institutional review boards and that they have followed appropriate personal data protection regulations (e.g. EU General Data Protection Regulation and the UK Data Protection Act 2018) in the handling of personal data. Where such committees do not operate, authors are responsible for providing evidence of their adherence to relevant ethical guidelines for the subject. Where ethics approval is not needed a statement should be included to declare this.

 

    1. Consent for Publication
      For all articles involving human subjects, including any images, videos, and any other personal and identifiable information, authors must have secured informed consent to participate in the study and to publication before submitting to the journal, and a statement declaring this must be included in the article.

 

  1. Reference list
    The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics follows the APA Author-date style (https://apastyle.apa.org).

 

No results or discussion sections should be included at this stage. Although the protocol is prospective, the manuscript should be written in the past tense, in line with standard Registered Report conventions.

 

Editorial handling and review

As with all submissions, the Stage 1 manuscript is first assessed by an Editor‑in‑Chief. If deemed within scope, it will be assigned to a member of the VAE committee who will oversee peer review.

 

Acceptance criteria for Stage 1 Registered Reports

Manuscripts should present compelling evidence to report the following points:

  1. The importance and clarity of the research question;
  2. The adequacy and fidelity of the proposed replication to the original study;
  3. The methodological rigour of the design;
  4. The appropriateness and transparency of the proposed analyses; and
  5. Statistical power and feasibility.

 

Submissions may be rejected at Stage 1 if the proposed replication does not meet sufficient methodological standards (e.g., inadequate power, unjustified deviations from the original study). If the Stage 1 manuscript is accepted, the authors receive in‑principle acceptance and are invited to proceed with data collection.

 

Stage 2: Completed study

Once data collection and analyses are complete, authors should submit a Stage 2 manuscript that includes. The Stage 2 manuscript should consist of the approved Stage 1 content (with only minor changes approved by the editor), plus new sections as highlighted in bold, below:

 

  1. Title
    Please clearly indicate that the submission is a Registered Report (Stage 2) by using the following format: “[your title] Registered Report – Stage 2”.

 

  1. Keywords – same as Stage 1 content.

 

  1. Introduction – same as Stage 1 content.

 

  1. Methods – same as Stage 1 content.

 

  1. Results, Discussions and conclusions
    Report the outcomes, discussions and your conclusions of all pre‑registered analyses exactly as specified in the approved Stage I protocol, following usual journal reporting standards.

 

  1. Tables, Figures, Alt Text and Figure Captions
    These can be included within the text or can be deposited into a data repository and cited in text (please see the below point 10 about including a Data availability statement). Please make sure to include Alt Text for any figure, table or image included in your article (please see the below section on Figures for further guidance).

    The journal does not accept Supporting Information or any supplementary files submitted alongside the manuscript. Authors must not upload appendices or supplementary materials either within the manuscript file or as separate files. Submissions that include such materials will not be considered.

 

  1. Notes
    Use endnotes, not footnotes, for any additional notes and information. These appear at the end of the main text, before References. All notes should be used only where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

 

  1. Funding and Acknowledgement Statements – same as Stage 1 content.

 

  1. Authorship Contribution – this section should be the same as Stage 1 content but if any additional authors were needed during data collection, analysis and final writing, please include an authorship statement to outline the addition and how each author contributed to the article.

 

  1. Data availability Statement

    All essential data and materials should be included directly within the manuscript. Any additional data or materials that cannot be incorporated into the manuscript (for example, due to size or format – see here for guidance on very large figures and tables) must be deposited in a suitable publicly accessible repository. Authors must include a Data Availability Statement describing where and how the data supporting the findings can be accessed. Deposited materials must be clearly cited within the manuscript using appropriate links or persistent identifiers (e.g. DOIs). For further guidance, on how to include this in your manuscript, please refer to our instructions on preparing a Data Availability Statement.

    The journal does not accept Supporting Information or any supplementary files submitted alongside the manuscript. Authors must not upload appendices or supplementary materials either within the manuscript file or as separate files. Submissions that include such materials will not be considered.

 

  1. Declarations and Conflict of Interests Statement – same as Stage 1 content.

 

  1. Reference list
    The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics follows the APA Author-date style (https://apastyle.apa.org).

 

At Stage 2, peer review focuses on adherence to the approved protocol, transparency of reporting and the validity of the conclusions. Provided the approved methodology has been followed, publication does not depend on the nature or direction of the results.

 

Figures, tables, file size and formatting

No single file should exceed 200Mb.

 

Figures
  • Figures should be included within the main text file in sequential order and should be set in the document (in the MS-Word/Latex manuscript file and also the PDF file) as a .png file.
  • For large figures (e.g. larger than a single page), see the below heading on Very large figures and tables.
  • Figures such as graphs and charts should also be submitted as separate "Figure/Data Files" during submission.
  • Line art: where specialist software was used to produce any line art (e.g. diagrams, flow-charts) authors are requested to additionally submit these as separate "Figure/Data Files" as vector files (e.g. .eps or .ai).
  • Please provide a caption to label and explain each figure. If the figure is sourced from elsewhere, please provide reference to the source in the caption and reference list.

 

Examples of captions

Figure 1. The diagnostic first and last occurrences of Cretaceous planktonic foraminiferal species, calibrated against the most recent biostratigraphic time scale and radio-isotope data [2].

Figure 2. AN MSP dendrogram based on MSPs of the 19 species of xerophilic/xerotolerant Aspergillus, using the MALDI Biotyper Compass Explorer module. The distance level [arbitrary unit (a.u.), normalised to a max of 1000], reflects the differences between species and how related the MSPs are to one another. Clade designation based on genomic data is indicated by clade-specific colours and marked on the right-hand side of the image [16].

 

Alt text

As part of our commitment to accessibility, we require authors to provide alternative text – ‘alt text’ – for all figures, graphs, and images, in their article (alongside captions). Alt text describes the content of an image for those who cannot see it. This text will be embedded in the article metadata so it can be accessed via assistive technology (such as screen readers).

Please include your alt text as an additional sentence/paragraph, below each figure caption and clearly labelled.

For more information about how to write alt text and to see examples of this, please see our alt text guidelines here. For any further help, please contact us at jxprag@ucl.ac.uk.

 

Tables

Tables should be included within the main text file. For large tables (e.g. larger than a single page), see the below heading on ‘Very large figures and tables’.

 

Supporting or supplementary information and data

Data or information should not be submitted as supplementary information alongside the manuscript, but instead be included in the manuscript or deposited into a publicly available repository, depending on the type of data or information concerned.

Where supporting information is included in the article that has no persistent identifier (for example, a Google survey), authors may be requested to deposit the information into a relevant data repository to ensure persistent access, assign it a DOI and then cite the DOI in the article. If authors do not have access to a suitable data repository a request can be made to the journal to deposit the figure/data set/table into the journal’s own data repository for this purpose. To enquire and make a request, please contact the Editorial office by email at jxprag@ucl.ac.uk.

Please see the below heading on ‘Depositing your data’ for further guidance.

 

Very large figures and tables

Where figures and data sets/tables are very large and cannot be included in the main text file as above (e.g. are larger than a single page) authors are encouraged to deposit the figure/data set/table in its original file format to a relevant data repository to assign it a DOI that can then be cited in the main text article.

If authors do not have access to a suitable data repository a request can be made to the journal to deposit the figure/data set/table into the journal’s own data repository for this purpose. To enquire and make a request, please contact the Editorial office by email at jxprag@ucl.ac.uk.

Please see the below heading on ‘Depositing your data’ for further guidance.

 

English language

All articles published in the journal are in British English.

It is recognised that barriers might exist and impede potential authors who are not confident enough to write in English language to submit to the journal.

The Editorial Board will therefore consider the merit of the paper and not the formative language and grammar used, to encourage as much as possible non-native English language authors to submit to the journal – all accepted papers go through a high-level of copyediting and proofreading to improve the English language after editorial acceptance before official publication. Where language improvements are required, the Editorial Board should focus comments on improving the argument and clarity of results, rather than on minor grammatical errors.

It is encouraged that authors try to seek help to improve the English language when writing their manuscript by asking a native English speaking colleague to assist with checking the language quality before submission. Authors may also want to consider using a professional English language editing service to improve the level of English language before submitting, however, please note that by using professional English language editing services may incur a cost to the Author and using such a service does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript in the journal.

 

Data availability statement

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics strongly encourages authors to make all data and datasets on which the conclusions of the manuscript rely to be publicly available either in publicly open repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main paper in machine-readable format (such as formatted tables rather than flat images) whenever possible.

Authors are encouraged to follow the FAIR data principles – to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable.

Further information and guidance on these principles is outlined at https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples.

Authors must clearly state in their manuscript where their data are made available at time of submission. In circumstances where ethical and legal issues dictate any restrictions on sharing data (including research using personal data), a statement to this effect must be included for clarity. Where a widely established research community expectation for data archiving in public repositories exists, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. Persistent identifiers (such as DOIs and accession numbers) for relevant data must be provided in the manuscript as a citation/reference. For guidance on this please read the below heading on ‘Depositing your data’.

During submission, authors are required to confirm the data availability statement to indicate how fellow researchers can access their software and data and link to data sets in repositories. Authors will be required to select one of the following statements:

 

  1. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the repository: *[source]
  2. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  3. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
  4. All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.
  5. The data that support the findings of this study are available from * but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of * [source]

 

* You may add a link here to your data sets and/or software at a standard data repository. We also strongly encourage you to cite your data in the reference section according to the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles.

 

Depositing your data

Data has the power to revolutionise and disrupt the way societies are governed for the better. None more so than making data openly available for readers to access alongside the published research article.

Data are facts, observations or experiences on which an argument or theory is constructed or tested. Data may be numerical, descriptive, aural or visual. Data may be raw, abstracted or analysed, experimental or observational. Data include but are not limited to: laboratory notebooks; field notebooks; primary research data (including research data in hardcopy or in computer readable form); questionnaires; audiotapes; videotapes; models; photographs; films; test responses. Research collections may include slides; artefacts; specimens; samples.

Submitting authors are strongly encouraged to make freely available all data on which the conclusions of the manuscript rely on by depositing it in publicly available repositories (such as GenBank, the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity, or other suitable long-term and stable public repositories) whenever possible. General repositories - for all types of research data – such as Figshare may be used where appropriate.

In circumstances where ethical and legal issues dictate any restrictions on sharing data (including research using personal data) should always be considered before doing so, when storing and preserving research data. The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics adheres to the principle "as open as possible, as closed as necessary". For help finding relevant research data repositories please see https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org.

For more information about making data openly available please read the journal's open data policy at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/jxprag/site/journal-policies.

 

Image permissions and copyright

Please ensure that where the copyright of any image or figure is used in the manuscript, appropriate permission to reuse in an open access journal publication has been obtained in writing and signed by the copyright holder. Please contact UCL Press for any questions, at jxprag@ucl.ac.uk.

 

Referencing style

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics uses the APA Author-date style (https://apastyle.apa.org). This format consists of in-text citations, e.g. (Smith, 1994: 33) and a list entitled ‘References’ placed at the end of a journal article. The list of references should contain only those works cited in the text and should not be subdivided. Each entry on the list of references must correspond to at least one citation in the text.

 

In the main text:

  • Do not use the ampersand – write ‘and’ in full, e.g. (Smith and Jones, 1990)
  • If there are two publications with the same author/s and year, use a, b etc., e.g. (Smith, 1994a)
  • For three or more authors, use et al.
  • References should be after the closing quotation mark of a quotation but before the full stop in a sentence
  • After block quotations, put the source in parentheses following the quotation

 

In the list of references:

  • Give the names (surname and initials) for all authors – do not use et al.
  • List works by the same author chronologically, with the earliest first
  • Where there are lots of books by one author, in conjunction with other people, works should be ordered chronologically within each of the following categories in the following order:
  • Single author (Smith, 2000, 2001, 2002 etc)
  • Each set of named two authors listed alphabetically (Smith and Bloggs, 2000, 2001, followed by Smith and Jones, 1990, 1991)
  • Multiple authors, irrespective of alpha order of author names (Smith, Winters and Bloggs, 1990, followed by Smith, Jones and Bloggs, 2000)
  • Use (ed.) for one editor; (eds) for two (‘eds’ does not have a full stop)

 

Please refer to the APA style guide for further reference: https://apastyle.apa.org.

 

House style

The following guidelines list our preferred conventions for spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, numbers/dates, etc. Please follow them closely.

 

Spelling

  • Authors should consistently adopt British spelling conventions (except in quotations from other sources, where the spelling convention of the original should be retained, or where stipulated specifically in by the journal – for example World Health Organization).

 

Punctuation

  • Systems should consistently follow British conventions (except in quotations from other sources, where the punctuation convention of the original should be retained). British style uses single inverted commas, except for quotations within quotations (which have double inverted commas).
  • Punctuation should follow closing inverted commas (except for grammatically complete sentences beginning with a capital).
  • Punctuation should precede closing quotation marks (except for dashes, colons and semicolons, unless these are part of the quoted matter).

 

Hyphenation

  • Use a hyphen when two words form a compound adjective: middle-class families.
  • Hyphenation must be used consistently throughout your text.
  • Please follow Collins English Dictionary for guidance.

 

Contractions and abbreviations

  • If you need to use them please write in full at the first appearance with the abbreviation in brackets. You may repeat an abbreviation if it reappears later in your article.
  • Abbreviations are usually expressed without full stops, e.g. GNP, USA, PhD
  • British style contractions will have no full points (e.g. Mr, St, edn), though abbreviated words, which do not end with their final letter, will (e.g. vol., vols., ed., eds.)

 

Commas

  • An Oxford comma (also known as a serial comma) is a comma used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’. We do not use the Oxford comma – commas should be omitted before the final ‘and’ or ‘or’. E.g. red, white and blue. The exception is if the meaning is ambiguous without one, E.g. The menu choices were fish and chips, steak and chips, or pie and mash. E.g. The dog, Jack, and Sasha.

 

Dashes

  • Spaced en dashes – not em dashes or hyphens – should be used.
  • Use unspaced en dashes not hyphens for ranges of pages or dates, e.g.11–12, 22–9.

 

Semicolons and colons

  • A semicolon should be used to separate items in a complicated list (i.e. if the items in the list have internal commas or very long descriptions), or to separate two related but grammatically independent clauses.
  • Use semicolons sparingly in the main text.
  • Colons should primarily be used to introduce block quotations or lists.

 

Translations

  • If quoting from a non-English source, the quotation should usually be in the original language. Give translation (either author’s or from a published translation) if reader is unlikely to understand original language. The translation should usually appear in the text in parentheses immediately following the quotation but can be given in a numbered note if preferred. Alternatively, the translation can be given in the text and the original quotation in a numbered note. You can indicate in the Preface your general editorial policy in regard to translations.

 

Capitalisation

  • Keep capitalisation to a minimum and use only for proper nouns and formal names of organisations, etc.

 

Numbers and dates

  • Spell out numbers up to but not including 10.
  • Elide numbers to minimum digits, e.g. 233-4; dates, e.g. 1993-4. Do not elide in titles and headings.
  • Centuries should be written as words not numbers, e.g. eighteenth century. Hyphenate if used as an adjective, e.g. eighteenth-century masterpiece.
  • Dates as British usage: 18 August 2015.

 

Quotations

  • Quotations should be indicated by single quotation marks but use double quotation marks for quotations within quotations.
  • Indent quotations of more than 50 words.
  • Quotations should remain exactly as they are in the original.

 

Acceptable language

Please be sensitive to the use of terms that might cause offence or be interpreted as racist or sexist. Please also avoid gender-specific pronouns where possible. Here are some examples of how to do this:

  • Use plural rather than singular pronouns in examples, e.g. ‘when children play, they…’ rather than ‘when a child plays, he…’
  • Alternate ‘he’ and ‘she’ throughout the manuscript when using a singular pronoun in examples, such that the reader perceives no bias.
  • Use ‘they’ as a singular pronoun in examples, e.g. ‘when a child plays, they…’