Abbreviations and acronyms

Any abbreviation or acronym you apply should appear in full on its first appearance in the entry, with the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses: e.g. American Historical Association (AHA).

Please retain the full point after contractions where the last letter is lower-case.

Example: Mr.; Mrs.; Dr.; St.; Ltd.; ed. (editor, edited by, edition); eds. (editors)

Do not include full points in sets of upper-case initials.

Example: UN; USA; NATO; UK; EEC; NY (state – always spell out New York when referring to the city).

The plural form does not take an apostrophe.

Example: NCOs.

As a general rule, use a minimum of capital letters throughout, including in chapter headings, subheadings, and captions. Proper nouns (including brand names) should always be capitalized.

Avoid phrases that tie the text too closely into the time of writing such as “recently,” “lately,” “up-to- date,” “latest” and the like. Using ‘in the 21st Century’ when appropriate can be helpful. For a similar reason avoid topical allusions, or examples calling for a relatively local type of knowledge.

Use the day, month and year format, and when necessary use CE and BCE (rather than A.D. and B.C.): 6 October

October 1175

6 October 1175 (comma after the year when followed by text) 16 BCE 21 CE

In referring to time periods, please observe the following styles: The 800s, the 1380s, the mid-1400s

Fourteenth century (noun) Fourteenth-century (adjective) Mid-fourteenth century (noun) Mid-fourteenth-century(adjective)

Between 1380 and 1385 (but) the 1380-1385 period

Use ‘from 2003 to 2005’ not ‘from 2003–5’.

Use a solidus (forward slash) for a year, such as a financial or academic year, covering more than one calendar year: 1898/9; the years 1895/6to1897/8.

Decades should follow the form ‘1930s’, not ‘1930’s’, ‘thirties’ or ‘Thirties’.

Months can be abbreviated in tables and notes, but always use the name of the month and not the number to prevent confusion.

Please check all names, place names, dates and other basic information in the text and bibliographic entries. There will be no further fact checking of your entry.

Use italic type for any words or phrases given in a foreign language (that have not been subsumed into English), with a translation, in parentheses and in roman, if necessary (don’t use quotation marks for this translation). Names of institutions, organizations and other proper nouns should not be italicized.

Example: doppelgänger (double)

Give titles of foreign-language works in italic, in the language in which they were written / composed

/ painted etc., and follow with an English translation of the title, in parentheses and in roman.

Example: l’Étranger (The Outsider)

When you quote in languages other than English, use roman type inside quotation marks.

Example : ‘Au fait, beau T-shirt’

Localized terminology that may be unfamiliar or confusing to non-native readers should be avoided and replaced by appropriate terminology for the language chosen. (Example: the term lakh would be unfamiliar to non–South Asian readers.) If the term must be included, add an explanation in parentheses.

Example: Jewels and slaves worth ‘5 lakh’ (500,000 Rupees) were stolen.

Use upper-case North, South, East, and West if part of a political division. Example: Southwest Africa, Western Europe, Western Capitalism.

Other instances should remain lower-case.

If the article should contain non-English terms, please set the said terms in italics the first time it appears. The word should then be followed by its English translation in parentheses. The term will appear in roman type without the parenthetical translation thereafter within the article.

In the instance of a non-literal translation, the word or phrase must be set in italics followed by the approximate translation in quotation marks.

If composed in Microsoft Word for Windows or a compatible program, the text can be submitted electronically containing any accented letters, symbols or special characters. We may however, request a printed copy as well.

Most readers of your article will not be specialists in your field. For their benefit, give chronological, geographical, or cultural clues to identify people and concepts mentioned in your article wherever possible.

Institutions

Use an upper-case initial when the name is being used specifically or is a proper noun, but not when used generically.

Example: The state (i.e. the body politic), the church (institution); the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England; Parliament, the Houses of Parliament but parliamentary behavior, parliamentarians

Please use the “italic” function to indicate matter that should appear in italics in print, for example: titles of books, plays, and long poems.

Please use gender-neutral language as much as possible.

Person, individual NOT Man

Humans, people, humankind NOT mankind

In general, use words for numbers one to ninety-nine; from 100 upwards use figures. Round numbers above 100 may be expressed in words when not part of a series.

When denoting a sum of currency, ‘2 million’ etc. is acceptable (Example: ‘The lottery jackpot had grown to £13 million’).

If two series of quantities are being dealt with it may be clearer to use words for one and figures for the other (Example: ‘Ten wards held 16 beds each, but fifteen others contained as many as 40’).

Use figures for exact measurements and series of numbers.

Example: Tom has a stick measuring 2.3 meters.

He had three children, aged 4, 9 and 20, respectively.

Hyphenate spelt-out numbers (Example: twenty-one, two-thirds). However, use figures to avoid too many hyphens; ‘62-year-old man’ is preferable to ‘sixty-two-year-old man’.

Use a comma in thousands and larger numbers, following the UK and US convention (Example: 6,580, 12,000, 100,000). However, do not include commas or spaces in dates or referencenumbers.

Figures are always used in percentages except when starting a sentence. Always spell out percent in the text; ‘%’ should be used only in tables.

Elide numbers except in measurements: 21–4, 130–3, 115–19. Note that numbers from 11–19 retain the first ‘1’, i.e. 11–18, rather than 11–8. Do not say 2–3,000 if you mean 2,000–3,000.

Do not start a sentence with a numeral. Spell the number out or turn the sentence round.

Use a serial comma. E.g., “We will discuss apprentices, peasants, and guild members.” Place periods and commas within quotes.

Place colons and semicolons outside quotes.

Begin a complete sentence after a colon with a capital letter.

Use “s” for possessives even when the singular word ends with an “s” (e.g., Ines’s).

Use double quotes except for a “quotation ‘within’ a quotation.”

Periods and commas always stand within the quote marks. However, other punctuation should stand outside the quote marks.

Quotations over sixty words should be indented and separated from the main text by a space above and below. They should not be set within quotation marks. Quote marks within block quotations should follow the rules above. All quotations should otherwise be consistent in spelling and capitalization with the source.