1. Manuscript Standards

Educational institutions and publishing houses have their own style sheets to which writers are expected to conform, although of course many manuscripts submitted for publication will require some adaptation of the standard. Find out about a publisher’s or institution’s requirements for manuscript preparation before submitting an article, research paper, or book manuscript, and follow their instructions carefully.

When submitting a translated article, the author (not the translator!) is responsible for making sure it meets the necessary standard.

The following points apply to most situations; many adjustments are made automatically when using a standard word processor:

Type Size: Use twelve-point type in a non-ornamental typeface such as Times New Roman for text and ten-point type for footnotes.

Margins: Leave a margin of at least four centimeters on all four sides of the paper.

Spacing: Double-space the text, but single-space block quotations (more than three lines), notes, captions, and long headings.

Printing:

• Print on only one side of A4 white bond paper. (Note that standard paper size in the United States is 8 ½ x 11 inches, which looks “fat” to European eyes.)

• Use the best quality printer available; make sure that there is enough ink in the cartridge to produce a manuscript dark enough to be photocopied easily.

Page Numbers: Every page should have a number, and pagination should be continuous from the beginning to the end of the manuscript.

• The first page number and the numbers of pages with major headings (chapter, bibliography) should be centered at the foot of the page at least three centimeters from the edge. All subsequent page numbers should be either in the center or flush right at the top of the page, at least three centimeters from the edge.

• Use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) for pages of text. In a longer article or book manuscript (with table of contents, introduction, and so on) the preliminary pages are numbered with lowercase roman numerals (v, vi, vii, etc.).

2. Reference Notes

Scholarly research is a communal as well as an individual activity. The primary purpose of notes and bibliographies is not to protect the author against charges of plagiarism—although that is important!—or even to show that he or she has an adequate grasp of existing sources—although that is important too! Rather, notes and bibliography are tools used by a community. Scholars do not work in a vacuum, but as part of a body, each one enhancing the work of others. Every article or book represents a contribution to a much larger field of knowledge, and every scholar working in that field is responsible for clearly setting out where he or she found certain information so that other scholars can locate and use it too.

1. Use of notes

Notes are used in a manuscript for the following purposes:

• To cite the source of a quote or other information. It is extremely important both to give credit where it is due, and to give the reader the most complete directions possible so that the source may be located again for other research.

• To add comments that cannot appropriately be included in the text itself, such as definitions, explanations, references to other parts of the text, and so on.

• To refer the reader to other sources of related interest.