Author Style Guide

Elements Author Style Guide 2

Contents

1.1 Spelling and Punctuation  3

1.1.1 British Style  3

1.1.2..American Style  3

1.2 Acronyms, Abbreviations and Initials  3

1.3 Contractions  3

1.4 Hyphens  3

1.5 Brackets  3

1.5.1 British Style  3

1.5.2..American Style  4

1.6 Websites and Emails  4

1.7 Numbers  4

1.8 Reference Systems Covered Here  4

1.8.1 Author–date System  4

1.8.2 Numbered System  5

1.8.3 Short-title System  6

1.8.4 IEEE References  7

DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Numbers 8

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 Elements Author Style Guide 3

1. Elements Style Guide

1.1 Spelling and Punctuation 1.2 Acronyms, Abbreviations and

Authors should consistently adopt either Initials
British or American style • Acronyms and lettered abbreviations should have no
full points: NATO, USA, EU, BC, AD, etc.
1.1.1 British Style • References to university presses should be spelled
out, e.g. Yale University Press, not Yale UP.
• British spellings (e.g. behaviour) and either -ise or -ize
endings should be used throughout (e.g. organise/ • If possible, please do not begin a sentence with an
organize). abbreviation. Either expand or avoid.
• Single quotation marks should be used throughout, • Ampersands should not be used in the text unless
except for extracts broken off from the text (which they are part of quoted matter.
should have no quotation marks) and quotations • US should be used as an adjective only: use USA or
within quotations (which should have double ‘United States’ as the noun.
quotation marks).
• Punctuation should follow closing quotation marks 1.3 Contractions
except when the quotation contains a grammatically
• In British style, contractions should have no full
complete sentence beginning with a capital, e.g. He
points (Mr, St, Jr, Revd, edn), although abbreviated
maintained: ‘The book under discussion breaks new
words not ending with their final letter and their
ground.’
plural forms should: vol., vols., Mass., ed., eds.
• The serial comma should be used consistently, if
• In American style, contractions should have a full
at all.
point (Mr., St.), as should abbreviated words in both
singular and plural forms.
1.1.2 American Style
• ‘Professor’ should always be written out in full.
• American spellings (e.g. behavior) and -ize and –yze • Degrees may be rendered closed up with or without
endings should be used (e.g. organize, analyze). full points: Ph.D., M.Phil. or PhD, MPhil, etc.
• Double quotation marks should be used throughout,
except for extracts broken off from the text (which 1.4 Hyphens
should have no quotation marks) and quotations
within quotations (which should have single • Hyphens should be used in compound adjectives
quotation marks). and adverbs that precede the noun (e.g. ‘nineteenth-
century architecture’, ‘quick-drying cement’).
• Punctuation should precede closing quotation marks
(except for dashes, colons and semicolons, unless • No hyphen should be used for compounds with
these are part of the quoted matter). adverbs ending in -ly (e.g. ‘expertly written texts’).

• The serial comma should be used consistently, if

at all. 1.5 Brackets
For Elements in subjects such as philosophy, logic and
linguistics, it is acceptable for authors to maintain a 1.5.1 British Style
distinction between the use of single and double quotes
• Nested parentheses (parentheses within parentheses)
if desired – for example, using single quotes when a
should be round brackets, e.g. ‘as has been noted (as
word is mentioned, and double quotes when the word is
Jones (1989) maintains)’.
defined.
• Parentheses around editorial interpolations within
quoted matter should be square brackets.

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 Elements Author Style Guide 4

1.5.2 American Style • Do not start a sentence with figures. Either spell out
(e.g. ‘Twenty-nine tests were carried out’) or avoid
• Nested parentheses should use square brackets, e.g. (e.g. ‘The year 1788 …’)
‘as has been noted (as Jones [1989] maintains)’.
• Centuries should be written out (e.g. eighteenth
• Parentheses around editorial interpolations within century).
quoted matter should be square brackets.
• A thin space or comma should be inserted between
• Round brackets in quoted matter should be retained, each group of three digits for numbers of five digits
even if the quotation itself is parenthesised. or more. The use of thin spaces is strongly preferred
for STM Elements, but in H&SS Elements a comma
1.6 Websites and Emails can be inserted instead into numbers of four or more
digits (e.g. 3,000, 11,000, etc.). NB: in tables a space
• ‘Website’ and ‘email’ should both be styled as
should be inserted into four-digit numbers (e.g. 1
one word.
436) to maintain alignment with larger numbers.
• Please capitalise ‘Internet’ when referring to ‘the
• Numbers with units should be in figures with a thin
Internet’ but use the lower-case form in phrases such
space between the figure and the unit: 55 mm, 32 s, 4
as ‘internet resources’.
kg.
• URLs should carry final punctuation where
• Numbers in numbered lists should take the form ‘1.’
grammatically appropriate, e.g. ‘The author’s website
or ‘(1)’. Please avoid using ‘1’, ‘(1).’ or ‘1)’.
may be visited at www.mathsite.com, which also
contains further exercises.’ • In decimal values less than 1 there should always be a
zero before the decimal point, even in numbers that
• URLs should not be underlined, should not be
can never exceed 1 (such as p values in biological
preceded with ‘http://’ if they begin with ‘www’ or
statistics, e.g. p = 0.005).
similar, and should not be within angled brackets.
• Please try to avoid very long URLs because, in
practice, the reader of the print version of your
1.8 Reference Systems Covered Here
Element is unlikely to key them in. The preferred reference system for Elements is
• If you choose to include ‘last accessed’ dates, please Author–date (Harvard)
make sure these are consistently provided.
Other reference systems covered below include:
• The accuracy of URLs remains the author’s
• Numbered (Vancouver)
responsibility.
• IEEE
• BMJ
1.7 Numbers
• DOI (Digital Object Identifier) numbers
• Numbers should be consistently elided to the shortest
pronounceable form (281–3, 20–4, but 215–16), or
fully elided (281–282, 281–82 or 281–2).
1.8.1 Author–date System
• Percentages should be in figures, with the word • The author–date system (also known as the Harvard
‘per cent’/’percent’ spelt out; exceptions to this are system) works well for content in STM and Social
Elements containing technical discussions or a series Science subjects, where the references are to
of comparisons where a group of percentages would secondary works rather than primary sources. It is
look better with the ‘%’ symbol. not usually suitable for literary Elements, or those
• It is conventional for STM titles to have numbers with references to manuscript collections, historical
written out up to 10 and for H&SS titles to have documents, foreign works and translations. For those
numbers to be written out up to 100. Elements the short-title system should be used.
• In a discussion that includes a mixture of numbers • The main advantage of the author–date system is
above and below this, keep all as figures, e.g. ‘Out of that it is concise and easy for the reader to follow.
a total of 29 tests, 15 were positive, 11 were negative As the reference is given in a short form in the text,
and 3 were declared invalid’. footnotes or endnotes can be kept to a minimum.
• All published works referred to in the text must be

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 Elements Author Style Guide 5

included in one alphabetical list of references at Books

the end of the Element. Similarly, all works in this
Single author, single volume
reference list must be cited in the text.
Ratcliffe, D. A. (1993).The Peregrine Falcon, 2nd edn,
London: Poyser.
Text Citations
Joint authors, single volume
• Give the author’s surname, date of publication and, Jurmain, R., Nelson, H. & Turnbaugh, W. A. (1990).
if required, a page number, e.g. (Smith, 1998: 20) or Understanding Physical Anthropology and Archeology,
(Smith, 1998, p. 20). 4th edn, St Paul, MN: West Publishing.
• An ampersand may be used in citations referring to Multi-volume work
two or more authors, but this should be restricted Hazel, J. A. (1987–8).The Growth of the Cotton Trade in
to parenthesised citations, and not to mentions of Lancashire, 3rd edn, 4 vols. London: Textile Press.
the authors in the text, e.g. ‘One useful work (Smith Specific volume within a multi-volume work
& Jones 2004) …’ but ‘The work by Smith and Jones Farmwinkle, W. (1983).Humor of the American Midwest.
(1996) …’ Vol. II of Survey of American Humor. Boston: Plenum
• Several citations together should be listed in either Press.
date order or alphabetical order, but not a mixture.
Journal Articles
• Works by the same author (or group of authors) in the
same year should be cited as 1998a, 1998b, etc. Trimble, S. W. (1997). Streambank fish-shelter
• Citations to works with three authors should be given structures help stabilize tributary streams in Wisconsin.
in one of the following three ways: (1) give all three Environmental Geology, 32(3), 230–4.
names the first time, and thereafter use et al.; (2) give
Chapters in Edited Books
all three names for every citation; or (3) use et al.
throughout. Simmons, N. M. (1980).Behaviour .In G. Monson and
• Citations to works with four or more authors should L. Summer, eds., The Desert Bighorn. Tucson, AZ:
use et al. throughout. University of Arizona Press, pp. 124–44.

• Please do not use ‘ibid.’ with the author-date system, Technical Reports
unless it is absolutely clear which citation is being
Philip Morris Inc. (1981).Optical Perforating Apparatus
referred to in the references list.
and System, European patent application 0021165
• Do not include ‘ed.’ in a reference to an edited work A1.1981–01–07.
(‘Easthope 2005’, not ‘Easthope ed. 2005’).

Reference List
1.8.2 Numbered System
• In this system (also known as the Vancouver system)
Works by a single author should be listed before those
references are numbered in the order in which they
co-written with others. Joint works may be ordered in
appear in the text.
one of three ways. Use one system throughout:
• The reference numbers should appear in the text
1. in strict alphabetical order by co-author, irrespective
as non-superscript numbers in square brackets,
of the number of authors;
preceding punctuation, e.g. ‘[1]’ or ‘[1–4]’. Superscript
2. arranged alphabetically for two authors then numbers are also acceptable as long as they will not
alphabetically for three; be confused with note indicators.
3. arranged alphabetically for two authors and • There should only be one reference per number.
chronologically for more than two. Using one number for a group of references is not
permitted.
System (3) tends to work best if many of your citations
use et al. • Where possible without losing clarity, the number
should be placed at the end of a sentence or before
Where a work has six or more authors, you may choose an obvious break in punctuation.
to give the first three only, followed by et al.
• There is usually a separate reference list at the end of
Sample forms for items in the reference list are given each chapter (with the numbering starting from 1 in
below. each chapter).

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 Elements Author Style Guide 6

• Names should not be inverted (‘D. A. Ratcliffe’, not Please list entries in the bibliography alphabetically,
‘Ratcliffe, D. A.’) The publication date should appear with works entirely written by one author coming
last for books, and preceding the page numbers for before entries for edited works. Multiple works by the
journals and chapters in edited volumes. same author should also be ordered alphabetically
(not chronologically). Please ensure that the date of
Sample Forms for Items in the References publication follows the place of publication and name
of publisher.
Books
Single author, single volume Full References in Notes
1. D. A. Ratcliffe, The Peregrine Falcon, 2nd edn(London:
Poyser, 1993). Books

Joint authors, single volume A. T. Runnock, Medieval Fortress Building, new edn, 2
2. R. Jurmain, H. Nelson & W. A. Turnbaugh, vols. (Cambridge University Press, 1976), vol. I, pp. 135–7
Understanding Physical Anthropology and Archeology,
4th edn (St Paul, MN: West Publishing, 1990). Chapters in Edited Books

Multi-volume work N. Chomsky, ‘Explanatory models in linguistics’ in J. A.

3. J. A. Hazel,The Growth of the Cotton Trade in Fodor and J. J. Katz (eds.), The Structure of Language
Lancashire, 3rd edn,4 vols.(London: Textile Press, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 50–118
1987–8).
Journal Articles
Journal Articles A. E. Planchart, ‘The early career of Guillaume Du Fay’,
1. J. H. Werren, U. Nur and C.-I.Wu,Selfish genetic Journal of the American Musicological Society, 46 (1993),
elements. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 3 (1988), 341–68
297–302. Unpublished Material (including unpublished theses or
dissertations)
Chapters in Edited Books

1. N. M. Simmons, Behaviour. In G. Monson and H. R. Southall, ‘Regional unemployment patterns

L. Summer, eds., The Desert Bighorn (Tucson, AZ: in Britain, 1851 to 1914’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis,
University of Arizona Press, 1980), pp. 124–44. University of Cambridge (1984), p. 72

Technical Reports Short Titles

Philip Morris Inc., Optical Perforating Apparatus and Books
System, European patent application 0021165 A1.
1981–01–07. Rousseau and Rogers (eds.), Enduring Legacy, p. 45

Chapters in Edited Books/Journal Articles

1.8.3 Short-title System
Salter, ‘Pilgrimage to truth’, 34–5
There are two acceptable versions of the short-title Unpublished Material (including unpublished theses or
reference system: dissertations)
• Each reference may be given in full on its first
Southall, ‘Regional unemployment’, p. 72
mention, and the short-title form used for
subsequent references. Ensure that you include a
bibliography in your manuscript.
• Short-title forms may be used both on first mention
and for all subsequent mentions, providing that all
references are included in full in the bibliography.
References in the notes and bibliography must be
consistent, except that in the bibliography the author’s
surname and first name or initials should be inverted.
‘Ibid.’ can be used in the notes, but please do not use
‘op. cit.’, ‘loc. cit.’, idem or eadem.

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 Elements Author Style Guide 7

1.8.4 IEEE References Standards

[1] IEEE Criteria for Class IE Electric Systems, IEEE

This is a form of numbered referencing which may be
Standard 308, 1969.
used in Engineering titles. There are some differences in
formatting to the standard numbered system. [2] Letter Symbols for Quantities, ANSI Standard
Y10.5–1968.
Journal Articles

[1] J. H. Werren, U. Nur and C.–I. Wu, “Selfish Genetic BMJ References
elements,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 3, pp.
297–302, Mar. 1988. This is a form of numbered referencing which is
sometimes used in Medical titles. There are some small
(The remaining examples in this section are taken from
differences in formatting to the standard numbered
the IEEE Editorial style Manual.)
system. Please see http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/
[2] J. U. Buncombe, “Infrared navigation–Part I: Theory,” authors/bmj–house–style for further information.
IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol. AES–4, pp. 352–
Journal Articles
377, Sept. 1944.
Journal titles are abbreviated according to the Index
[3] H. Eriksson and P. E. Danielsson, “Two problems on
Medicus.
Boolean memories,” IEEE Trans. Electron. Devices, vol.
ED–11, pp. 32–33, Jan. 1959. 1. Geretti AM. Epidemiology of antiretroviral drug
resistance in drug–naïve persons. Curr Opin Infect Dis
Books
2007; 46: 22–32.
[1] D. A. Ratcliffe, The Peregrine Falcon, 2nd edn.
2. Wei X, Decker JM, Wang S, et al. Antibody
London: Poyser, 1993.
neutralization and escape by HIV–1. Nature 2003; 422:
[2] N. M Simmons, “Behaviour,” in The Desert Bighorn, 307–12.
G. Monson and L. Summer, Ed. Tuscon, AZ: University of
Books
Arizona Press, 1980, pp. 124–44.
1. Hankey GJ. Stroke Treatment and Prevention: An
Technical Reports
Evidence–based Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge
[1] E. E. Reber, R. L. Michell and C. J. Carter, “Oxygen University Press, 2005.
absorption in the Earth’s atmosphere,” Aerospace Corp.,
2. Coppage KH, Sibai BM. Management of severe pre–
Los Angeles, CA, Tech. Rep. TR–0200 (4230–46)–3,
eclampsia. In: Lyall F, Belfort M, eds. Pre–eclampsia:
Nov. 1988.
Etiology and Clinical Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
Patents University Press, 2007; 369–79.

[1] J. P. Wilkinson, “Nonlinear resonant circuit devices,”

U.S. Patent 3 624 125, July 16, 1990.

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 Elements Author Style Guide 8

2. DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Numbers

DOI numbers are a way to find and read content, for Recommended citation style
example journal articles, on the Internet. Please include
Kenny, P. (2018). Populism in Southeast Asia (Elements
these in your reference list where possible. Not all
in Politics and Society in Southeast Asia). Cambridge:
titles cited in an Element will have been assigned DOI
Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108563772
numbers so it’s fine to include them for some references
but not others. The full reference must be included as
well as the DOI number, which should appear at the end
of the reference with the letters ‘DOI’ followed by the
long number. Please ensure that http:// is given at the
start of the DOI address.