Style guide for authors and book reviewers

The best guide as to both content and questions of presentation is the Review itself, but this style guide will answer many of your questions about how to spell, punctuate and format your article. This style is also used for contributions to Rural History Today.

House style

The following style guidelines apply to all content in the Review and its supplements:

• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Numbers
• Prices
• Forms of dates
• Fonts
• Footnotes, but avoid these in book reviews and short notices.

We have a list of abbreviations for counties in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, which we would encourage you to use.

Spelling

The Review follows the conventions of the Oxford University Press in spelling, and will thus use ‘ize’ suffixes for many verbs, for example, ‘organize’, rather than ‘ise’. (The rule affects about 200 verbs, with notable exceptions being: advertise, advise, analyse, chastise, enfranchise, improvise, paralyse, supervise, tantalise, comprise, surmise, surprise, promise.) Authors will find guidance in the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (2005). The editors also use the New Oxford Spelling Dictionary (2005).

Punctuation

The Review does not use a full stop, or point, at the end:

• after an abbreviation that ends in the last letter of the word (Dr, Mr, St)
• in academic awards (PhD thesis, MA dissertation)
• in the short titles of record repositories (BL, LRO, TNA)
• in abbreviated journal titles (EcHR).

Points are used when the abbreviation does not end in the last letter of the word:

• ch. (pl., chs)
• ed. (pl., eds)
• p. (pl., pp.)
• fo. (pl., fos)
• no. (pl., nos)
• the short titles of months (Aug.)
• the s. and d. of predecimal coinage (see below).

See also County Abbreviations.

Any quotation longer than 50 words should be in a separate, indented paragraph, preceded by an introductory sentence ending in a colon.

Use single inverted commas for

• quotations
• the titles of articles in journals
• for theses and unpublished articles

Use double quotation marks within a quotation shorter than 50 words: so Cicely Howell has suggested that ‘perhaps the medieval holding with its culture could be termed “peasant” while the seventeenth-century holding with its qualitatively higher standard of living could be called a “smallholding” or “commercial family farm”’.

Use commas to separate lists of more than two items, and before ‘and’ where sense requires: so ‘On these farms were grown wheat, barley, and turnips’; or ‘Their holdings were large and well-organized, and their leases long’.

Numbers

For all numbers not exceeding four digits, no comma: so 3478 (not 3,478), but 13,478.

Always spell out:

• seventeenth century (or seventeenth-century when used as an adjective)
• 74 per cent (except in footnotes and tables, where the per cent sign (%) can be used
• numbers from zero to ten except where a series of precise figures is being listed, or for currency or other measurements (8s., 8 acres); or when citing chapters from another work (for example: ‘Perhaps the most rewarding part of the book is contained in chapters 4 to 9’)
• Any numerical quantity that starts a sentence.

Prices

For pre-decimal prices: 10s. 4d.; £17 16s. 6¼d.; for decimal prices: £56.75; 54p.

Forms of dates

In the text, months should be given in full; for example, Friday 6 December 1991; on 6 January 1991.

but in footnotes all but May, June and July should be abbreviated; for example, Jackson’s Oxford Journal, p. 226, 27 Aug. 1757.

Fonts

Use italics or bold as appropriate.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be confined to a reasonable minimum and, where possible, a succession of references in the same paragraph of text should be grouped together into a single clearly-structured footnote. Footnote markers must be placed only at the end of sentences, and numbered consecutively throughout the article. They should be typed, double-spaced, on separate numbered sheets at the end of the text.

Asterisks should not be used except in the single case of a footnote attached to the title of the article, which should be confined in its usage to the acknowledgement of assistance in funding, advice, etc., which relates to the matter of the entire article.

Every table or illustration should be followed by a note giving the source of the data in the case of a table or graph, or of the image in the case of a photograph. If a table requires further notes (for instance, to explain missing data or a change in the basis of calculation), then this should follow the table under the heading Note(s). If footnotes are needed, then they should use superscript letters a, b. c etc.

Footnotes should be confined wherever possible to indicating sources. Lengthy comments or methodological explanations should normally be incorporated into the text or placed in an appendix. Footnotes should not be used for conducting a dialogue with other historians.

Footnotes should be avoided as far as possible in book reviews or shorter notices.

Style for footnotes

Footnotes should be presented in the Review style, to which recent issues will provide guidance. References should be unambiguous, readily comprehensible and consistent with the form of citation adopted by the Review:

• Place of publication is not required for modern works published in the UK by commercial or academic publishers
• Place of publication is helpful for works that cannot easily be found in the standard online library catalogues (e.g., COPAC). These might include foreign books, small or local press publications, or pre-twentieth-century books.
• Initial capitals should be used sparingly in book and article titles and normally limited to proper nouns. Hence David Cannadine, The decline and fall of the English aristocracy (1990).
• Runs of page numbers should be elided, so pp. 1-9, 64-7; pp. 221-23.
• After the first reference, references to published sources should normally be shortened, for example, Cannadine, Decline and fall.
• Refer to the original source even if you access a book or archive online: it is not necessary to say that the copy used was found on EEBO or Google Books.
• For volumes in several parts, give the number of volumes: so G. E. Mingay (ed.), The Victorian countryside (2 vols, 1981).
• Volumes in multi-part works take roman capitals, so Mingay, Victorian countryside, II, pp. 170-73, Agrarian history V (i), p. 62.
• But volumes in serials or the volume number of journals always take arabic numerals whatever the practice of the publisher, so Surtees Soc. 172; J. British Studies 35 (1996).
• The full citation from Mingay or a similar work would therefore be F. M. L. Thompson, ‘Landowners and the rural community’, in G. E. Mingay (ed.), The Victorian countryside (2 vols, 1981), II, pp. 457-76. On a second citation it would simply be Thompson, ‘Landowners’, pp. 458-60.

Some examples

William Marshall, Review and abstract of the county reports to the Board of Agriculture (5 vols, 1818), V, p. 13.
Subsequent references would be to Marshall, Review and abstract, V, p. 13.
Ibid., pp. 29-30 may be used for the immediate following reference.

Journals should be cited as follows:

• At a journal’s first or only appearance, give the full title but abbreviate:
  • History to Hist.
  • Journal to J.
  • Proceedings to Proc.
  • Review to Rev.
  • Transactions to Trans.
  For example:
  • Rural Hist.
  • Economic Hist. Rev.
  • J. Historical Geography.
• If the title is used subsequently, then give a short form, so:
  • AgHR for this Review
  • EcHR for Economic Hist. Rev.
  • JEcH for J. Economic Hist..
  • JRASE for J. Royal Agricultural Society of England.
  • YAJ for Yorkshire Archaeological J.

  The Review does not use ante for earlier issues of the Review.

  Citations of articles should take the form:
  J. A. Clarke, ‘On the farming of Lincolnshire’, J. Royal Agricultural Society of England, 10 (1851), pp. 11-18; subsequently, Clarke, ‘Lincolnshire’, p. 17, never Clarke, op. cit.

  Graham Cox, Philip Lowe and Michael Winter, ‘The origins and early development of the National Farmers’ Union’, AgHR 39 (1991), pp. 30-47; subsequently Cox et al., ‘NFU’.

  Serial publications, including record society publications, should take the form author or editor’s name(s), title (in italic), followed by (in brackets), serial title, volume number, date of publication, so:

  S. Wade Martins and T. Williamson (eds), The farming journal of Randall Burroughes (1794-1799) (Norfolk Record Soc., 58, 1996); on second and subsequent citations this would be Wade Martins and Williamson (eds), Randall Burroughes.

  Edited texts should be cited like this: William Langland, Piers the Plowman, ed., F. J. Goodridge (1959); similarly, translated texts like this: Bernard Palissy, Resources: a treatise on ‘water and springs’, trans., E. E. Willett (1876). But if the work’s title is not the title of the original book (and typically, it might include the name of the author), cite it like this: F. N. Robinson (ed.), The works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1966).

  Agrarian history of England and Wales references take the form:
  J. Thirsk (ed.), The agrarian history of England and Wales, IV, 1500-1640 (1967)
  or Alan Everitt, ‘The marketing of agricultural produce’, in J. Thirsk (ed.), The agrarian history of England and Wales, IV, 1500-1640 (1967), pp. 466-592.

  If there is going to be a further citation of any of the volumes, the first citation should look like this:
  J. Thirsk (ed.), The agrarian history of England and Wales [hereafter AHEW], IV, 1500-1640 (1967).

  Those volumes of the Agrarian history in two volumes take the form:
  J. V. Beckett, ‘Agricultural landownership and estate management’, in E. J. T. Collins (ed.), The agrarian history of England and Wales, VII, 1850-1914 (2 vols, 2000), I, pp. 693-758.
  
  Or, if this is the second or subsequent citation of any Agrarian history volume:
  J. V. Beckett, ‘Agricultural landownership and estate management’, in E. J. T. Collins (ed.), AHEW, VII, 1850-1914 (2 vols, 2000), I, pp. 693-758.
  
  Or, if this is the second or subsequent citation of the same volume of The agrarian history:
  J. V. Beckett, ‘Agricultural landownership and estate management’, in E. J. T. Collins (ed.), AHEW, VII, I, pp. 693-758.

  Victoria County History references:
  The very first VCH reference in an article takes the form, Victoria County History, Borsetshire [hereafter VCH] II, p. 242. Do not give the total number of volumes published for that county or either generic or individual publication dates. Subsequent references take the form VCH Borsetshire III, pp. 1-99; VCH Wessex I, p. 12. But VCH City of York where the volume for Beverley is VCH East Riding III.

  Archival citations should follow the same principles:
  TNA, E 315/385, fo. 385v (or fos. 385v-387r); BL, Lansdowne Ms 47, no. 5.

  It is not necessary to spell out either BL or TNA.

  Hertfordshire RO [hereafter HRO], Delme-Radcliffe MSS, DE 1420 B, Edward Radcliffe, London, to Ralph Radcliffe, Hitchin, 7 Sept. 1728.

  Thereafter adopt the short form of citation provided no ambiguity arises in archival source reference; thus: HRO, DE 1420 B, 8 Oct. 1729.

  Citation of theses and other unpublished typescripts should follow this format:
  Raine Morgan, ‘The Root Crop in English Agriculture, 1650-1870’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 1979), p. 73; subsequent references would be to Morgan, ‘Root Crop’, p. 74.

  Parliamentary Papers should be cited in ways which make them intelligible, following the recommended forms:

  BPP, 1895, XVI, RC on the Agricultural Depression, p. 546; thereafter BPP, 1895, XVI, p. 547.