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Style Guide

Authors are expected to submit manuscripts in accordance with the house style otherwise they may be asked to resubmit the manuscript before it is sent to referees. Refereed articles should be between 6,000 and 8,000 words (excluding footnotes).

All submissions should be emailed to admin@labourhistory.org.au.

Headings

Use initial capitals for major words in the title, subtitle, headings and subheadings. Use bold, not italics. No full stop is necessary. Use a colon rather than a dash between title and subtitle. Please try to keep your titles and headings concise.

Paragraphs

The first paragraph in each section of an article should be flush with the left margin, and subsequent paragraphs should have the first line indented. This includes new paragraphs which follow an indented quotation. Paragraphs that merely continue after a quotation should not be indented.

Spacing

Use double line spacing for your first submission; single for the revised version. Please leave a line of space before and after indented quotations, and two lines of space before a subheading or at the end of a section. Use only one space between words, even after a full stop.

A superscript footnote number is generally placed at the end of a sentence or at the end of a clause. Often it will come immediately after a full stop, a comma or closing quotation marks.

Italics

Use italics to indicate the title of a journal or a book; for foreign words not in common use; and to indicate emphasis.

Quotations

The source of each quote must be perfectly clear. Each quotation must be properly referenced in a footnote. Where you have a number of quotes, one immediately after the other, taken from exactly the same source, you can reference them with a single footnote. Avoid using one footnote to reference quotes from a number of different sources.

For quotes less than 50 words, use double quotation marks (“”). Use single quotation marks (‘’) around quotes-within-quotes.

Indent quotes that are more than 50 words long. Opening and closing quotation marks are not required for indented material. However use double marks for quotes within an indented quote.

Use ellipses to indicate that material has been omitted within a quote; they are not necessary at the beginning or end of a quotation.

Quoted matter must be identical to the original source and is not subject to the in-house style of the journal. Put all interpolations in square brackets. Use [sic] to indicate unusual spellings or turns of phrase. If the author wishes any quoted material to be emphasised, the extract should appear in italics followed by [emphasis added].

Footnotes

All references should be placed in footnotes using the Chicago Style. For referencing matters not covered in this guide, please consult The Chicago Manual of Style.

As far as possible, footnotes should be limited to references and brief comments on sources. Avoid using footnotes for asides and additional information about your topic.

Please don’t use the author/date style of Chicago referencing and don’t provide a separate bibliography.

Each quotation must be properly referenced in a footnote. Include the page(s) on which the quote appears.

The first time a reference is given, it must include the full bibliographic details. References to a whole article or chapter should include the page range. Subsequent references to the same item should be given in a shortened form. Below are examples of both full and short references.

When providing full dates, use the following format: 22 June 1945 (rather than June 22, 1945). This is one of our departures from the Chicago style.

Use semicolons to separate multiple references within a footnote.

Book

  1. Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, The War: An Intimate History, 1941–1945 (New York: Knopf, 2007), 159–61.
  2. Ward and Burns, War, 159–61.

Book with Editor(s) instead of Author

  1. Eric Fry, ed., Rebels and Radicals (Sydney: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), 137.
  2. Fry, Rebels and Radicals, 137.

Book Chapter

  1. Peter Spearitt, “The Auburn Plute,” in Jack Lang, ed. Heather Radi and Peter Spearitt (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1977), 17–18.
  2. Spearitt, “Auburn Plute,” 17–18.

Journal Article

Journals can include a volume and/or an issue number. A volume number immediately follows the title of the journal. An issue number is preceded by the abbreviation “no.”

  1. Geoffrey Stokes, “The ‘Australian Settlement’ and Australian Political Thought,” Australian Journal of Political Science 39, no. 1 (2004): 5–7.
  2. Stokes, “Australian Settlement,” 5–7.
  3. Peter Cochrane, “Company Time: Management, Ideology and the Labour Process, 1940–1960,” Labour History, no. 48 (May 1985): 54–68.
  4. Cochrane, “Company Time,” 54–68.

Article in a Newspaper or Popular Magazine

  1. Kevin Rudd, “Global Good not Global Greed,” Sydney Morning Herald, 27 July 2000, 15.
  2. Rudd, “Global Good,” 15.

Thesis or Dissertation

  1. Julie Kimber, “A Bush Christening: Orange and the Great War” (PhD diss., University of New South Wales, 2004), 45–49.
  2. Kimber, “A Bush Christening,” 45–49.

Archival Document

  1. Attlee Hunt to Captain Collins, 28 June 1906, Department of External Affairs, series A2910/1, file 417/4/2, Australian Archives, ACT.
  2. Attlee Hunt to Captain Collins, 28 June 1906.

Personal Interview

  1. Patricia Bunker, telephone interview with author, 14 August 2006.
  2. Bunker, interview.

Unpublished Paper Presented at a Meeting or Conference

  1. James Walter and Tod Moore, “The New Social Order? Australia’s Contribution to ‘New Liberal’ Thinking in the Interwar Period” (paper presented to the jubilee conference of the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, Australian National University, Canberra, 2–4 October 2002).
  2. Walter and Moore, “The New Social Order?”

Website

Include an access date or, if available, a date that the site was last modified.

  1. D. J. Murphy, “Fisher, Andrew (1862–1928)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed 15 February 2012, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fisher-andrew-378/text10613.
  2. Murphy, “Fisher, Andrew (1862–1928).”
  3. “About the Federal Society,” Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, accessed 29 May 2012, http://asslh.org.au/federal/about/.
  4. “About the Federal Society.”

Work Cited Immediately Above

  1. Ibid.

Spelling

  • Labour/Labor: when referring to the movement, use the spelling “labour”; when referring to the Australian party, use “Labor” (the official spelling)
  • ize/ise: use “realise”; “organisation”, “mobilisation” etc rather than the “ize” and “ization” forms of these and similar words

Acronyms

When using an acronym, make sure that you first spell it out. The first time you refer to an organisation, publication, state etc, give its full title followed (in brackets) by its acronym.

Other common usages

  • use World War II (not Second World War or WW2)
  • use per cent (not percent or %, though the latter may be used in a table)
  • in general, use a full stop after an abbreviation (Vic. Tas. ed. no. vol. p. pp. but not after a contraction where the short form ends in the same letter as the word in full (Qld, eds). Exceptions to this rule include: ACT, NSW, NT, SA, PhD, BA, eg, ie, am, pm
  • use a space between a shortened form and associated numbers: no. 5, chs 2, 7
  • symbols for currency and units of measurement have no full stop (17 km, 30 lb, 9s)

Numbers/Dates

  • show dates as: 22 June 1945 (not 22/6/45 or 22.6.45)
  • spell out numbers up to ten and use numerals thereafter eg: nine lives. This rule does not apply if the sentence begins with a number, eg Eighteen men were killed in a fall at the mine. Avoid ending a sentence with a number
  • indicate time spans: 1939–45; 1788–1842; 1900–02; 1950s (not 1950’s)
  • use a comma to indicate thousands, eg 1,972
  • show hours as: 10.45am – 6.00pm

Using Capitals

Proper nouns (ie the names or titles of persons, places, or things) should be capitalised. A common noun is the generic name of one item in a class or group; it is not capitalised unless it is part of a title. Likewise adjectives are generally not capitalised unless they are part of a title. Left and Right are capitalised when used as nouns but not as adjectives. For instance: “western New South Wales … the Left … the left wing of the Labor Party … the new Right.”

Terms associated with government may or may not be capitalised depending on how they are used. When you refer to an entity by its formal title, use capitals. Do the same when using an abbreviated version of this title (especially if it contains a specific element). For instance: “The Victorian Government is responsible for … The Federal Court decided that … Defence is a Commonwealth responsibility.”

Do not capitalise such terms when using them generically, adjectivally, or in the plural – even if you are referring to specific entities. For instance: “The state government proposes to … The debate in parliament continued … The governments of South Australia and Tasmania decided that … Defence is a federal responsibility.”

But note: some nouns used in connection with government and legislation are capitalised to distinguish them from their generic meaning: the Cabinet, the Treasury, the Crown, the House, the Act(s), the Bill(s).

Figures and Tables

Figures include artworks such as photographs, drawings, maps and charts. Tables are lists of words and numbers presented in vertical columns and horizontal rows. Figures and tables should be numbered separately and either embedded in your MS or provided in separate files. Always refer to specific table and figure numbers in the text (rather than saying “in the following table”). Please keep the title of figures and tables brief; lengthy descriptions of these items belong either in the main text or in footnotes.

For a table, put the number and title above the item and the source beneath it.

For a figure, put the number, title, source (eg name of photographer, date) and acknowledgments beneath the item.

All reproduction costs and copyright clearances are the responsibility of the author. For photographs, we need a tiff or jpg file with a resolution of 300 dpi at the right size (100%).  If the photo is only small, the resolution should be 600 dpi so as not to lose quality when it is enlarged.  For maps or diagrams, the resolution should be 600 dpi or more.