International Journal of Comic Art Manuscript Preparation Guide
John A. Lent
General Guidelines
These are the formatting standards International Journal of Comic Art asks its authors to follow. Should you submit your manuscript in a form that does not follow these standards, your editor may return your manuscript and ask that you format it in accordance with the standards laid out in this guide. Manuscripts should be sent electronically to John A. Lent, email: jlent@temple.edu and john.lent@gmail.com. The manuscript should include, title (not very long), author, text, endnotes, references, and short bio data of author, in that order.
1. All files should be in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx file format.
2. The main text must be 1.5 spaced in black, 12pt. Times New Roman font.
3. Pages should be 8.5” x 11” with 1 inch margins on all sides.
4. With the exception of headings and subheadings, all text should be justified. Do not align text along the left side of a page.
5. Do not use the space bar to indent the first line of a paragraph. Use a paragraph indent (0.5 inch).
6. With the exception of block quotes and ending paragraphs of each section, do not add extra spacing or line breaks between paragraphs,
endnotes, and bibliographical entries.
7. When emphasizing text, use double quotation marks. No text should be underlined.
8. Do not include a page header (also known as the “running head”) at the top of every page. Only page number should be put in top right corner (Times New Roman font, 12pt).
9. Do not use any special formatting in Microsoft Word, such as preset styles or page templates. Do not use heading styles for headings and subheadings. All text should be formatted as normal text.
10. Quotes of three or more lines should be set apart from the surrounding text and indented one-half inch from both the left and right margins. Block quotes should be single spaced in 10pt. Do not include a hard return (Enter) after each line of the quote, but please do include a blank line before and after each block quote.
11. Illustrations are strongly recommended. No limit is placed on number of illustrations used per article. Illustrations should be very clear (suggested 300 resolution and jpg. file).
12. Images and tables should not be inserted directly into the text. Each image and table must be saved in a separate file. Indicate the location in the text where the image/table should appear by using the following tag:
13. You need to submit a complete list of image/table captions in a separate file named “list of captions.” Preceded by “Fig.” or “Table.,” captions should include the image/table numbers, source information, and accurate credit lines, if necessary.
14. In-text citations should give last name of author, year of publication, and page number (Smith, 1976:13). Page numbers should be written in full, e.g., 612-648.
15. All cited sources must appear in the reference list, and the reference list should not include sources that are not referenced in the text.
16. Please use endnotes instead of footnotes. Endnotes usually are reserved for material that is explanatory or otherwise additional to what is in the text. If sources are used in endnotes, they should appear as cited in text.
17. Do not use Microsoft Word’s endnote feature to create endnotes. In the text, put superscript Arabic numbers in the proper location (e.g., John A. Lent1 argues that...has hardly been studied.2). At the end of the text (and before “References”), make a numbered list of endnotes. Examples are:
1 All endnotes should be 1.5 spaced in 12pt as in the case of the main text.
2 Do not put blank lines between endnotes.
18. All headings and subheadings should be title case. Do not use all-caps or small caps. Examples of the types of headings/subheadings can be found below:
Title: Centered, Bold Typeface,
16pt, Add a Blank Line Below
Author name (centered, bold typeface, 12pt, add two blank lines below)
A-level Subheadings: Centered, Bold Typeface, 14pt, Add a Blank
Line Below (e.g., Introduction, Conclusion, Endnotes, References)
B-level Subheadings: Justified, Bold Typeface, 12pt, Do Not Put Blank Lines Below
19. At the end of each section, please put two blank lines before another section starts.
20. Leave no comments, tracked changes, highlighting, or hidden text in the draft you send to your editor.
21. Punctuation: A comma after each item in a series, e.g., bravery, courage, and loyalty. Concerning quoted matter, printers’ rules apply:
• comma or period always within quotes: “ .” “ ,”
• semi-colon or colon always outside quotes: “ ”: “ ”;
• question mark or exclamation mark placed according to which part is a question or exclamation.
22. Dates: Specific centuries, as, 21st Century. Order of date: Nov. 11, 2008.
23. Use the hyphen with no spaces in either side to link two or more words together, and to break up a whole word at the end of a line (e.g., back-to-back).
24. The dash should always have spacing before and after. When you create dashes, do not use Microsoft Word’s autoformat function. Use “ -- ” instead of “—.”
25. Include authors’ short bio data as last item on manuscript. It should be 5-6 lines of career biography of each author, e.g.,
Adam Kern is associate professor of Japanese literature at Harvard University. Among his publications are…
|
