Author Guidelines

Article types | Structure | Language & text | Figures & Tables | References

Submissions should be made electronically through this website.

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay the processing of your submission.

Article types

  • Essays present original research of significant scope and are principally analytic and interpretive rather than descriptive. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the field and should be supported by relevant kinds of evidence and scholarship. Research articles should be c. 5,000 to 8,000 words in length. Longer submissions are subject to approval by the editor.
  • Shorter articles and notes present findings of more limited scope and may include archival or bibliographical notices. Shorter articles and notes should usually be no longer than c. 3,000 words.
  • Reviews and review essays discuss the significance of recently published research with respect to Marvell and Marvell studies. Reviews of monographs should be c. 1,000 words in length. Review essays touching on multiple publications may be as long as 3,000 words.
  • Editor’s notes present news relating to the journal or the Society.

All word limits include referencing and citation.

 

Structure

Before submission, every effort must be made to ensure that author names are removed from the submitted manuscript. The following link provides information on ensuring a blind review.

Title page

The title page must include all of the below information, in the same order. No further information should be included:

  • Title
  • Full author name(s)
  • Affiliation(s)
  • Corresponding author’s email address (other author email addresses are optional)

Author names must include a forename and a surname. Forenames should preferably not include only initials.

The affiliation should ideally include Department, Institution, City and Country, however only the Institution and Country are mandatory.

Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.

A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

 

Acknowledgements (optional)
Any acknowledgements must be headed and in a separate paragraph, placed after the main text but before the reference list.

 

Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here.

 

Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).

Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.

References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file. This journal uses the Chicago Notes and Bibliography system.

 

Language & Text

Spelling and Usage
Submissions must be made in English. Authors are asked to observe American spelling and usage insofar as possible. Please consult the Chicago Manual of Style and Garner's Modern English Usage for more detailed guidance.

 

Font
The font used should be commonly available and in an easily readable size. This may be changed during the typesetting process.

Underlined text should be avoided whenever possible.

Bold or italicised text to emphasise a point are permitted, although should be restricted to minimal occurrences to maximise their efficiency.

 

Lists
Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.

Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

 

Quotation marks
Use double quotation marks except for quotes within another speech, in which case single quotation marks are used.

Quotations that are longer than three lines in length must be in an indented paragraph separate from the main text.

The standard, non-italicised font must be used for all quotes.

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

 

Numbers
For numbers zero to ninety-nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 100 or higher.

We are happy for authors to use either words or figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. one million or 1,000,000) as long as the usage is consistent throughout the text.

If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.

  • Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.

If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.

  • This study confirmed that 5% of…

If a sentence starts with a number it must be spelt, or the sentence should be re-written so that it no longer starts with the number.

  • Fifteen examples were found to exist…
  • The result showed that 15 examples existed…

 

Use of footnotes/endnotes
Use endnotes rather than footnotes (we refer to these as ‘Notes’ in the online publication). These will appear at the end of the main text, before ‘References’.

Please refer to the Chicago Manual of Style for citation format in notes.

For frequently cited sources, authors may use in-text citations after the first citation note. 

Please insert the endnote marker after the end punctuation.

 

Figures & Tables

Figures
Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

  • Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
  • Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Figure titles and legends should be placed within the text document, either after the paragraph of their first citation, or as a list after the references.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

  • Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file includes text then please present the font as Ariel, Helvetica, or Verdana. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).

Tables
Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

All tables must be cited within the main text, numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed underneath the table.

Tables should not include:

  • Rotated text
  • Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
  • Images
  • Vertical or diagonal lines
  • Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

 

References

Full citation in a note:

1. Newton N. Minow and Craig L. LaMay, Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 24–25.

Shortened citation in a note:

8. Minow and LaMay, Presidential Debates, 138.

Entry in a bibliography:

Minow, Newton N., and Craig L. LaMay. Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Note citations are styled much like running text, with authors’ names in normal order and the elements separated by commas or parentheses. In bibliographies, where entries are listed alphabetically, the name of the first author is inverted, and the main elements are separated by periods.

For further examples, see the Chicago Manual of Style.