Guidelines on Style

Authors should be consistent in format and style.

The style of articles and reviews should be clear and accessible, avoiding jargon. Authors should state the context of their work, its place in the existing field of study, and identify individuals and specialist references.

The journal follows the UNESCO guidelines on non-sexist vocabulary: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000114950. Authors should ensure they follow the broad principles of the guidelines.

British English spelling and punctuation conventions should be followed in the text and notes (this requires the use of ‘z’ rather than ‘s’ in such words as ‘organize’).  Foreign language citations should be given in translation in the main text, with the original appearing in full in an accompanying footnote. MS Word enables spelling language to be specified.

Please also minimise use of acronyms. Where necessary, the name of the relevant organisation / entity should be spelled out in full the first time it is mentioned. Where the acronym is non-English but has wide usage (for instance, MIÉNK and MAK) the non-English acronym can stand, but the name should be translated into English the first time it is mentioned.

Please avoid personal pronouns, we, our, us and you.

A person’s full name should be given on first appearance no matter how famous, for example, ‘František Kupka’ or ‘Gustav Klimt’ not ‘Kupka’ or ‘Klimt’ until the second mention.

As a general rule, spelling and capitalization for the journal is consistent with that specified in the Oxford English Dictionary. Style is consistent with the New Oxford Style Manual.

Title of article: capitals used only for the initial capital of the first word and for the first letter of all proper nouns. The same applies to titles split by either a colon or a full stop.

Review titles: the same rule applies.

Paragraphs: should be indented.

Subheadings: should be typed on a separate line, not run in with the text. Only the first word and proper names have initial capital. Please limit subheadings to A and B level subheads.

Page numbering: all pages, including captions, notes, etc., should be numbered in the lower right-hand corner. Pages should be numbered consecutively throughout the text, not by individual sections.

Quotations: should be set in single inverted commas, if brief, and indented if longer than four lines. No quotation marks in indented quotations. Spellings within quotations should be as per original. Usually all lines of poetry are indented. Double quotation marks should be reserved for quotation within quotation. Words added by authors in quotations should go in square brackets. Quotation marks should follow a full stop if a quotation is a full sentence (or contains full sentence), or a finite clause, but should precede a full stop if it is a phrase. Where there is consistent reference in the article to one text, page reference in parenthesis should follow quotation mark and precede full stop if quotation is phrase; if clause, full stop then quotation mark then page reference.

Hyphenation: compound adjectives and adverbs (eighteenth-century art).

Breaks: in the text should be indicated by a line break, and subheadings should be in Bold.

Capital letters: should be used with restraint. Omit ‘The’ in journal titles except for example, The Times and The Economist. Use for the specific rather than the general: ‘the church’ but ‘The Church of England’.  Job titles should be lower case – for example, ‘curator of the Kunsthistorisches Museum’.

Numbers:

• Spell out numerals up to one hundred, then use figures: ‘in her twenties’ not ‘in her 20s’.
• Thousands with comma – so £4,000.
• Be specific about dates so that ‘either 1839 or 1840’ would be written ‘1839/40’. Whereas ‘from 1839 to 1840’ would be ‘1839–40’; never ‘between 1839-40’ – this should be ‘between 1839 and 1840’.
• 1930s not ’30s or Thirties – and 1930s not 1930’s. ‘1830s and 1840s’, not ‘1830s and ’40s’.
• Twentieth-century movement not 20th-century movement – i.e. spell out in the twenty-first century, in the nineteenth century – no hyphen when not used adjectivally Mid-1950s and in the mid-sixteenth century, but late 1940s and early 1730s and late eighteenth-century cabinet.
• c. 1850 – circa abbreviated to c, so full stop, then space date.
• 1914–18 war, 1939–45 war, not Great War or the Second World War.

Punctuation:

• For parenthetical dashes please use hyphens.
• Spaced ellipses ( … ).
• Hyphens between date figures: 1960–70.
• No full stop in BBC, MP, UK, USA, RA, Washington DC, PhD.

Contractions (ending in last letter of full word) with no full stop, abbreviations with full stop – so Ltd, co., etc., ed., eds, vol., vols, edn, exhib. cat. Except in measurements where abbreviated measurements have no full stop: so ‘cm’ not ‘cm.’, ‘in’ not ‘in.’

Use metric measurements but miles can be used instead of kilometres. Use figures in all measurements, space between figure and unit of measurement: 6 miles, 15 m, 146 cm. Dimensions with spaces so 14 x 45 cm. Areas in sq. m.
Height before width.

Dates should be expressed ‘15 November 2001’. Please remember to have ‘seventeenth-century Britain’ but ‘the seventeenth century’.

Do not use dates as adjectives: thus ‘the discovery of 1724’ but not ‘the 1724 discovery’ or ‘1724 publication’.

Fifth Avenue, 56th Street for US address, but rue, boulevard, place lower case for French, although Place de la Concorde upper case, etc; use schafes S in German where appropriate.

Footnote: figure should follow the punctuation mark, whether comma or full stop.

Non-English words and phrases in common English usage should be in Roman (for example, cliché or oeuvre – but if in doubt, check in dictionary). Non-common words and phrases such as mise-en-scène should be in italics.

Avoid using italics for emphasis, the structure of the sentence should be sufficient to convey this. Use italics for titles of books, newspapers, picture titles, exhibition titles but poems and essays in single quotes.

Non-English names and titles of individuals and places should be given in English where a standard English exonym exists (for example, Francis Joseph, Cracow, Vienna, Secession). Otherwise, use original forms, for example, ‘Ferenc Pulszky’ not ‘Francis Pulszky’. Titles of institutions and organisations should be translated and the original provided in footnotes (for example, ‘Museum of Fine Art’ not ‘Szépművészeti Múzeum’, ‘National Gallery’ not ‘Národní galerie’). Non-English names that have become standard usage in English (for instance, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Devětsil) do not need to be translated.

References:

Books:
Cite full name of author/editor (not initials if possible), book title in italics, place of publication: publisher, date of publication, x vols, page reference but do not use ‘p’ or ‘pp’ for specific page references: Michael Baxandall, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980, 20–1; William Vaughan and Helen Weston, eds, David’s The Death of Marat, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 6–8.

Articles in journals:
Full name of author, ‘journal article title in single quotes’, Journal title in italics, vol. no (in arabic figures), no. 4, date month year, page reference but do not use ‘p’ or ‘pp’ for specific page references: Shearer West, ‘Thomas Lawrence’s “half-history” portraits and the politics of theatre’, Art History, 14: 2, June 1991, 240.

Please note that the comma comes after the quotation mark, not before it as in US style.

The journal does not publish List of Works Cited. All references must be included in footnotes.

First and subsequent citations: first citation should provide full reference as given above; subsequent citations should use a short abbreviation rather than Latin abbreviations like ibid., op. cit, or loc. cit. Thus repeat shortened title of reference even if it appears consecutively, for example, Pointon, Hanging the Head, 34; West, ‘Lawrence’s “half-history”’, 240; Lomas in Vaughan and Weston, Marat, 156.

No ampersands (except when citing web pages and in information in books for review, see below).

3. Guidelines for Publishing

On acceptance of essay for publication, author will receive a formal email of acceptance. Authors are asked to strictly adhere to the timetable of production.

Once an article has been accepted, the re-submission of the contribution must be accompanied by all the required print-quality illustrations. Failure to supply the full quantity of illustrations will delay the publication process.

When submitting large files, use a facility such as Dropbox.

When final copy is submitted please adhere to the Art East Central style guidelines as given above. Failure to do so could result in a delayed publication. This final copy should also be submitted in a PC (not Mac) Word format and with a short title ending .doc (thus smith.doc).

Please remember to supply captions for illustrations as a Word document.

Abstracts:

• approx 100–150 words
• title in capitals bold roman
• line space
• Author in bold u/lc followed by a dash and a short biographical note on author**
• line space
• abstract in u/lc roman

** The short biography (60–70 word) should indicate two to three achievements of note as well as most recent publications and, if relevant, the context for the article submitted (for example, a forthcoming book).
Please also supply a list of five to seven ‘keywords’ by which your article could be searched.

Illustrations:

• For publication please supply digital files as jpgs at 300 dpi resolution. Lower resolution images are acceptable as long as they are fit for purpose.
• All costs of image reproduction are borne by the author.
• Full list of captions in specified format (see below) must be provided as a Word document.
• Authors should consider how and where their illustrations might appear in the published text.
• A copy of the full set of reproduction permissions should be submitted with the final version of the article.
• When presenting images as e-files please accompany submission with a list of file names identifying images.

Captions:

They must contain all information required for reproduction permission to be granted, but generally should be supplied in one of following formats, or as close as possible:

• Artist, Work title in italics, date. Medium, dimensions (in cm; height before width). City/town of location: Gallery name. Picture credit line.
• Engraver, title or description after Artist, Picture title in italics, date. From title of publication or permission line.
• Description of object in roman, date. Medium, size. Location: Gallery name. Picture credit.
• Title of engraving, plate 00 from Author, Title of book in italics, date of publication. City of publication: Publisher.