House style requirements and document preparation for accepted proposals
Performance Research Style Requirements and Document Preparation
- General format for articles
- Notes, references and captions
- Quatations
- Numbers
- Spelling
- Titles and Names
- Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes
- Gender, ethnicity and culturally specific references
- Use of that and which
- Artist pages
1. General format for articles
Please submit your manuscript electronically in ragged-right, 12-point, 1.5-spaced Arial font.
Send your work simply and clearly. Please do not ‘lay out’ your article; that is the job of PR’s designer, who would have to take time to strip out your painstaking design work before adding it to the page layout program. Artist pages may be an exception.
Avoid hard returns, except after paragraphs, in setting-off extracts and in titles. Avoid word-divisions and hyphens at the end of lines. In general, avoid boldface.
Indent paragraphs; do not leave space between paragraphs.
Subheadings should be consistent and flush left, with space above and below. Normally do not use italics, and capitalize only the first word.
Do not use the serial, or Oxford, comma: In the list of this, that and the other, there is no comma before ‘and’.
Capitalization and italics
Please keep capitalization to a minimum. Avoid the extensive use of italics for emphasis. There is further guidance on capitalization and italics throughout these notes.
Indicate italics with italics formatting.
Antecedence
Please help your readers. It’s better to start a new sentence or repeat the noun, or otherwise reconfirm antecedence, than it is to use a pronoun and leave a reader unsure about what you’re referring to, even if the pronoun would sound more colloquial or knowing.
2. Notes, references and captions
Please put notes, references or captions in the same document and in the same 12-point, 1.5-spaced format as the body of the text.
Notes, references and captions – word count
References must be included in the word count that you have been given for your article/contribution i.e. if you have been allocated 5000 words that is for your writing and your references.
Notes and captions are outside the word count that you have been given, but please do not use too many notes or extraordinarily long notes - an excess creates problems for the journal’s design and may limit where you are able to place images.
Notes
In the electronic file you submit to PR, do not use automatic footnote or end-note functions: some computer programs create notes in a separate, linked location that can get lost in transmission or trigger complex formatting problems. Instead, all the elements must be submitted in one document in this order: article, notes, references, captions.
In the text, please code your notes like this: [{note}]1 so the typesetter can easily find them. NB: There are no extra spaces – it sits like this[{note}]1 - and the numeral is outside the coding, in normal font, not in superscript.
Notes are not the place for publication details; notes can keep an article moving by placing important supplemental information alongside its main flow. Publication details belong in the references list. Treat notes like the text of the article: if a note contains a quotation, cite (Author date: page) in the note as you would for a quote in the main body and include that source in the list of references.
In the text, please put notes where they will not unduly interrupt the sense. For instance: The sixteen signatories gave moral force to the proposal.[{note}]1 - the note naming them does not have to go directly on ‘signatories’.
The Bodleian,[{note}]1 the Wilson Library and the Warburg Institute[{note}]2 approach the goal incrementally - a list has natural breaks where notes cause minimal disruption.
NB: A note goes outside the comma or the full point (period); a citation is normally included within.
In the list of notes following your article, number each note in normal font, not superscript. Do not put a full point after the numeral; just leave one space between numeral and the text of the note:
Notes
1 This is the text for my first note.
References
Your list of references should include every source you cite, but only those. It is not a bibliography. Also, there should be only one list of references, which enables readers to find all kinds of sources in one alphabetized place.
In your references, list multiple works by the same author in date order from earliest to most recent. If several fall in the same year, date them as (2009a), (2009b) etc. in the list of references, and cite them as (Author 2009b: page) in the text. Repeat the author’s name for each entry in your references list rather than use a dash. List multiple works by different authors in alphabetical order by author.
We prefer full names rather than initials, unless the individual is known by initials: Williams, C. K. If an East Asian name, for instance, gives the family name first, alphabetize it without a comma.
Cite the edition or translation from which you quote. If you want to indicate the original publication date, add it in square brackets in the references entry like this:
Author, Anne (2002 [1954]) Title, city: publisher.
Use this two-date form in the text only when you have good reason (Author 2002 [1954]: page), but normally cite (Author 2002: page). The single date is enough to guide readers to the full publication details.
When you quote several passages from the same source in close proximity, abbreviate citations to (year: page) or simply (page) if you haven’t mentioned any other author or work in the context. The goal is clarity. If there could possibly be confusion about what source you’re quoting, cite enough of (Author year: page) to make it clear.
In the text, please put citations where they will not unduly interrupt the sense. For instance: She calls for ‘lightfooted community’ and the integration of university into commonweal (Hertford 2006: 52). The citation is not after ‘community’ but at the end of the sentence.
Required formats for publication details in the list of references
References should follow the Harvard Reference System, which uses the name of the author, the date of publication and, following quoted material, the page reference, as a key to the full bibliographic details set out in the list of references.
NB: Spell titles as the publisher spells them. For book titles use capitalization throughout, but for book subtitles and titles of articles, capitalize only the first word. Avoid ampersands (&). Properly space initials.
In abbreviations use no full stop if the last letter remains (as in Dr, St, Mr, eds, edn but singular ed.).
Book with multiple authors
Kay, John, Mayer, Colin and Thompson, David (1986) Privatization and Regulation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
NB: In citations, use et al. for works with three or more authors: (Kay et al. 1986: 89).
Article in an edited volume
Kreile, Michael (1992) ‘The political economy of the new Germany’, in Paul B. Strares (ed.) The New Germany and the New Europe, Washington DC: Brookings Institution, pp. 55–92.
Harvie, Jen (2009a) ‘Agency and complicity in “A special civic room”: London’s Tate Modern Turbine Hall’, in D. J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr and Kim Solga (eds) Performance in the City, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 204–21.
Article in a journal
Streeck, Wolfgang and Schmitter, Philippe C. (1991) ‘From corporatism to transnational pluralism: Organised interests in the single European Market’, Politics and Society 19: 133–64.
Mazer, Sharon (2011) ‘You talkin’ to me?: Eavesdropping on the conversation at Te Matatini Māori performing arts festival’, Performance Research 16(2): 44–9.
Edited text
Smith, Adam (1976 [1776]) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, eds Roy H. Campbell, Andrew S. Skinner and William B. Todd, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Translated text
Jaspers, Karl (1983) General Human Resource Management, 7th edn, trans. John Hoenig and Marian Hamilton, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
If you are referencing non-English language publications, please add a translation in round brackets after the title, e.g.:
Santos, Edileusa (2015) ‘Dança de expressão negra: um novo olhar sobre o tambor’ (Dance of Black Expression: A new look at the drum), Repertório 18(24): 47–55.
Newspaper item
Barber, Lynn (1993) ‘The towering bureaucracy’, Financial Times, p. 12, 21 June.
Internet
Shakespeare Online (2001) www.shakespeare-online.com, 5 September, accessed 25 May 2011.
To help readers find sources on the Web, include as much normal bibliographic information as possible, because URLs alone are changeable
e-book references
Gladwell, Malcomb (2008) Outliers: The story of success, Kindle DX, www.amazon.com.
Brill, Pamela (2004) The Winner’s Way, Adobe Digital Editions, DOI: 10.1036/007142363X.
NB: Please identify an e-book’s format, which is necessary for locating quotations in the absence of page numbers. If a journal or other online source lists a digital object identifier (DOI), please include it using the following format: DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2020.1752570
Captions
Please note that image specifications will be provided after the draft article has been accepted.
Please do not embed images but send them separately. Identify each transmitted image by the short title and author of the article and by the image’s correct number that matches its placement.
If specific points in your text refer to images, ordinarily cite an image this way: (fig. 1) in lower case, using no other punctuation inside the parentheses and include appropriate elements in the caption:
Figure 1. Gruppo Impossiblé on the ziggurat of Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, Rome. L–R: Pia Fametti, Franco deArcangelis, Beatrice Marsh. Director William Marsh. Photo Bruno Santini, courtesy of the Borromini Archive.
Mark the general placement of images in the text between paragraphs like this: [{figure1}], [{figure2}] etc.
3. Quotations
Use single quotation marks for quotes in running text or notes. Use double quotation marks only for quotes within quotes.
Set a quotation that is forty words or longer as an extract, block-indented with space above and below, using no quotation marks. A quote within an extract uses single quotation marks.
Epigraphs should be block-indented without quotation marks, followed on the next line by the author’s full name and a citation to the source in the list of references:
We shouldn’t teach [modern poems] directly but use them in courses about other things.
Galway Kinnell (1978: 15)
Quotation marks normally go ‘inside the punctuation’, (not ‘outside the punctuation,’). But a complete sentence, quoted as if direct address, merits quotation marks outside its own punctuation, for example when Jones asserts, ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’
A quote’s citation in running text also goes inside the punctuation, like this: ‘and so it goes’ (Author date: page).
But in an extract:
the citation goes outside the final punctuation. (Author date: page)
Do not use an ellipsis at the beginning or end of a quotation unless there’s a good reason: write ‘To be, or not to be’, not ‘To be, or not to be…’ and not ‘…thus concludes the reading’.
For ellipses within quotations, use three dots with a space at either side … to leave out any amount of material, whether it includes a full stop or not.
NB: There is no need to put square brackets around an ellipsis, like this […], because it’s usually clear that the ellipsis is not in the original.
If you add emphasis to quoted material, usually with italics, you must declare it: (Author date: page, my emphasis). If the emphasis is in the original, you do not need to comment unless you think comment is significant: (Author date: page, emphasis in original). NB: Do not say ‘author’s emphasis’, which could refer to you or the person quoted.
4. Numbers
Spell out numbers below 100. But spell any number that begins a sentence.
Use figures for units of measure (20 cm, 20 light-years, 20 ins), for time (7 a.m. start), for ages (Harold Simonson, 84, or the 15-year-old or the 19-year-old dancer).
Combine figures and spelling in percentages, 29 per cent, and use the symbol, 29%, only in equations or graphs.
In sequences of numbers, use the fewest figures possible: 1,222–3, 100–4 or 7–11. But show the teens as in 10–17 or 1,212–13. This rule holds for spans of years: 1987–2003, 1987–90, 1987–8 or 2000–9 but 1914–18. In a person’s biographical dates, we respect the birth and death rather than lay out a sequence: Rebecca Elson (1960–1999).
Write dates as 23 September 1991, without a comma, spelling out the month: 15 August, or on the 15th (not superscript ‘th’). Use all the numbers for 1840s, 1960s, no apostrophes (neither the 40s nor the 60’s; abbreviate as the forties, the sixties). Spell out centuries: twentieth century (not 20th century) and hyphenate the century when it’s an adjective: twelfth-century songs.
5. Spelling
Spelling should conform to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (use the first boldface headword in an entry) and should follow the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.
Please note the longstanding Oxford spellings of -ize words like ‘realize’, ‘characterize’, ‘aggrandize’, ‘civilization’ but ‘devise’, ‘exercise’, ‘advertise’, ‘enfranchise’ etc.
Italicize non-English words (represented by underlined roman text), as in the Concise Oxford. Examples include mise-en-scène, vís-à-vís, élan and à la. When a non-English term like praxis, poesis or powhiri is used repeatedly, you may opt to put it in roman after the first, defining appearance.
We prefer to acknowledge each person in two-party possessives: Deleuze’s and Guattari’s observation, rather than Deleuze and Guattari’s observation
6. Titles and names
Capitalize and use italics for titles of books, journals, newspapers, plays, films, dance and theatre works, songs, installations, long poems, paintings, long-established exhibitions and ships. Do not put these in quotation marks. For example, Guernica, documenta XII (which would be capitalized but its organizers lowercase the ‘d’), Knife in the Water.
Capitalize and use roman font, with quotation marks, for conference and exhibition titles, titles of short poems, short stories and scripts. For example, ‘Performing Publics’ in Toronto, or ‘Camera Obscura & Other Stories’ at the Gallery in Redchurch Street. Capitalize and use roman font, without quotation marks, for the names of dance and other performing companies, the names of university or government departments, place names, the West, Western medicine, Eastern philosophy. Examples: the National Theatre, Forced Entertainment, Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Southern California.
Do not capitalize non-names: southern Africa (but South Africa).
7. Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes
Use hyphens in terms like ‘third-party politics’, ‘socio-economic theory’, ‘blue-green algae’, ‘art-making’ and ‘up-to-the-minute fashion’.
En dashes with no spaces before or after can create inclusive ranges of numbers, 17--43 and link names that are normally separate: Berlin--Rome axis, University of California--Fullerton, the Wilson--Musgrave collaboration.
En dashes with a space either side can create a break or amplify material -- if they are used correctly -- in a text.
Indicate the en dash with two hyphens and add spaces on either side where appropriate.
8. Gender, ethnicity and culturally specific references
We do not use masculine pronouns as generic for the human race. Avoid the form ‘s/he’ and, where possible, ‘he or she’. Use ‘them’ instead. Use gender-neutral nouns when you can – fire fighter, not fireman. Unless you specify otherwise, we will edit appropriately.
Please do not assume readers worldwide will understand your jargon, abbreviations or local experience. For example, in its first appearance in an article, AHRC should be the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Goldsmiths should be Goldsmiths University of London (no comma, no apostrophe), and MOMA should be New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Subsequent occurrences can use the local familiar. The editors are particularly concerned that PR does not promote an exclusively British view or agenda.
9. Use of that and which
Clarify thought with ‘that’ and ‘which’.
For example, ‘The work that stood out made the difference’ is defining the sort of work it was. In contrast, ‘The work, which stood out, made the difference’ has gone on to say something else (it stood out) about what’s been established as the topic (the work): the work’s powers aren’t diluted, standing out is not to be mistaken for one of its essential qualities. The two sentences mean significantly different things. ‘The work which stood out made the difference’ is a muddle, a chisel used as a screwdriver. A ‘that’ clause is not set apart by a comma (it belongs to the topic’s definition); a ‘which’ clause is set apart (it moves into new territory).
10. Artists’ Pages
Pages in any graphic form, made to suit page size 215 mm x 280 mm are acceptable. A 3mm bleed on all edges should be added if authors require an image to bleed to the page edges.
For initial consideration please send a mock up. Please include any special requirements or requests, for instance preferred placement in the journal, and whether the work should begin on a left or right hand page, or include page numbering etc.
Finalizing artist’s pages is often an individualized process that depends on discussion between editor and artist. Responsibility for generating finished artwork remains with the artist but our designer, Karolina Heller, is available to advise or to help artists ensure their work conforms to the publisher’s and printer’s specifications.
A print resolution mono pdf is the ideal for the printed journal. Where editors have approved the use of colour for the printed journal, a print resolution cmyk pdf is the ideal format.
Authors may also provide a colour pdf (RGB or CMYK ) to appear in the online version of the journal. Resolution for the online version is not critical.