Difference between revisions of "Style Manual"

Revision as of 15:02, 23 October 2015

The publications of The Augustan Society, Inc., need a consistent style so as to present a consistent and professional appearance. This page is an effort to establish such a standard.

Typographic Standards

Editorial Preferences

• Serial commas in all situations — alpha, beta, and gamma
• Quantities of twenty or fewer are spelled out as words, larger amount as digits. Exceptions are for ages, and perhaps others.
• Date format is day month year — 18 August 1957
• Calendar designation shall be either "BC" or "AD" whenever there may be ambiguity — AD 1957 or 3400 BC, but 2 January 201 AD
• Acronyms composed of initials shall omit periods — thus USA, FAS, PhD
• Notes shall be numbered sequentially throughout each article.
• Footnotes go at the bottom of columns, not grouped at the bottom of the page.
• If footnotes are used with a Bibliography, the footnotes shall be in brief format, "Author, Year, p. 00" with full details in the Bibliography.
• Notes are referenced by numerals within square brackets in text — [1], not superscript ¹
• Notes are listed by numerals followed by a closing square bracket — 1], not [1].
• Endnotes are preferred to footnotes.
• Do not use apostrophes in decades; thus 1920s not 1920's, and 80s not 80's.
• Ordinal suffixes (st, nd, rd, th) should be superscript. Elevation 33% and size 67%.

Things to Avoid

• Do not use double spaces; condense them all to single spaces.
• Do not use spaces for formatting. Use indent or tabs if required.
• Do not put blank lines between paragraphs.
• Do not link frames or illustrations to pages; link them to paragraphs.

English Admonitions

• When inserting a parenthetical phrase, any following comma goes outside the parentheses.
• When a parenthetical phrase at the end of a sentence is itself a whole sentence, place the period for the main sentence at it's end (before the parentheses), and place the period for the parenthetical sentence within the parentheses.

Citation Standards

These are based largely upon Chicago, but changes have been made to provide greater consistency and to extend the range of sources. Examples follow:

Fundamental principle

Author. "Title of article or chapter, if any" in Title of book. Access date for online sources. Publisher or access method. Page numbers.

Book

Firstname Lastname. Title of Book. City: Publisher, 18 Aug. 1957, p. 000.

United States. Journal of the House of Representatives. 00th Congress, p. 000.

Book, second citation

Lastname. 1957. pp. 00-00.

Census

Government agency. 1957 Census: Torrance, Los Angeles Co., CA. National Archives Microfilm #A00-00, p. 000, Firstname Lastname.

Census Online

Government agency. "1957 Census: Torrance, Los Angeles Co., CA" in Website Author or Owner. "Web Page Name" in Website Name. Accessed 18 Aug. 1957. http://wiki.augustansociety.org/specific/page. National Archives Microfilm #A00-00, p. 000, Firstname Lastname.

Note this use of abbreviated name of month.

Letter

Firstname Lastname. Letter to Firstname Lastname. 18 Aug. 1957. Location of original.

Letter on website

Firstname Lastname. Letter to Firstname Lastname. 18 Aug. 1957, in Website Author or Owner. "Web Page Name" in Website Name. Accessed 18 Aug. 1957. http://wiki.augustansociety.org/specific/page.

Document

Firstname Lastname. Government document name. 18 Aug. 1957. Archives holding document. Details needed for access.

Unique items

Lastname Family Bible. Copy in possession of author.

Vital Records

Jurisdiction. Vital Records. Accessed 18 Aug. 1957. http://wiki.augustansociety.org/specific/page.

Note: This form only appropriate when the Jurisdiction maintains the website.

Webpage

Firstname Lastname. "Page Name" in Website Name. Accessed 18 Aug. 1957. http://wiki.augustansociety.org/specific/page.

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