Notes for contributors

Submission

Museum and Society has now moved its production processes to a new system called OJS.

The journal will still be free and open access; and hopefully more usable and visible. Find out how to register and submit.

Articles, which should be 5,000-8,000 words in length, including Notes, References and Appendices, must be submitted as a doc file through OJS. All images must be sent as supplementary files, not included in the Word file; see 'Illustrations' section below). Submissions must be prefaced with an abstract (100-150 words) which is followed by a list of 3-5 key words. The name of the author or authors should appear on a separate sheet of paper along with a short biographical statement of approximately 100 words. The following details should also be included: postal and e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and fax numbers.

Submissions are considered for publication on the understanding that the article is not under consideration by another printed or electronic journal. Authors agree not to submit articles for consideration by another printed or electronic journal without prior agreement with the editors of museum & society.

All submissions must be accompanied by a copyright agreement form (PDF, 79kb).

Presentation

• Articles must be typed, in Arial, in 12 point size
• Lines must be double spaced throughout the text (including end notes and references)
• A margin of 3 cm should be left at the margins and at the top and bottom of each page
• Articles must be paginated at the top right of each page
• All text should be justified at left and right margins
• The title and sub headings should be clear and concise and the latter aligned to the left hand margin. Subheadings should be firstly formatted in bold..
• Paragraphs should not be indented.
• Paragraphs should generally have no spaces before or after them.
• There should be a gap of one line between the subheading, and the paragraphs directly before and after it. Reference lists and endnotes should also be formatted in this fashion.
• Use single quotation marks except for quotations within quotes when double marks are to be used
• Quotes over 40 words in length should be set out from the body of the text by being indented 1 cm from the left margin, and there should be a gap of one line between it and the paragraphs before and after it; quotation marks should not be used for indented quotes
• Quotations used to begin subsections should be aligned to the right. The full reference should be written out underneath it, also aligned right, in the following format: name of author, title (italics or ‘’ as usual), (date: page number)
• Use a single (not a double) space after a full stop, and after all other punctuation marks. Do not put a space in front of a question mark, or in front of any other closing punctuation mark
• Avoid stops when using abbreviations: for example, UNESCO, UK, Mrs and Dr are preferred.
• Where the letter 'z' has come to replace 's' in the spelling of words, the former is preferred: thus organization instead of organisation
• Use italic for titles of books, plays, films, long poems, newspapers, journals, (but not for articles in journals), ships and exhibitions
• Avoid the use of ‘he’ when he or she is meant, wherever possible, either through the use of ‘they’ or by repeating the noun
• Numbers of 10 and under should be spelt out; insert a comma for thousands and tens of thousands (e.g. 10,000 and 100,000). Numerals should be used for measurements and percentages (but spell out ‘per cent’); the percentage sign (%) should only be used in tables and figures. Numerals should not be used for volume numbers, such as 14th – instead, use ‘fourteenth’. Likewise for centuries.
• Use notes sparingly in the form of endnotes and not as footnotes. Within the article, endnote numbers should be placed after any punctuation mark. Number in should be 1, 2, 3, etc. not i, ii, iii. Any references within the notes should be in the Harvard (author-date) system (see below)
• Dates should be presented in the English style as follows: 1 January 2003; centuries should be spelt out, e.g. eighteenth century, not 18th century.
• Dashes, if used, should be single en-dashes.
• Do not page number your articles, this will be done when they are set and published.

References

• In referring to other works avoid location references such as ibid and op cit.
• References that are cited in the text should be in conformity with the Harvard system so that the author's surname, the year of publication and the page reference appear immediately after the material that has been cited or quoted. Thus, (Smith 2001: 32-3); two authors should be given as, (Dodd and Sandell 1999); for more than two, (Neal et al. 1995); multiple references should be given as, (Peers and Brown 2003; Smith 2006; Dicks 2010).
• Website references other than to web journals (see below) should be entered as endnotes, with access date given, e.g. Ross Parry, Nick Poole and Jon Pratty, ‘Semantic Dissonance: Do We Need (And Do We Understand) The Semantic Web?’, Museums and the Web 2008. http://www.archimuse.com/mw2008/papers/parry/parry.html, accessed 24 February 2012.
• Material derived from interviews should be referenced in endnotes. Include the interviewee’s and interviewer’s names, the recording medium, the place and date of the interview, and details of where the recording is deposited (if appropriate):
  Helen Wang, interview by author, digital recording, 8 January 2007, London.
  Karnial Singh, interview by Manjeet Tara, tape recording, 13 April 1999, Leicester, East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA).
• References to the same interview later in the text can be abbreviated to (for example): Helen Wang, interview, 9 January 2007.
• Personal communications (letters, emails, face-to-face conversations) should be referenced in endnotes, thus:
  Jane Weel, personal communication, 12 May 2011.
• NB, if appropriate, you should also include the individual’s job title and place of work:
  John Benfield, Creative Head of Interactive Media, Natural History Museum, personal communication, 21 December 2005.
• References to the same communication later in the text may be abbreviated to:
  John Benfield, pers. comm., 10 January 2006.
• A lower case lettering system should be used to distinguish between different works by the same author or authors which have been published in the same year: e.g. Smith, A (1967a, 1967b).
• Pagination should be given as concisely as possible (3-8, 9-14, 33-6, 174-9, 183-96).
• Punctuate references with commas and not with full stops. In the case of journals give the volume number first, followed by the issue number in brackets, e.g. 4 (3).
• The list of references should appear in alphabetical order after any endnotes. It should be formatted as a subheading, and entitled ‘References’, rather than ‘Bibliography’

The following style of referencing should be used:

• Articles in journals: Negrin, L. (1993) 'On the Museum's Ruins', Theory, Culture and Society, 10 (1) 97-125.
• Chapters in edited books: Wright, P. (1989) 'The Quality of Visitors' Experiences in Art Museums', in Peter Vergo (ed) The New Museology, 119-48, London: Reaktion Books.
• Books: Horne, D. (1984) The Great Museum, London: Pluto Press.
• Edited books: Knell, S.J., MacLeod, S. and Watson, S. (eds) (2007) Museum Revolutions. How Museums Change and are Changed, London: Routledge.
• Web-site journal articles: Owen, J. (1999) 'The Collections of Sir John Lubbock, the First Lord Avebury (1834-1913): 'An Open Book?' Journal of Material Culture, 10 (3) 283-302
  http://www.sagepub.co.uk/frame.html?
  http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/details/j0101.html.
• When an author has more than one entry in the list of references, do not repeat the name, but begin the reference from the date onwards, and indent it by one tab. References by the same author should appear in chronological order in the reference list.
• Keep the references formatted like the main text – do not use a hanging indent or indent the first line (except as detailed in the point above).

Illustrations

Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions from copyright holders for the reproduction of pictures, tables, quotations etc. Illustrations should be submitted as separate .jpg, tiff or png files, resolution at least 300dpi. Sizes may vary, but should not be smaller than 200 pixels. For further advice, contact Jim Roberts ert@le.ac.uk.

Reviews and review articles

Reviews of books and exhibitions will be commissioned by the editors; the Journal does not accept unsolicited reviews. However, anyone wishing to be considered as a reviewer should contact the editors at the address above and provide appropriate details about their interests and their professional experience. The Reviews Editor is Dr Sarah Plumb.