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Style Guidelines for Secrecy and Society

This document provides details on typesetting and layout requirements pertaining to final manuscript submission to Secrecy and Society.

A short video on Vimeo explains how to create an account and upload a copy of your paper. All submissions must be uploaded to the Secrecy and Society site through the Scholarworks platform.

Article Formatting

The preferred style for citing is the Chicago Manual of Style Author-Date format. Information on Chicago is found in the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide and at Owl (Purdue Online Writing Lab).

  • Copyedit your manuscript.
  • Font:
    Main body:12 pt. Verdana typeface
    Footnotes and endnotes: 10 pt. Verdana
  • Begin the document with the title of the article.
  • Single space the abstract.
  • The abstract should reflect major subjects discussed in the article and be no longer than a paragraph.
  • Include descriptive, representative keywords in alpabetical order below the abstract.
  • Affiliation(s) and/or a short bio consisting of several sentences can be added to Scholarworks
  • Doublespace the body of the text.
  • Submit your manuscript, including tables, figures, and appendices, as a single file .doc or .docx file.
  • Do not include a separate title page.
  • Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers.
  • Do not include underlining of text.
  • Do not include links within the body of the text.
  • Do not include emdashes. Instead, use a single dash ( - ) for readability.

Review Formatting

Reviews (e.g., book, film) must conform to Chicago style and Verdana font type. Include the following information in the review header:

  • Citation information
  • Number of pages (if applicable)
  • Format (e.g., ebook, paper, hardback, video, audio)
  • ISBN/ISSN
  • Your name

Additional Considerations & Recommendations

Article Length

As this journal is in digital format, page limits are not as relevant as in the world of print publications. We are happy to let authors take advantage of this format to include material that they might otherwise need to cut. Authors should, however, exercise discretion with respect to length of their work.

Colored Text

Set the font color to black for the majority of the text.

However, we encourage authors to take advantage of the ability to use color in the production of figures, illustrations, and maps.

Please ensure that there are no colored mark-ups or comments in the final version, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (You may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup).

Emphasized Text

Whenever possible use italics to indicate text you wish to emphasize rather than underlining it. The use of color to emphasize text is discouraged.

Whenever mentioned, titles of books, movies, databases, etc., should be set in italics rather than underlined.

File Formats

Manuscripts may be uploaded in .doc, .docx, and .rtf formats.

Footnotes

If used, footnotes should appear in Arabic numerals at the bottom of the page in 10 pt. Verdana, single spaced.

Material cited in a footnote should adhere to Chicago style, with notes left and right-justified (e.g., flush with the right margin).

Information on creating footnotes in Chicago style is found in the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide and Owl (Purdue Online Writing Lab).

Headings

Headings (e.g., start of sections) should be distinguished from the main body text by the use of bold, no italics. Use Verdana font and size 12 for all headings. There should be space above and below headings.

Language & Grammar

All submissions must be in English. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases should be avoided. Whenever possible, foreign terms should be set in italics rather than underlined.

Authors should use proper, standard English grammar. There are many excellent guides online such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Owl). The Chicago Manual of Style blog and forum also discuss grammar-related issues.

Margins, Line Spacing, Breaks, Text, and Justification

Margins (left, right, top and bottom) should be 1 inch, including tables and figures.

Page size should be 8.5 x 11-inches

When possible, there should be no pages where more than a quarter of the page is empty space

Doublespace the body of the text.

Do not insert extra space between paragraphs of text with the exception of long quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, etc. These should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below.

Don't "widow" or "orphan" text (e.g., ending a page with the first line of a paragraph or beginning a page with the last line of a paragraph).

After the last sentence of your submission, insert a line break, not a page break, and begin references on the same page. The references/bibliography should appear at the end of the document with margins that are both left and right- justified. You may choose not to right-justify the margin of one or more references if the spacing looks too awkward.

All text should be left-justified (e.g., flush with the left margin except where indented). Flush left is the default setting in MS Word and Open Office Writer.

Mathematics

Roman letters used in mathematical expressions as variables should be italicized. Roman letters used as part of multi-letter function names should not be italicized. Whenever possible, subscripts and superscripts should be a smaller font size than the main text.

Short mathematical expressions should be typed inline. Longer expressions should appear as display math. Also expressions using many different levels (e.g., such as the fractions) should be set as display math. Important definitions or concepts can also be set off as display math.

Equations should be numbered sequentially. Whether equation numbers are on the right or left is the choice of the author(s). However, you are expected to be consistent in this.

Symbols and notation in unusual fonts should be avoided. This will not only enhance the clarity of the manuscript, but it will also help insure that it displays correctly on the reader's screen and prints correctly on her printer.

References and Bibliography

It is the author's obligation to provide complete citations (e.g., author, corporate author, date, title, source, publisher) for all materials mentioned in a paper or review.

For online materials include a live URL/hyperlink for the item in References and footnotes. If available, also include a live link to the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for the item in the References (Author-Date) format.

Per Chicago style, access dates are not included unless publication dates are unavailable.

Tables and Figures

To the extent possible, tables and figures should appear in the document near where they are referenced in the text. Large tables or figures should be put on pages by themselves. Avoid the use of overly small type in tables. In no case should tables or figures be in a separate document or file. All tables and figures must fit within 1.5" margins on all sides (top, bottom, left and right) in both portrait and landscape view.

If figures are included, use high-resolution figures, preferably encoded as encapsulated PostScript (EPS)

Contact

For inquiries, contact: Secrecy and Society.