Manuscript Standards

Educational institutions and publishing houses have their own style sheets to which writers are expected to conform, although of course many manuscripts submitted for publication will require some adaptation of the standard. Find out about a publisher’s or institution’s requirements for manuscript preparation before submitting an article, research paper, or book manuscript, and follow their instructions carefully.

When submitting a translated article, the author (not the translator!) is responsible for making sure it meets the necessary standard.

The following points apply to most situations; many adjustments are made automatically when using a standard word processor:

Type Size: Use twelve-point type in a non-ornamental typeface such as Times New Roman for text and ten-point type for footnotes.

Margins: Leave a margin of at least four centimeters on all four sides of the paper.

Spacing: Double-space the text, but single-space block quotations (more than three lines), notes, captions, and long headings.

Printing:

· Print on only one side of A4 white bond paper. (Note that standard paper size in the United States is 8 ½ x 11 inches, which looks “fat” to European eyes.)

· Use the best quality printer available; make sure that there is enough ink in the cartridge to produce a manuscript dark enough to be photocopied easily.

Page Numbers: Every page should have a number, and pagination should be continuous from the beginning to the end of the manuscript.

· The first page number and the numbers of pages with major headings (chapter, bibliography) should be centered at the foot of the page at least three centimeters from the edge. All subsequent page numbers should be either in the center or flush right at the top of the page, at least three centimeters from the edge.

· Use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) for pages of text. In a longer article or book manuscript (with table of contents, introduction, and so on) the preliminary pages are numbered with lowercase roman numerals (v, vi, vii, etc.).