Style Guide
Text
Spelling
British, rather than American, words and spelling should be used
E.g. Centre, colour, programme, pavement; not center, color, program, sidewalk
Use of ‘Oxford Commas’ is permitted if there is some reason why the final sub-clause is to be separated or given emphasis
E.g. ‘Unusually the artist gained some experience across the Channel, having travelled to Rome, Paris, and London.’
Punctuation
Apostrophes to indicate the possessive case for singular nouns ending in ‘s’:
E.g. ‘the bass’s stripes’
Apostrophes to indicate the possessive case for plural nouns ending in ‘s’:
E.g. ‘the puppies’ bed’
It is conventional to put an ‘s’ at the end of proper nouns ending in ‘s’, apart from Classical names
E.g. Dickens’s novel vs. Vitruvius’ architectural plans
Dates
Dates should follow European order without the commonly
E.g. 26 March 1688
Dates should be written out in full
E.g. Eighteenth century, not 18th century
Dates should be hyphenated if used as adjectives (please use the ‘-’ hyphen)
E.g. ‘in the nineteenth century’ or ‘in nineteenth-century art’, but not ‘in the 19th century’
Cardinal numbers should be spelt out and should not take the ordinal form (st, th, rd)
E.g. ‘the twentieth of March’ not ‘the 20th of March’
Numbers that identify decades do not take an apostrophe and can be abbreviated in the second instance
E.g. ‘1970s’ or ‘in the 1970s and ‘80s’, but not ‘1970’s’
Inclusive dates are given as 1914–1918, not 1914–8 nor 1914–18 (please use the ‘en dash’ ‘–’).
Italian dates are italicised and capitalised when used as a noun
E.g. ‘in the Quattrocento’ or ‘in quattrocento art’
Numbers
Whole numbers from zero to one-hundred should be spelt out in full, numerals should be used for numbers over one-hundred
E.g. ‘Three new galleries will provide display space for over 205 paintings and drawings’
Exceptions include page numbers, dates and round numbers over a hundred
E.g. ‘More than a thousand copies are known to exist’, rather than ‘More than 1000 copies are known to exist’
Commas should be used to separate thousands, hundred-thousands, millions, et cetera
E.g. 40,123 not 40123 or 40.123
Roman numerals should be converted to Arabic, unless citing original pagination. Names of monarchs and rulers should be given in Roman numerals.
E.g. Henry VIII
Page numbers should be given in full (please use the en dash ‘–’)
E.g. 1–2; 53–54; 203–204; 225–254
Quotations
Use double quotation marks (“”) for speech and quotations from articles and books and single quotation marks (‘’) for a quotation within speech.
Block quotations (three lines of text or more) should be indented with no quotation marks
Indicate a break in the text with an ellipsis (…) with a single space on either side. Do not use ellipses at the beginning or the end of a quotation
Punctuation should be placed inside quotation marks
Lines of poetry are separated by slashes (/) or double slashes (//) for stanzas
Quotations from Foreign Languages
All quotations should be translated into English in the body of the text. Where necessary the original text can be provided in the endnotes, unless a short non-English phrase is necessary in the text. In this case, it should be cited in the original and immediately followed by a translation in brackets
‘coram papa (in the presence of the pope)’. Thereafter it can be used in the original
Passages of exceptional length should appear in an Appendix
Citations from non-Roman alphabets should be transliterated
Direct quotations of early texts should try to preserve the spelling, punctuation or abbreviations of the original with any alterations explained
Italics
Italics, rather than underlying or bold-type, are used for emphasis. Any such emphasis in a quotation should be indicated as such in the endnote
E.g. See Smith, 1936, at n.36 above, p.22, my emphasis
Any foreign words that appear in the text, but are not directly quoted, should appear in italics
Foreign place names, locations or proper nouns are not italicised
Subheadings
Please use subheadings to break your article up into readable and sequential sections
Subheadings should be as short as possible
Subheadings should appear as capitalised titles, without numbers
THE MONA LISA
Locations
Where more than one location has the same name, this should be clarified
In citing American cities or place names, use the standard postal style for identifying the state. In the event that none is given, the town will be assumed to be European
Cambridge alone will indicate the town in England; Cambridge, MA, for the US city
Standard English names for foreign cities should be used
Florence, not Firenze
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements should be kept to a minimum and precede the endnotes
Miscellaneous
i.e., e.g., and etc. should be avoided in the text
When separating a word or sub-clause with a dash, the em-dash (—) should be used on either side of the word or sub-clause
E.g. The president’s nephews—sons of his late brother—are deceased.
Colons and semi-colons should be used sparingly
Truncations are followed by a full stop, but abbreviations are not, unless the abbreviation is the plural of a truncation
‘Mr’ is not followed by a full stop, but abbreviations are (e.g. ‘Prof.’ rather than Professor) ‘ed.’ is followed by a full stop, as is its plural ‘eds.’)
‘Saint’ should be spelt out rather than ‘St’
Acronyms and initialisms should be spelt out in the first instance, with the acronym in brackets. Thereafter they can be abbreviated
E.g. ‘The United Nations (UN) introduced …’
Scholars’ names should always be cited in full in the text when they are first mentioned, thereafter just the surname will suffice
Images
In Text Citation
In the body of the text: title (Fig. 1, date) unless the date is given in the sentence
Please give titles as they appear in their institution rather than their common name
E.g. Officers and Men of the Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Wilhelm van Ruytenburgh, known as Night Watch
Illustrations’ captions
Should follow the following format: Artist’s name (last name, first name), Title, Date, Medium, dimensions (in metric). City, Collection. If copyright considerations apply, these appear at the end of the caption.
E.g. Office of John Soane, Goose-Pie House, Whitehall, c.1815, pencil, ink, and watercolour, 19cm x 38cm. London, Sir John Soane’s Museum. Courtesy of the Trustees of the Sir John Soane’s Museum
References
All references should appear as end-notes rather than footnotes, with no separate bibliography
References should be kept to a minimum and should not introduce additional information
The University of York’s History of Art Department and, subsequently, its postgraduate journal uses the Chicago referencing style. A practical guide on how to use the Chicago referencing style can be found here.