Skip to the content | Change text size

Eras Journal - Guidelines for Contributors

Guidelines for Contributors

(Updated August 2009)

Please supply one email version of your paper, attached as a Word document.

Eras accepts articles up to 5,000 words in length, excluding endnotes, and reviews of up to 1,000 words. Extended review articles will be considered. Please contact editors before submitting.

Articles should be accompanied by a brief abstract of approximately 250 words, and up to 10 keywords.

Authors are encouraged to make full use of the advantages of online publication. Please use subheadings and try to include maps, figures or photographs to enhance your text. Refer to copyright regulations below before submitting images.

Consider the international and interdisciplinary nature of Eras. Avoid jargon where possible and define your terms. Use non-discriminatory language at all times.

Manuscripts submitted to Eras should be done so on an exclusive basis, and should not be under consideration by any other journal or publication at the time of submission or at any time thereafter until the completion of the editorial process.

Authors should be careful to ensure that their manuscripts adhere to the following style guide - the editors reserve the right to return papers (without further editing etc.) that do not adhere sufficiently to these guidelines.

Authors should also not submit papers with Endnote (by Thomson Research) embedded in the Word document. References should be stand-alone in Microsoft Word.

Please follow the advice below on styles and referencing, as adapted from various sources including Australian Historical Studies, and the e-journals, Mediterranean Prehistory Online and Screening the Past.

Maps, illustrations and photographs

Please supply a separate copy of all the images you intend to use in the article - this can usually be achieved via attachments to email, but if the images are very large files, then please supply a CD containing the images. Images should be in jpeg or gif format, preferably no larger than 100k per image. Please be sure to label each image clearly (see below for additional information).

Style
Times New Roman (or Arial) 12 point preferable, justified and single spaced.

Formatting
Avoid tabs and use only a hard return to separate paragraphs. Avoid underlining except when specifying a hypertext link (do not provide 'hot' links).Italics and bold may be used for emphasis and headings. Indent block quotations.

Spelling
Standard English as per the Oxford English Dictionary.

Abbreviations
Full titles of states, organisations and similar should be used in the first instance. Subsequent references may be abbreviated. Avoid full stops within abbreviations. For example, use Australian Labor Party (ALP) in the first instance and ALP for all subsequent references. Above all, be consistent in whatever formatting or style you adopt. If in doubt, e-mail the editors regarding Era's preferred style.

Works of Art
The titles of works of art should appear in single quotation marks.

Dating Conventions

Common Era and Before Common Era dates should follow the form 1 May 1890, or 1290 BCE. Note that there is no apostrophe in 1890s, 1930s. Centuries, decades and months should be spelled out in full: 'nineteenth century' not 19thC, 'nineties' not 90s.

Calibrated dates should be expressed in BP, CE or BCE eg. 250 cal. BCE. Try to avoid uncalibrated dates produced by subtracting 1950 from uncalibrated BP determination.

Radiocarbon dates should be cited along with the reference number of the laboratory, e.g. OxA-6479 or UBA-326. Tables of radiocarbon determinations are conveniently published as follows: site/context; material; laboratory reference number; uncalibrated determination; and, calibrated date.

Dates obtained by other methods than radiocarbon dating, e.g. TL, Uranium series, or Fission Track, are best referred to in years "before present" or "years ago", rather than by radiocarbon conventions. Old dates may be abbreviated as follows: ma. for "millions of years, and ka. "thousands of years".

References

Use endnotes only. Be economical in your use of these and where possible, avoid lengthy subsidiary arguments. Where relevant, be specific to the page number you cite from, unless citing a general argument spread over a number of pages.

The first reference to a work should be given in full as specified below. Subsequent references should give the author's name, a short title, and page number.

Endnotes should be placed at the end of sentences and after all punctuation. If you have cited more than one work in a given sentence, seperate the citations in the footnote using a semi-colon (the citations should appear in the footnote in the order in which the quotation/information appears in the sentence).

Do not use ibid, op.cit. or loc.cit.

Books
First reference, Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1997, p. 94. Subsequent references, Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity, p. 102.

Articles in journals
First Reference, Prue Torney-Parlicki, '"Whatever the Thing May Be Called": The Australian News Media and the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki', Australian Historical Studies , Vol. 31, No. 114, April 2000, p. 49. Subsequent references, Prue Torney-Parlicki, '"Whatever the Thing May Be Called"', p. 60.

Chapters in books
First reference, Jan Lambertz,'Feminists and the Politics of Wife-Beating', in Harold L. Smith (ed.),British Feminism in the Twentieth Century, Edward Elgar, London, 1990, pp. 25-43. Subsequent references, Jan Lambertz, 'Feminists and the Politics of Wife-Beating', p. 29.

Websites/online material
Give the name of the author of the page, the title of the page, and the URL with the date the page was accessed, thus: Cornelius Holtorf, 'Sites of Memory', University of Toronto, at:https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/holtorf/2.6.html , Accessed 16 October, 2004. For subsequent references, Cornelius Holtorf, 'Sites of Memory'.

Theses
First reference, Mary Ann Wynkoop, 'Dissent in the Heartland: The Student Protest Movement at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1965 -1970', unpublished PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1992, p.34. Subsequent references, Mary Ann Wynkoop, 'Dissent in the Heartland', pp. 34-38.

Archival documents
First reference, cite the name of the document, followed by the name of the collection, then the file or folder number, followed by the name and location of the archive. For example: Letter from Florence Roberts to Rose Scott, June 1910, Rose Scott Correspondence (RSC), Manuscripts Set A2277 (hereafter ML.MSS A2277), Mitchell Library, Sydney. Subsequent references, Florence Roberts to Rose Scott, June 1910, RSC, ML.MSS A2277.

Papyrus:
References to papyri should be cited according to J.F. Oates, R.S. Bagnall, W.H. Willis and K.A. Worp (eds.) Checklist of Editions of Greek and Latin Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets, BASP Suppliment 7, Atlanta, Georgia, 1992. References should also include the volume number (Roman numerals) and the individual papyrus number (Arabic numerals) followed, if necessary, by the line number. For example P.Oxy XXXIV 2718 or P.Oslo III 144.3.

Artefacts
Specific, uncommon museum artefacts should be referred to using a brief description of the object followed by the name of the museum collection and their accession number. For example: Ceramic jar label inscribed in hieratic (British Museum, EA59950).

Picture references
Any images you cite or refer to in the body of your text should also be cited in the endnotes (in addition to a short caption beneath the image itself).

Bibliography

Eras requires a full bibliography of sources for each of the articles submitted, though this will not appear in the final published form. These should follow the formats for first references given above (including full page references for any articles and chapters cited). The bibliography for history articles should list primary sources such as archives or newspapers first, then secondary works in alphabetical order of authors or editors surnames. Articles from other disciplines may divide their bibliography in this manner or follow the current standard for their particular discipline, providing all references are listed in alphabetical order.

Copyright

Copyright in a work published by Eras is retained by the author. Authors should read their Contributor Agreement carefully and ensure they understand and can comply with the agreement.

Through the Contributor Agreement, authors provide Eras with a non-exclusive, royalty free licence to publish and distribute their articles, as accepted by Eras for publication. In the agreement, authors also grant Eras the right to grant permissions to others for reuse of the Eras version of their works. Apart from this, authors may exercise all the normal rights of a copyright holder in their work and are therefore free to republish their works elsewhere or reuse their work, whether for purely educational or commercial purposes.

As part of the Contributor Agreement, authors are expected to:

1. Provide appropriate source acknowledgement for any third-party copyright materials included in their work

2. Secure all copyright permissions for third-party works (illustrations, maps, photos, interview transcripts, large quotations of text, etc) included in their articles; authors are also responsible for the payment of any permissions fees in relation to illustrations, photographs and/or other third party material used in their work as published by Eras.

3. Ensure generally that their work does not infringe any copyright or other rights held by third parties, and does not breach any confidentiality or privacy obligations nor contain any material which is defamatory, obscene or otherwise of an unlawful nature.

Authors' works are made freely available for readers to access and download from the Eras website (via the 'Current Edition' and 'Editions' webpages).

Eras informs readers that they may save an electronic copy (download) and print copies of the works on the site only for their own personal research and study, and provided the Eras copyright notice is retained on the copies.

ERAS

Issn 1445-5218