Thursday, March 15, 2007
SWET Newsletter Style Sheet
SWET Style Sheet and Submission Guidelines
SWET Newsletter
(Revised March 2007)
MATTERS OF STYLE
In general, follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (CMS). For spelling and hyphenation, follow Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition. For style issues specific to material relating to Japan, see rules below (reference: SWET, Japan Style Sheet; hereafter JSS). Matters in question not detailed here will be resolved by the editor in consultation with the author and the SWET NL Editorial Team.
Spelling and Punctuation
- Use U.S. punctuation and spelling (reference: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition).
- Use the serial comma.
- Use only one space after terminal punctuation (periods, question marks, and exclamation marks).
Article Titles and Subheads
Use the headline style of capitalization (CMS 8.167) for article titles and subheads. Long articles should have two or more subheads to break up the text.
Numbers
- Spell out numbers from one through ten; use numerals for 11 and up. This applies to both cardinal and ordinal numbers (nine pencils; the 12th edition).
- Use numerals for percents (50 percent). Do not use the symbol % in running text.
- Spell out ages (he was two; fifteen years of age); and ten-year age brackets (in their twenties). (See CMS 9.58; 9.59)
Japanese Words
- Use the old Hepburn system of romanization (use the “n rule”; see JSS).
- Italicize Japanese words that are not defined in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition.
- Do not italicize proper nouns.
- Do not italicize individual Japanese words or phrases that are marked off from the text already by quotation marks. (You have “kare” used in the Japanese. Who is kare?)
- Macrons are used to indicate long (extended) vowels. Authors may input macron vowels as circumflex vowels from the keyboard (kôtsû, wâpuro, onêsan). Final copyeditor will identify macron-accented characters for the compositor by replacing the circumflex vowels with the vowel preceded by the @ mark (k@ots@u, w@apuro, on@esan).
Japanese Names
As a rule, use Japanese name order, surname first, followed by given name, using the Hepburn system of romanization: Suzuki Yasuko. However, respect a person’s preference for given-name-first: Yasuko Suzuki; or for Kunrei system of romanization: Yasko Sudzuki.
Decades and Centuries
- Spell out decades (in lowercase) or use figures followed by an “s”: the twenties or the 1960s (not ‘20s, ‘60s).
- Spell out centuries rather than use superscript feature (nineteenth-century prints; a twenty-first-century technology).
Names on Second Mention
In write-ups of activities, etc., use a surname alone (with no courtesy title) or a full name in referring to a speaker or an individual e.g., Adachi said, or, Barbara Adachi said (not Barbara said).
Abbreviations
U.S. as an adjective, United States spelled out as a noun.
The abbreviations “i.e.” and “e.g.” should always be followed by a comma.
Special Handling
- Use curly or smart quotation marks, not straight quotation marks (reserve for inches/feet; min./sec.).
- Capitalize “the” when it is the first word in the title of a book (CMS 8.172) but use lowercase “the” when citing a periodical (CMS 8.180), except when it is at the beginning of a sentence (We cite The Chicago Manual of Style and the New York Times.). Do not capitalize the “The” of formal titles of organizations in running text (She works for the Asia Foundation.). But, when giving an address, do capitalize “The” (The Asia Foundation, x-x-x Minami Aoyama, Tokyo).
- Spell “email” as one word, no hyphen.
- Do not include http:// or ftp:// in URLs unless “www” is not the first item (http://monumenta.cc.sophia.ac.jp).
- Spell “website” as one word, lowercase, but capitalize Internet, World Wide Web (three words), and the Web.
- Capitalize and italicize the word “Newsletter” when referring to the SWET Newsletter as simply the Newsletter.
- Use small caps for A.M. / P.M. / B.C. / A.D., etc.
- Use the CMS rule 8.170 (4) that the second element of a hyphenated spelled-out number is not capitalized in titles. CMS says the exception is in titles where all other words are capitalized and the second element of the number, “if lowercased, would look inconsistent” (Translation Issues in Twenty-First Century Japan).
- “SWET Kansai” (without quotation marks) is the correct name for this branch organization.
Submitting the Manuscript
A manuscript may be submitted to the Newsletter Editor by email (preferred) or as hard copy.
- Please always submit manuscripts as digital files and send by email as an attached RTF or Word document. When only physical copy is available, please contact the editor for assistance with inputting.
- Reprinted material from newspapers, magazines, etc.: send the reprint as an email attachment, not as text pasted into the body of an email message. Send a hard copy of the text by post (the quality of faxed material is not adequate for proofreading). The original is essential for the proofreader.
- When submitting Japanese text, send as an email attachment, not as text pasted into the body of an email message. Send a hard copy of the original text by post or fax.
Copyright License
The acceptance of a manuscript for publication in the SWET Newsletter grants the Newsletter one-time print rights. Copyright remains with the author and appears in the Newsletter as © Year-of-First-Publication Name-of-author Articles may be simultaneously or subsequently published on the SWET website with the permission of the author(s).
Reprinting Copyrighted Material
Permission for use of previously published (copyrighted) material should be cleared with and obtained in writing from the author or original publisher before submitting articles. This includes, for example, Japanese text being reprinted or used for sample translation purposes, English text being reprinted, or photographs or other graphic material.
Permission request forms are available as Microsoft Word documents by email from the Newsletter editor, and online as an Excel spreadsheet version.
PREPARING MANUSCRIPTS FOR DESIGN/LAYOUT
This section is primarily a tool for Editorial Team copyeditors and others who handle manuscripts in the final stages of the editorial and proofreading process.
Text Format
- Margins should be unjustified (i.e., ragged right, also called “align left” in Microsoft Word).
- Font size should be set at 12 points and line height at 18 points (not double- or 1.5-spaced).
- The copyright sign, the copyright date, and the author’s name appear at the top of the article for the copyright notice.
- A blurb of 30-50 words summarizing the gist of the article should be written and placed before the title. If not provided by the author, should be prepared by the editor. Even if the blurb does not appear in the Newsletter, it is needed for the annotation of each Newsletter article published on the SWET website.
- The line following the blurb should be the article title. Articles should not begin with a subhead, i.e., a subhead cannot appear between the title and the first paragraph of text.
- Leave a one-line space between the title and the body text; also leave a one-line space above subheads. Subsequent paragraphs are indented.
- Use only a text style (text formatting) or a tab to indent paragraphs. Do not use spaces entered by pressing the space bar to achieve paragraph indention.
- Ordinary roman, i.e., not italicized, text should be entered in a Latin-alphabet (English-language) font or as hankaku if an Asian version of Microsoft Word is used. Italics should be indicated by italicizing the text.
Special characters
- Enter standard European-accented characters from the keyboard, e.g., vis-à-vis, résumé. The final copyeditor should identify macron-accented characters for the compositor by replacing the circumflex vowels with the vowel preceded by the @ mark (k@ots@u, w@apuro, on@esan).
- M dashes may be entered from the keyboard (—) or represented by two hyphens (—); in either case, no space precedes or follows the dash. N (en) dashes may be entered from the keyboard (–); in either case, no space precedes or follows the dash.
- Single and double quotation marks should be entered from the keyboard (as curly or smart quotes), not straight quotes.
Graphics
Two or three illustrations may be used with each article. Authors should consult with the editor regarding choice and format of images and where they should be sent.
Specifications for image data:
- For a book cover and page from a book: a full-color scan, grayscale mode, TIFF format, 50 percent size of the cover, 300dpi resolution.
- For an illustration or comic: a comic can be scanned at 100 percent of size depending on the original size. Also, if the illustration has been done digitally, the original vector art is preferable.
- For a photo (color or b/w): TIFF or JPEG format. Biggest size possible. Highest resolution possible. (Size is directly related to resolution so the bigger the better is a good motto.)
- Credit/copyright notices and suggested captions should always be included.
Copyeditor’s Checklist for Finalizing Manuscripts for the Designer
✓ Final draft has been checked by author.
✓ Permissions for use of all copyrighted material, text, or illustrations are on file.
✓ Correct copyright notice is at top.
✓ Blurb is included for call-out (and for ToC on SWET website).
✓ Author’s name is included in italics, flush right (for main articles, at head of article; for reports, SWET events and book reviews, at end).
✓ Text beginning after headings is flush left; remaining paragraphs are indented about .5 mm using a tab, not spaces.
✓ Double spaces are removed.
✓ If long text has no subheads, two or three are added. There should never be only one subhead under a heading.)
✓ Credits and captions are provided for photos.
✓ Files are printed out and the hard copy marked for the compositor with a blue pen or pencil for italics, special characters (macrons and other diacritical marks, em dashes, en dashes, quotation marks), and special fonts (italics, small caps, bold), and for indented text, extra lines, etc.
✓ Hard copy is mailed to designer ahead of emailing digital files.