Style Sheet

History and Theory accepts no responsibility, and contributors themselves must bear full responsibility, for opinions expressed in contributions published in the journal. Nevertheless, because the journal publishes no letters to the editor, nor any other exchanges in which comments on individuals may be rebutted by them, we have a responsibility not to publish injurious comments.

We will not publish comments that are gratuitously offensive or damaging to individuals or groups, nor comments that deal with personal attitudes or politics (except where books under review have these as their subject matter).

Preparation of Copy

Please put your name, address, telephone, fax, email address, and number of words in the article, including notes and abstract, in the left-hand corner of the first page of the copy submitted.  Retain an exact copy of your contribution, especially since History and Theory does not return submitted manuscripts unless postage has been provided.  

Please send the file on a CD as well as a paper copy of your essay (no 3.5” diskettes please; we no longer have a 3.5” drive).  Please indicate on the CD label your name, the filename, and the word-processing program used. You may email your submission as an attachment instead of sending the CD, but you must mail an exactly corresponding paper copy as well (jperkins@wesleyan.edu).

Mail your submission to:

Number NOTES consecutively throughout and append them, double-spaced, on a separate sheet or sheets following the last page of text. 

Please include a 200- to 300-word abstract as part of your submission. No abstract is necessary for review essays. 

Type or print corrections or insertions. Use a slash (/) to indicate the place of insertion, and cross out material being replaced or omitted with a single line. 

Use American spelling, such as “center,” “honor,” and “judgment.”  With verbs whose endings can be spelled using either “s” or “z”, “z” is the preferred form (for example, “analyze” rather than “analyse”).

Avoid gender-specific language, except when only one gender is meant.  Writing in the plural (“historians do their research” rather than “the historian does his research”) avoids much of the difficulty. Use “humankind” instead of “mankind.”

Spell centuries out in full, without capitalization: thus, “seventeenth-century science.”  Hyphenate only when used adjectivally. 

Indicate hyphens by a single hyphen and dashes by a double hyphen (--).   Indicate italics by a single underline or by using an italic font.

Use double quotation marks throughout except to indicate quotations within quotations.  Always place periods and commas inside quotation marks except when the quotation is followed by a page number in parentheses.  Example: Gibbon wrote, “I have traced the triumph of barbarism and religion” (291). Placement of other punctuation marks depends on whether they belong to the quotation or to the sentence in which it occurs. 

Do not use ellipsis marks at the beginning of quotations.

Avoid dividing words at the end of the line. 

Translate long quotations in other languages into English. The quotation in the original language may be placed in a note, if necessary. 

Underline or italicize foreign words and phrases used without quotation marks.  Leave words in Greek either in the Greek alphabet or transliterate them.  Transliterate Hebrew words and words using any other non-Roman alphabet (Asian, Cyrillic, etc.). 

Do not overuse common abbreviations of Latin words and phrases such as e.g., cf., etc.  With the exception of ibid. and idem. do not underline or italicize them.

Do not abbreviate titles of books and journals except where frequent reference to one source makes this desirable.  Give place of publication, publisher’s name, and date. Underline or italicize titles of books and journals.  

Don’t use p. and pp. in giving page references. 

Give the author’s name, or, if there is more than one book by the same author cited, the name and short title in second and subsequent references. Do not use op. cit. or loc. cit. in second and subsequent references.

In reviews, put page references to the book under review in parentheses within the text.  References to other works should be made by means of endnotes.

The following examples illustrate our reference, punctuation, and abbreviation style: 

F. Smith Fussner, The Historical Revolution (London: Routledge and Paul, 1962), 57. 

Carl G. Hempel, “The Function of General Laws in History,” in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, ed. H. Feigl and W. Sellars (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949), 503-517. 

W. Holt, “The Idea of Scientific History in America,” Journal of the History of Ideas 4 (1944), 352-362. 

Alexis de Tocqueville, De la democratie en Amerique [1835], transl. Phillips Bradley (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1945), II, 317.

Head BOOK REVIEWS by a title of your choosing, followed by the title (and subtitle, if any) of the book, author’s name, place, publisher, date, and number of pages, as in the following examples: 

The Clothing of Clio: A Study of the Representation of History in Nineteenth-Century Britain and France.  By Stephen Bann.  Cambridge, England:  Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. xii, 196. 

Theories of History. Edited with Introduction by Patrick Gardiner. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959. Pp. ix, 549. 

First reference to an author may include his or her title; subsequent mentions by surname only.

Follow The Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press) on questions not expressly answered by these directions. Direct contributions and all correspondence to