GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
- If submitted by e-mail, articles should be in .doc. or .docx format (compatible with Microsoft Word 97 or later versions). If submitted on paper, they should be typewritten and on one side only.
- Whether submitted by e-mail or on paper, pages should be numbered sequentially and the text double-spaced; the first page of the article should include your preferred title and your name and contact details.
- Footnotes should be used rather than endnotes. Footnotes should be double-spaced and numbered sequentially throughout the article with a superscript numeral in the body text corresponding to the footnote.
- Permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder for quotations in excess of 800 words which are taken from a text still in copyright.
- Illustrations must be supplied by the author in the form of high-quality JPEG or TIFF files: the minimum acceptable resolution is 300dpi. All necessary permissions must be secured.
- Music examples must be supplied by the author in the form of separate TIFF or GIF files. As these are treated as line drawings, the minimum acceptable resolution is 1200dpi. All necessary copyright permissions must be obtained.
- For musical symbols inserted within the text, we strongly recommend the use of the ‘Bach’ font. The necessary TTF (TrueType Font) files are available, free of charge, from http://www.mu.qub.ac.uk/tomita/bachfont/ or from the editor: please contact the Editorial Offices for further information or for instructions for installing the font on your computer.
SUBMISSIONS
If submitting a contribution by email, please send it as an email attachment to em.marshall-luck@englishmusicfestival.org.uk; or post it to: Em Marshall-Luck, Founder-Director, The English Music Festival, PO Box 123, Clunton, Craven Arms, Shropshire SY7 7BP. The deadline for receipt of submissions is 1st September.
HOUSE STYLE
Authors are requested to adhere to the following points of House Style wherever possible.
- For initials in names, follow each initial with a period; a following space should only be used if it precedes the surname (e.g. E.J. Moeran)
- Foreign names: where the native alphabet is not western European, e.g. Cyrillic, these should be given the Anglicised spelling currently in use in the UK: e.g. Shostakovich; Scriabin. Accents should be used where appropriate and possible: e.g. Dvořák.
- Numerals up to and including ten should be written in words (e.g. seven); exact multiples of ten, one hundred, one thousand, one million etc. should also be in words (e.g. twenty, seven hundred, four thousand). Otherwise, from 11 onwards, numerals should be used (e.g. 17; 350). Units of one thousand or multiples thereof should be delineated by means of commas (7,512; 1,545,749).
- Where a number is used in an ‘informal’, perhaps imprecise sense, or as part of a turn of phrase (forty-seven-odd years ago), use words, whatever the magnitude of the figure.
- Use ordinal numbers for dates (not set as superscript) (Friday 28th October).
- Dates: use Arabic numerals; suffix BCE or CE if appropriate, and give a space between date and suffix (4000 BCE; 635 CE).
- Use an en-dash, but without accompanying spaces, to separate birth- and death-dates of people, periods of time, etc. (1756–1791).
- No apostrophe separating plural “s” from dates or abbreviations (1960s).
- We prefer use the of the word “disc” to “CD”.
- Première should be thus spelt (note grave accent on second “e”).
- Use “mediaeval”, not “medieval”.
- Use “renaissance”, not “renascence”.
- Use “email” (or “Email” if starting a sentence), not “e-mail” or “E-mail”.
- No-one should be thus hyphenated.
- A description that references a century should be hyphenated and the number given in words (e.g. sixteenth-century music; seventeenth-century poetry).
- Where a century appears without being a descriptive phrase, it should also be in words but obviously not hyphenated (e.g. In the eighteenth century).
- Adjectival nouns should be hyphenated (e.g. two-month-old dogs, as opposed to two month-old dogs). When two (or more) words are joined in meaning, they should be hyphenated for reasons of clarity and elegance (e.g. rarely-heard music; husband-and-wife ensemble).
- Part-songs should be hyphenated, thus; as should and any other similar phrase, such as art-song, folk-song and folk-tune. However, folk music should not be hyphenated.
- We prefer the use of hyphens in grey-area cases (e.g. type-written; three-year-old son).
- Where a quotation follows as an inset following paragraph, it should be preceded by a colon, not by :–.
- Always use English spelling, not American: therefore “-ise”, not “-ize”; “colour”, not “color”; and so on.
- Use initial capitals for the titles of genres (Violin Sonata; Piano Concerto; Symphony; Suite). Where a specific work is referred to in the text, (e.g. Elgar’s Violin Concerto), it should be capitalised. Where a generic description occurs, this should not be capitalised (e.g. he wrote several symphonies).
- Use italic text for the titles of publications, plays, poems, newspapers, books etc.; and for the descriptive titles of musical works (The Times; Hamlet; Introduction and Allegro).
- For nicknames or descriptive titles of compositions, use italic text (Beethoven’s Third Razumovsky Quartet; Mahler’s Symphony no.1, the Titan). This also applies if the name is to be enclosed in parentheses: e.g. Symphony no.1 (the Titan).
- Descriptive titles in works, where provided by the composer, should precede the tempo indications and be typed in italics (e.g. Romance. Adagio).
- When referring to musical keys, hyphenate “flat” and “sharp” components (Elgar’s Symphony no.2 in E-flat major).
- Use double quotation marks to enclose a direct quotation from a published work or speech quotation – if a further quotation is reported within this, single quotation marks should then be employed. For the treatment of punctuation marks in the context of quotations, see Burchfield: Fowler’s Modern English Usage (3rd ed.); OUP, 1996, pp.646–647.
- Abbreviations: use following point in a.m. and p.m. and in qualifications (M.A.; D.Phil.); note, however, that the point is not followed by a space. Familiar abbreviations should not use full points (therefore BBC; CD; OUP;); neither should they be used with acronyms pronounced as a word (NATO). Distinction should be made between abbreviations and contractions: the latter should not, under any circumstances, have a following full point (Dr, Mr, Vn [for “Violin”]) – to avoid ambiguity, use St. (with following point) for “Street” and St (without following point) for “Saint”.
- Possessives should always be of the form ’s. Where a possessive is attached to a name or a word ending with “s”, this should also be adhered to (e.g. Vaughan Williams’s), except where the word in question ends with an “es” or “is” sound (e.g. Moses’, Joneses’). For the avoidance of doubt, Jesus’ falls into the latter category as this is what Fowler terms “an acceptable archaism”.
- Foreign terms: unless there is a compelling case for not doing so (i.e. they have been so closely absorbed into everyday English that they have become all but completely divorced from the foreign origin), foreign terms, e.g. alma mater and au fait, should be italicised. Likewise, where specialist terms are used – especially, in this context, musical terms – they should always be italicised.
- Where the term English music is referred to as a genre, it should always be so denoted, rather than as “British music”; but composers born in the UK should be described as “British composers” rather than as “English composers”, as many were and are of Welsh / Scottish / Irish ancestry or birth.
- Under no circumstances should the First World War be referred to as “the Great War” – this is offensive, and disrespectful to those who lost their lives or loved ones in this terrible conflict. It should always be referred to as the First World War, not “World War I”. Likewise, the Second World War should be thus described, and not as “World War II”.