Style Guide

Content | Format | Text Non-TextualDiscipline SpecificText Citations
Referencing | Submissions Author Guidelines | Peer Review | FAQ

All articles will be published electronically in the Exchanges journal. As a general rule, while Exchanges is less strict than many journals in our initial manuscript formatting requirements, wherever possible, authors should seek to follow the guidance below. Please contact us if you are unsure about any stylistic or formatting element within your manuscript.


Content Guide

Each issue of Exchanges typically includes these sections in the following order:

Type Content Word Limits
Editorial Introduces issue alongside providing a content overview, update on current and future journal developments and any calls for papers. Written by the Editor-in-Chief. N/a
Themed & Research Articles Peer-reviewed research communications from any/all disciplinary fields. 4,000-6,000
Review Articles Peer-reviewed research articles offering a broad overview of a topic, field or discipline. 4,000-6,000
Criticial Reflection Brief communications containing personal reflections and critiques  concerning particular research areas, conferences or disciplinary trends. 1,000-4,000
Conversations Brief communications comprising contextualised interviews between the author a significant academic scholar. 1,500-3,500
Book Reviews Brief critical appraisals and descriptive evaluations of a topical, criticial or recent academic text. 1,000-2,500

For more on article formats, please see the Author Guide.

Audience

Exchanges is typically read by early career and post-graduate researchers across the disciplinary spectrum, along with members of the public with academic interests. As such, submitted authors are encouraged to address their work to people with this expected degree of expertise, rather than to senior peer-scholars. This requires careful consideration of any specialised language, terminology or assumptions of any prior knowledge needed to interpret the content. Hence, where appropriate, the inclusion of brief glossaries are encouraged.


Article Submission Format

Submitted manuscripts should conform to our minimum and maximum word limits (see above, by format). Text formatting should be kept as simple as possible, minimising use of special characters or fonts, except where absolutely necessary (e.g., for representing non-Latin scripts). Authors are recommended to download our submission template as an aid in creating their draft manuscripts. Final publication formatting of accepted manuscripts will be handled after acceptance for publication by your assigned editor during copyediting. The use of British English spellings is advised, although texts using International English standards will also be considered.

Article Sequence

The expected order of manuscript sections is as follows. Optional sections are indicated by an asterisk (*):

Cover Page

Article Title, plus all Contributor Names, Affiliations, and primary Email Addresses. Names or other identifying features should not appear on any other part of the manuscript. Authors outside of employment or not currently associated with an institution should note they are Independent Scholars in place of their employer. This page will be removed for anonymisation/peer-review purposes.

Title

On a new page, headed by the article Title and, if used and followed by a colon, Subtitle*.

Abstract

An Abstract of between 100-250 words should be included. No citations should be included in this text.

Keywords

Authors should also supply between four-six Keywords or phrases (semicolon delineated) for indexing and abstracting purposes.

Main Text

This is where your main article text, images, data tables etc., should appear. It is also the only section included for word count limit purposes. It may optionally begin with a Section Header (e.g., Introduction). 

Acknowledgements*

A brief paragraph of acknowledgements, including where required funder information, should appear at the end of the main text.

List(s) of Images, Tables &/or Charts*

Where three or more images, charts or data tables are used, authors should include a brief list of them after any acknowledgements.

Appendices*

Authors wishing to include additional information (e.g., extensive data tables) may wish to append them as an appendix to the main text. At publication these may either be included in the article or appended as an additional file to the journal record, at the Chief Editor's discretion.

References

Authors are welcome to use any recognised and coherent style of Referencing, provided it is used systematically, and all salient bibliographic information is included. As a default, the Harvard style of referencing is recommended. Any relevant, but not directly cited works should appear in a separate Bibliography.

Endnotes*

Exchanges does permit the use of Endnotes, although authors are recommended to avoid their use. Numbers should follow punctuation, and preferably be placed at the end of a sentence. Any directly cited or utilised sources should appear in the references list, not in the Endnotes. Conversely, Exchanges does not use footnotes in its published articles, and any included will be converted to endnotes during the later editorial processes.

Manuscripts should be submitted in one of: OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect file formats.


Text Formatting

Layout: Page margins should be set to at least 2.5cm all round. Main body text should be left aligned or fully justified, 1.5 lines spaced, and should use the Calibri or Arial (12 point) font.

Spacing: A single space (not a double) should be used after a full stop, comma, colon or semi-colon.

Section Headings: These should be used sparingly, if necessary. These should be left aligned, appear on separate lines and unnumbered. First-level (section) headings should use 14pt Arial and be in Title Case. Second-level (subheadings) headings should use 12pt Arial and be in Sentence case. Lower-level headings should not be used.

Spelling: As noted above, British English spelling is preferred, and should conform to the current edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Use -ise, in preference to -ize as a verbal ending (e.g., realise, specialise, recognise, etc).

Citations: In text citations should ideally adopt the (Name, Year), (Name & Name, Year) or (Name, Year: Page(s)) where specific page numbers are cited. Where there are more than two authors of a cited work, the form (Name et al., Year) should be used.

Self-Referral: The preferred term to refer to your own text is call it an article (i.e., do not call it a paper, an essay, a dissertation, etc.,).

Numbers: In general, numbers up to ten should be spelled out, but use numerals for measurements and ages (e.g., 6 km; 9 years old). Insert a comma for numbers in the thousands (e.g., 9,000; 20,000).

Dates: Set out dates as follows: 9 July 1990 (no comma), on 8 July, or on the 8th; for decades the form YYYYs (e.g., 1990s, not spelt out, no apostrophe); nineteenth century (not 19 century). You should insert hyphen when a date is used adjectivally (e.g., nineteenth-century art).

Text Titles: Titles of specific books, journals or other texts mentioned by name within the manuscript’s main body should be italicised for emphasis the first time they are mentioned (e.g., The Fellowship of the Ring). If the contents of the work are referenced, then an in-text citation should also be used.

Quotations

Use single 'quotation marks' for quoted material within the text; double quotation marks ("") should only be used for quotes within quotes. Lengthy quotations (block quotations) of over two sentences, or lines of verse, should be extracted from the text and presented as an indented and italicised block separated by line breaks. No quotation marks should be used for block quotations, and a source citation for the quote including page ranges should be included.

Where sections of the original quote have been omitted, use an ellipsis (...) to indicate the omission. For example:

‘…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance’ (Roosevelt, 1932).

Where explanatory wording has been added to the quotation, indicate this by enclosing the words within square brackets [ ]. For example:

Who takes the Pandorica takes the Universe! But, bad news everyone, 'cause guess who! Ha! Except, you lot, you're all whizzing about, it's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because [shouts louder] I am talking! (Smith, 2010: 37)

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be used where a term is repeated frequently or is unwieldy when spelled out in full each time (e.g., Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Quantum Chormodynamics). In these cases, these entities or concepts can be referred to throughout your manuscript by a shortened form (e.g., DEFRA, QCD). At the first occurrence in the text, authors should spell out the full title of the phrase, followed by an accepted abbreviation afterwards in parentheses. For example:

  • The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
  • Institute of Advanced Study (IAS)
  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)

Subsequent references can thereafter use the abbreviation throughout your text. One exception is where an abbreviation appears in your abstract. In this instance you should spell out the full name and bracketed abbreviation here, and additionally repeat this definition the first time the abbreviation appears in the main body text of your manuscript.

Where any abbreviations consist of a mixture of upper and lower-case letters, then a full stop should be used (e.g., Ont. LJ, Ch. D). However, if only capitals (uppercase) letters are used, then no full stop should be included (e.g., AC, PDQ, QBD, SWALK).


Non-Textual Material

Where possible, tables, graphs, maps and any other additions to the text should be formatted and contained in the correct place in the text. Any additions which cannot be contained within the text, such as video clips, should be supplied separately with a note in the text to indicate where the resource should be located. E.g.,

Author’s Note: Embed Video “Guide to Academic Copyright” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7giW7efQggo here

Insert your material in as format-free a way as possible, using a line break before and afterwards, to separate it from the rest of the article. Include an appropriate caption above it (10pt, Calibri). Do not anchor anything to a fixed point, use a different captions font, use text boxes or wrap text around images.

We appreciate authors may wish to make their submission appealing to the eye. However, as the final article will undergo reformatting during copyediting to our publication format this is not necessary at submission. Additionally, it may actually cause delays in the processing of your manuscript.

URLs/DOIs

These should appear either in your reference list as a full citation, or within an endnote. They should not appear in the main text or abstract.

Images, Maps & Tables

For photos JPEG is generally the best format. Images and other objects should be resized to a size suitable for displaying on an A4 page. Authors should also clear or obtain copyright permissions for all photographs, images maps, tables, etc., included in their manuscript which they themselves have not created. The object's caption should explain what it depicts, followed by details of the source. For example:

Figure 2: A Sunburst Collage. Source: Alan Walker's collection of photographs, included with permission.

See also our notes on Third Party Copyright & Permissions.

At the end of your manuscript you should also include a list of illustrations together with source information, e.g., 'Figure 2: A Sunburst Collage. Source: Alan Walker's collection of photographs, included with permission.' Some rights holders may specify particular forms of attribution as a condition of their granting you permission, which you must abide by. If an image is your own intellectual property, you may use it within your publication as you see fit, but it is good practice to include information to indicate your personal ownership of the image. E.g.,

Source: Photograph from author’s personal collection

Audio Visual Media

Audio visual media and recordings may be subject to copyright restrictions. Where any media is embedded in your manuscript , permission for use should be sought as above and the sources should also always be acknowledged. A link to an external media source or suitable media streaming site (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud etc.,) is usually a good alternative where permission cannot be obtained.

Where you wish to embed media we recommend:

  • Audio: Using the .mp3 format.
  • Video: Using the .mp4 format, although formats including .mov, avi and .wmv can also be used. 

If you are unsure about the suitability of an embedded media format, contact the Editor-in-Chief for clarification.


Discipline-Specific Information

As an interdisciplinary journal, Exchanges will consider papers from all research fields. While we are aware standards and practices across these fields will vary, and we are happy to consider most materials at submission, the following information may assist in the preparation of your manuscript. However, the following information does not seek to cover every aspect of every discipline and is periodically updated. Please contact the Chief Editor if you need specific advice on anything not contained here.

Classics

For denoting the era on a year date, while BC/AD may be used if wished, the BCE/CE notation is generally preferred. Whichever format an author uses should be followed systematically throughout their manuscript. A space should follow the year number and the era notation e.g., 64 BC, 1066 CE. The abbreviation AD/CE is optional if the era is not specified, as it is assumed to be the current period. E.g., '1963' equates to 1963 AD/CE.

Some authors prefer to use the present tense when referring to ancient individuals: 'Cicero wants' rather than 'Cicero wanted'. This is acceptable but needs to be used consistently - authors should standardise any tenses used in this manner throughout their manuscript.

If you anglicise Roman names, use the full Latin name at the first mention and then note that you will anglicise thereafter. 'Lucius Segius Catalina (hereinafter Catiline)'.

Give full names rather than abbreviations: 'Publius Sulla', not 'P. Sulla'

Follow the Harvard in-text citation format, i.e., (Surname, Year: Page number) for your in-text citations of original works, even where different conventions exist elsewhere: '(Cicero, 1982: 26)' rather than '(Cic. Pro Sul. 81)'.

Provide English translations for any quotations in Latin. These should be in the same format (i.e., indented or not indented), and enclosed in square brackets. An indication should also be given as to whether the translation is taken from a published translation of the work (in which case the reference must be given) or whether it is the author's own.

Any Greek or Latin terms should be in italics. At the first mention of a term it should be followed by a short explanatory note in parentheses, e.g. 'a black-figure dinos (mixing bowl), painted by [...]'; the Greek/Latin term (still in italics) can be used on its own thereafter.

Foreign Languages

Quotations from works in foreign languages should abide by the general rules for quotations above. In addition to this, a translation into English in the same format (i.e., indented or not indented), enclosed in square brackets, should follow. An indication should also be given as to whether the translation is taken from a published translation of the work - in which case the reference must be given, or whether it is the author's own.

French: Include all relevant accents on lower-case letters; use them on upper-case letters only where they are needed to avoid confusion. Use single quotation marks ('') in preference to guillemets (>> <<), except where the guillemets themselves form part of the quotation.

German: Use letters with umlauts for both upper- and lower-case letters in preference to the addition of an 'e'. For modern works follow the new orthography established in 1998; quotations from works published in old spelling should follow the old style. Note particularly the rules surrounding the use of 'ss' in preference to the Eszett (ß).

Greek: Individual words or short phrases in Greek should be transliterated; longer quotations should remain in Greek script but should be followed by a translation.

Law

Latin legal terms should be written in italics: de jure, ex parte, habeas corpus etc,. For names of parties in cases, also use italics, with 'v' having no full stop after it: Ford v Wainwright, Smith v Washington.

Science, Mathematics &Computing

Authors should follow the standards common in their discipline, and should avoid introducing non-standard symbols.

Use the internationally agreed abbreviations for all SI units.

Clarity in presentation is essential: for example, authors should differentiate clearly between the numbers 0 and 1, and the letters O and I; also where appropriate between the letter x and the multiplication sign ×

Extracts from software code should be presented italicised and indented, as block quotations. Long sections of code exceeding half a page, should be placed in an appendix or referenced via a link to an appropriate software repository location.


Text Citation & Referencing

References can and should be included as necessary and while these should adhere to a single style, there is no requirement to use a specific format in your submission. However, authors unsure of a style to use are directed towards the Harvard referencing system - for which additional guidance is given below. In text citations though should ideally adopt the (Name, Year) or (Name, Year: Page(s)) where specific page numbers are cited. While Exchanges permits the use of endnotes, any directly cited sources should appear in the references list. Exchanges does not use footnotes in its published articles, and these should be avoided throughout your manuscript.

Text Citations

References in the text (citations) should include surname and date (Marsh, 1997). Et al., should be used where there are more than two authors (Marsh et al., 1997). Direct quotes or ideas which relate to a certain range of pages in a publication should also be referenced by page numbers after the date (Marsh, 1997: 34) or (Marsh, 1997: 34-36). Note that there is a space after the colon, but not between the numbers and hyphen.

If the same author has two or more references dating from the same year, they can be differentiated by letters (Marsh, 1997a) or (Marsh, 1997b).

If the work you are citing has more than one volume, you need to give the volume number as well as the page number: (Marsh, 1997, vol. 2: 34).

References

Full reference information for all directly cited works should be listed, alphabetically, by author surname at the end of the manuscript. All authors should be identified by surname and then initial(s). Et al., should be avoided in your reference list, and all contributing authors should be listed. However, where there are an especially large number of co-authors (greater than 10), et al., is permitted.

When listing a page number range, normally give the last two digits of the final page (e.g., 32-39; 112-19) unless additional page numbers range over additional digits (e.g., 198-213; 1297-302) and greater clarity is needed.

Bibliographies

If an author wishes to note works which have inspired or influenced their paper, but which are not directly cited within the text, then they are welcome to include a Bibliography of such works separate and following their references' list.

URLs, URIs & DOIs

Where online resources (websites, journal articles, media) are used within a manuscript, links to them should be included alongside the reference. Ideally, specific, stable (e.g., non-sessional) URL (Uniform Resource Locators), URI (Uniform Resource Identifiers) or DOI (Digital Object Identifiers) should be included. References should also include the date on which the resource was last accessed in the format [Accessed: DD Month YYYY].

For example:

Johnson, G.J., 2022. A Time to Broaden the Family: Editorial, Volume 10, Part 1. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 10(1), pp. i-xi. Available at: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/article/view/1241 [Accessed: 10 January 2023].

Hutchinson, C., 2022. End of the Line: The unpublished novels of Anita Mason. Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 10(1), pp. 94-107. DOI: 10.31273/eirj.v10i1.846 [Accessed: 22 February 2023].


Referencing Different Publication Types

Monographs and Multi-Author Books

For books the full information includes the title, place of publication and name of the publisher. E.g.,

Author., Year of publication. Book title, Publication location: Publisher.

Note the position of the full stops, commas and colons, and follow this pattern. The book title, but not the surrounding punctuation, should be in italics.

Manunta, G., 1998. Security: An introduction. Cranfield: Cranfield University Press.

For works with multiple volumes, put the total number of volumes after the title, even if you have only used one volume for reference. As noted, your in-text citation should specify volume as well as page number.

Grace, B., F. Bloggs and Smith, J., 1988. A History of the World, 17 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Edited Books & Chapters

This format is the same as for an authored book, but the editor's name must be followed by ed., to show they did not author the work. Note that if there is more than one editor, the list of names should be followed by eds., instead.

Keene, E., ed., 1988. Natural Language. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

For references to chapters within edited works, you need to include details about the chapter and the book within which it appears. The title of the chapter is followed by In: and the details of the book, which should be formatted in the same way as the 'edited book' example above. Note particularly that the page reference should be preceded by pp.

Coffin, J. M., 1999. Molecular Biology of HIV. In: K.A. Crandell, ed., The Evolution of HIV. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, pp. 2-10.

Later Editions

If you are making use of a later edition of an earlier work, always give the details of the edition you have actually used, not the original publication date, as any page numbers will vary between editions. There may be other revisions between editions of which you may be unaware and so you need to make it clear to which edition you are referring. Do note in the reference which edition you have used, as below.

Manunta, G., 2018. Security: An introduction. 3rd edn. Cranfield: Cranfield University Press.

Reprint Editions

Again, you should reference the edition which you are actually using, as page numbers may vary between editions. After the publication details, put in brackets the original publisher and year. If the title was different in the original edition, you should also include this information as well in your note, e.g. (originally published as Title by Publisher in year).

Newman, J. H., 1974. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. London: Penguin (originally published by Longman in 1897).

Unpublished Thesis

Citations for theses or dissertations are similar in format to books, although you need to clearly indicate the level (e.g. Ph.D., M.Phil., M.A., M.Sc. etc) and the awarding academic institution. Where a thesis is available online, a similar format to online journal articles is adopted.

Neary, M., 1994, Youth, Training and the Training State: The real history of youth training in the twentieth century. Ph.D thesis, University of Warwick, UK.

Alemayehu, M.W., 2010. Researchers' Attitude to using Institutional Repositories: A case study of the Oslo University Institutional Repository (DUO). M.A. Dissertation, Oslo University College, Sweden. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10642/426 [Accessed: 8 January 2021].

Note: extensive quotation from an unpublished thesis normally requires permission from the rights holder, who may be the author or awarding institution, depending on each university’s rules. In the first instance, you should contact the author to seek permission.

Journal and Newspaper Articles

For journal articles the standard format is:

Author., Year of publication. Article title. Journal title, Volume (Issue), page numbers.

Note the title of the journal is in italics. The citation should give the journal’s volume, issue and page number. Where titles do not have issue or page numbers these may be omitted. Where there is a page reference this should be included and preceded by pp. E.g.,

Somekh, B. and Davies, R., 1991. Towards a pedagogy for information technology. The Curriculum Journal, 18 (2), pp. 153-70.

References to newspaper articles should take a similar format to journal articles: Author, Year of publication. Article title. Newspaper title, date, page numbers. Note that the exact date including day and month should be given.

Slapper, G., 2006. Corporate manslaughter, new issues for lawyers. The Times, 3 September 2006, pp. 4-5.

For online articles where a URL, or preferably DOI, is available, this should be included in the article reference along with the date the article was last accessed by the author.

Streeck, W., 2014. How Will Capitalism End? New Left Review, 87, pp. 35-64. Available at: https://newleftreview.org/II/87/wolfgang-streeck-how-will-capitalism-end [Accessed: 13 June 2018].

Kirby, A., 2012. Scientific communication, open access, and the publishing industry. Political Geography, 31(5). Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2012.04.001 [Accessed: 4 February 2018].

Online newspapers again follow a similar format to online journal articles, with the date still being a critical piece of information.

Wolff, J., 2013. Why The Sopranos may not be the best business model for universities. The Guardian, 23 September. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/sep/23/university-funding-the-sopranosmodel [Accessed: 3 June 2017].

Conference Proceedings and Papers

Where these have been published, you should treat them in a similar way to a book citation, with the exception that the title of the conference and its dates should be included, along with publisher details. The format should be: Author., Year. Paper title. Proceedings Title, Conference Dates, Publisher Location, Publisher Name, Page range. For example:

Simbuerger, E., and Lambert, C., 2006. Reinventing Academic Practice. New Educational Practice, Proceedings of the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) conference, 12-14 Dec 2006, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 20-34.

For conference papers which have not been formally published, you may omit the publisher and page details. However, you should include the organisation hosting the conference as the ‘publishing’ organisation. For example:

Simbuerger, E. and Lambert, C., 2006. Reinventing Academic Practice. Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) conference, 12-14 December 2006, Brighton [unpublished].

Priego, E., 2014. The Impacts of Impact. UK Serials Group (UKSG) 37th Annual Conference and Exhibition, 15 April 2014, Harrogate International Conference Centre [unpublished].

Where proceedings or conference papers are available online, you should additionally include the URL and access date. For example:d

Johnson, G.J., 2015. A Critical Examination of Barriers to Open Access in UK Academia. ISIS Summit Vienna 2015, 3-7 June 2015, International Society for Information Studies, Vienna University of Technology, Austria. Available at: https://sciforum.net/conference/isis-summit-vienna2015/paper/2806/download/pdf [Accessed: 10 December 2016].


Further Advice

For advice on anything not included in this style guide, contact the Editor-in-Chief (exchangesjournal@warwick.ac.uk)