All articles submitted to Public Humanities (PH) should follow the full set of PH text conventions and should be submitted in Word format.

Manuscript requirements

Basic text conventions

• The journal publishes in English and all contributions should be written in English
• Text should be formatted as double-spaced throughout
• Pages should be numbered consecutively
• Articles should be fully anonymized for peer review.

Writing style

Public Humanities is a space that celebrates the breadth and depth of the humanities; the varied, multifaceted contribution of the humanities to public life. To reflect this, the journal offers a wide range of formats, as listed in the author instructions, and encourages authors to use an accessible writing style, particularly for our Of-the-moment section.

References and footnotes

Public Humanities follows the Chicago Manual of Style.

Citations should follow an in-text, footnotes format. Full publication details should appear in the reference list, and author-date citations should be placed in the footnotes (rather than parenthetically in text). Make sure to provide a reference for all material cited, including figures and tables. Special reference types (e.g., archival material) may be cited in the footnotes only.

Footnote formatting

• Footnotes should be used sparingly and only for key additional information.
• They should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals. 
• Footnote numbering should appear at the end of sentences after the punctuation.
• Do not indent footnote text. 

General points

• Every source cited must appear in the references; references consist only of sources cited in the text.
• All book and journal titles must be italicised.
• To cite multiple authors, use (Aitha 2008; Smith 2005) but to cite the same author with multiple works use (Aitha 2006, 2008).
• When citing specific pages from an author’s work use (Aitha 2008: 25).

Examples

Book chapter:

• Beshears, J., J. Choi, D. Laibson, and B. Madrian. “The Importance of Default Options for Retirement Saving Outcomes: Evidence from the United States,” in Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas , edited by S.J. Kay and T. Sinha, 59-87. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Journal article:

• Lusardi, Annamaria and Olivia S. Mitchell. 2022. “Financial Literacy around the World: An Overview.” Journal of Pension Economics and Finance 45: 497-508. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474747222000142

Website:

• Barry Melancon. 2019. “Letter from Barry Melancon, CPA, to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.” Accessed February 1, 2020. https://www.aicpa-cima.com/Advocacy/Issues/DownloadableDocuments/FASBIndependence/AICPAFairValueLetter2-18-10.pdf

Book:

• Kay, Stephen J., and John Smith. Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Newspaper:

• Altman, David. “Enron’s Collapse: Pensions; Experts Say Diversify, but Many Plans Rely Heavily on Company Stock.” New York Times , January 20, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019...

Journal style

• Author affiliations should adhere to the following conventions:
  • Department/school, university/institution, city, state/province, country Abbreviate USA and UK
  • Use two-letter postal codes for state/province names
  • If an author has multiple affiliations or if there are multiple authors, use superscript Arabic numerals to differentiate affiliations.
• Abstract: no more than 250 words. All article types require an abstract apart from Editorials. 
• Keywords: no more than six.
• Spelling: either American- or British-English spelling can be used, but either should be used consistently throughout the paper.
• Quotes: “double” quotation marks should be used, with periods and commas inside marks and ‘single’ quotation marks for quotes within quotes. Quotes of more than fifty words should be set as extracts with no quotation marks.
• Title: Should be written in sentence case, with subtitle run in and separated from the title by a colon.
• Order of parentheses in text: ([])
• Abbreviations and acronyms: authors should spell out in full any abbreviations used in their manuscripts the first time that they use it.
• Measurements and units: percentages should always be expressed as numerals, even when they are less than 10. However, you should spell out percentages if they begin a sentence. For example: Sales increased 5 percent. Fifty percent of this was due to Aitha. Only use the percent symbol (%) in figures and tables and parentheses
• Numbers: numbers less than 10 should be spelt out. Numerals should be used for numbers of 10 or larger. Exceptions to this rule:
  • Numbers of years are always spelled, as in “two to three years.”
  • Numbers beginning a sentence are always spelled out, as in “Fifteen different models were used…”
• When a number is spelled out according to one of the rules above and is associated with another number, that second number is also spelled out in order to maintain a consistent appearance. For example, “Fifteen of the twenty-two plans…” instead of “Fifteen of the 22 plans…”
• Punctuation: place punctuation inside the quote if the quote is mid-sentence. For example: “You may confirm this,” said Smith (2008).
• Word count: PH specifies different word counts for different article types. See the full list here.

Figures and tables

All figures must be called out in the body of the text, in sequential order. All titles and notes to figures and tables must be self-explanatory and sourced (with full references provided as outlined above). Non-technical terms are preferred, and any technical terms should be defined if necessary in a note.

Figures and tables must be submitted as individual files, outside of the main manuscript, through ScholarOne.

Figures may have sources, and tables must have sources.

Table column and row headings should be written in sentence case.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organisers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that any type of funding information or financial support is listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can be recorded separately (see here).

We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section, along with a declaration that the author(s) are entirely responsible for the scientific content of the paper and that the paper adheres to the journal’s authorship policy. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors, AI tools and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. Examples of how to acknowledge assistance in drafting manuscripts:

• "The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."
• "The author(s) made use of [AI system/tool] to assist with the drafting of this article. [AI version details] was accessed/obtained from [source details] and used with/without modification [specify and/or expand as appropriate] on [date(s)]."