To submit an article online, and to check the status of your submission, you need to have an account with International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity
Don't have an account?
Start SubmissionAuthor Guidelines International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity
Authors are invited to submit manuscripts that fall within the focus of the journal. Please read the information on the Peer Review Process and follow the guidelines below. HCM does not charge Article Processing Charges (APC). Work submitted to HCM may not be under consideration in any form by any other publisher. Submission of a manuscript is taken to indicate the author’s commitment to publish in HCM if the manuscript is accepted.
If you have any questions please contact the .
HCM publishes in full open access. Author(s) retain copyright of their articles. Articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)
The editorial board reserves the right to refuse an article after submission in any stage of the editing process.
Publication Fees
The International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity does not charge author fees i.e. no Article Processing Charges (APCs) or Article Submission Charges.
Article length
Substantial research articles may consist of 8,000-10,000 words, review articles of 3,000-5,000 words, and forum articles of 2.000-4,000 words. The word count includes endnotes.
Review procedure
HCM follows a double-blind review procedure in which the identities and the evaluators remain confidential, so any features that could reveal the author’s identity should be removed from the text and from the notes until after the manuscript has been accepted. Any features that could reveal the author’s identity should be removed from the text and from the notes until after the manuscript has been accepted. This means that you are free to refer to your own work in your endnotes (with your name and title etc.), as long as you avoid personal pronouns.
Please add a separate page including:
Articles should be spaced 1,5 throughout and should include endnotes (rather than footnotes or in-text references).
Use of images
You are welcome to include images in your article. Please make sure that they have a resolution of at least 300 dpi and that you provide captions and quotations. The author is fully responsible for the copyright of the images and ensures that permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material.
Alterations to Articles
Any amendments or corrections should be sent to the Editors (or Review Editor) as soon as possible after any author receives notification of acceptance for publication of his/her article. Because of the high cost of correction, the Editors reserve the right to reject alterations in proof. To avoid delays in the production of the journal, contributors will be asked to return their proofs promptly. Proofs are not sent to authors of reviews.Conventions and Notes for Authors:
Spelling
Please use UK English spelling and punctuation. In general, The Concise Oxford Dictionary is our arbiter of spelling, especially for hyphenated words, words in italics, etc. Use ‘z’ spelling for all words ending in ‘-ize’, ‘-ization’ (organize, organization). However, alternative spellings in quoted material, book and article titles should not be changed.
Punctuation
Paragraphs
Indent the first line of a new paragraph consistently (except immediately after a heading, when the paragraph should start flush with the left-hand margin). There is no need for extra space between paragraphs.
Quotations
Please use single quotation marks and double quotation marks for quotes within quotes.
Quotations over 60 words should be indented and separated from the main text by a space above and below. They should not be set within quotation marks.
Commas
The comma should usually be omitted before the ‘and’ in lists of three or more items, especially if each item is a single word or short phrase: red, white and blue.
Colons and Semi-colons
A colon introducing a list or other displayed material should never be followed by a dash.
Semi-colons or full points, not commas, should be used to separate main clauses that have different subjects and are not introduced by a conjunction:
He was trying to write a book; the ideas would not come.
Double Punctuation
There is no need for double punctuation at the end of a sentence, either after an abbreviation or after a punctuation mark in inverted commas or a book or article title.
Apostrophes
Use ’s for the possessive case in English names and surnames wherever possible: Charles’s, Jones’s, St James’s Square, Thomas’s.
Do not use ’s for plurals of capitalized abbreviations: NCOs, the 1960s. Do use for lower-case abbreviations: e.m.f.’s, dotting his i’s.
Hyphens
Note the use of the hyphens with nouns used as adjectives (noun-attributes):
the middle class middle-class values
the nineteenth century nineteenth-century history
In all headings, the second word in a hyphenated phrase should be lower case, e.g. Short-term Policies.
Parentheses and Brackets
( ) are called parentheses. Brackets are square: [ ]. Reserve square brackets for interpolations within quotations or round uncertain data in references (e.g. if the date or place is ascertainable but does not appear in the book). Do not use them to avoid having parentheses within parentheses.
Ellipses (...)
Omit ellipses at the beginning and end of quotations unless necessary for the sense. Use ellipses to indicate that material is missing within the quotation. Use three points only.
Casca said: ‘There was more foolery yet ...’
Numbers and Measurements
In general, use words for numbers one to ninety-nine (except for a series of quantities). From 100 upwards use figures.
Exceptions
Round numbers above 100 may be expressed in words when not part of a series. When there is a series of round millions, ‘2m’ can be used; with a pound or dollar sign ‘2 million’ is acceptable. If two series of quantities are being dealt with it may be clearer to use words for one and figures for the other, e.g. ‘Ten wards held 16 beds each, but fifteen others contained as many as 40.’
Hyphenate spelt-out numbers: twenty-one, two-thirds. But use figures to avoid too many hyphens, e.g. 62-year-old man.
Use a comma in thousands and larger numbers: 6,580.
No commas or spaces in dates or reference numbers.
Figures, not words, must be used before abbreviations: 5 kg, 6 km.
Figures are always used in percentages except when starting a sentence. Per cent should always be spelt out in the main text; % should be used in tables and notes.
Write 0.5, not .5.
Elide numbers except in measurements: 21-4, 130-3, 115-19. Note that numbers from 11-19 retain the first ‘1’, i.e. 11-18, rather than 11-8. Do not say 2-3,000 if you mean 2,000-3,000.
If you use a billion, make it clear whether it is a British or US billion (Br. million million, US thousand million).
Dates
Write 1 May 1975. No commas.
Spell out century numbers: ‘the fourteenth century’.
Hyphenate the adjective: ‘fourteenth-century castles’.
Write: ‘the mid-fourteenth century’ (noun) but ‘an early-fourteenth-century prelate’ (adjective). Pairs of dates: 1970-1, 1972-3, but 1915-18, 1809-1903. (BC dates cannot be elided.) Decades should be 1930s, not 1930’s, thirties or Thirties.
No apostrophe in plurals: 1890s.
Use an oblique stroke for a year, such as a financial or academic year, covering more than one calendar year: 1898/9; the years 1895/6-1897/8.
Write ‘from 1924 to 1928’ not ‘from 1924-8’ and ‘between 1924 and 1928’ not ‘between 1924-8’.
‘18 September to 19 January’ is better than ‘18 September - 19 January’.
Time
Express as follows: six months, 8.00 a.m., eight o’clock, half-past eight, a five-minute break, but five minutes’ start (no hyphen).
Use words for periods of time such as ‘it took him six months’, but figures for exact measurements and series of numbers.
Money
In a list, write ‘£6.00’ and ‘£0.25’, not ‘£6’ and ‘25p’. Similarly, write ‘$6.00’ (US) and ‘$0.25’ (US), not ‘$6’ and ‘25¢’. For sums of money, s, d, p are roman and do not take full points, e.g. ‘£3 11s 4d’; use ‘4s 11d’, not ‘4/11d’.
Foreign Languages
Authors are advised to use non-English language materials sparingly. The journal wishes to reach a wider audience spread out globally and in order to accomplish that goal we instruct authors to translate all non-English words/terms/quotes. We recommend the following style for shorter phrases or terms: ‘payments’ (Les Pensions)
Italics
Please type in italics those words that are to be printed in italics. Italics must be used for the following:
Use italics for emphasis sparingly. It is usually possible to make your point without special emphasis.
The following do not use italics: titles of articles; chapters; short stories (use roman and quotes for these); apostrophes; possessive ‘s’ following an italicized word, i.e. ‘the Discovery's home port’; ibid.; idem; id.; e.g.; i.e.; cf.; viz. and others (see The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors).
In italic headings it is not necessary to distinguish foreign words or phrases by the use of quotes.
Tables
Tables that are to be integrated with the text should be typed with the text, and any on separate sheets should have their position indicated in the text thus: (Table 2.3 here). It will not always be possible for the typesetter to place them exactly where you indicate, so refer to each table by number and not as ‘the table above’, ‘the following table’, etc. For the same reason, any explanatory notes should appear beneath the table (numbered as a, b, c, etc.) rather than being styled as footnotes or endnotes.
Tables that are to go at the end of the article should be typed on separate sheets of paper and placed before the endnotes.
Table headings should be typed using upper case for the first letter of each main word and lower case for the rest. There should be no full point.
The source of the table should go beneath the notes. The word ‘Source’ should be followed by a colon.
Notes and References
Use the short-title system of referencing for endnotes. Provide DOI for references if available. Provide a full reference in the form of a note in the first instance, and thereafter a shorter version of the title should be used. Do not use ‘op. cit’.
1. Mary Hamer, Writing by Numbers: Trollope’s Serial Fiction (Cambridge, 1987) 25.
2. Hamer, Writing by Numbers, 27.
Ibid. should only be used in consecutive notes to indicate the same reference:
3. Hamer, Writing by Numbers, 27.
4. Ibid., 406.
5. Ibid., chs 5 and 6.
Note that the short title should be used again if another reference intervenes:
6. Hazel, Cotton Trade, vol. 4, 135.
7. Hamer, Writing by Numbers, 250.
All notes end with a full point.
Use italics for titles of books, journals and newspapers
Book citations should follow this pattern, citing the author’s name as it appears on the title page:
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990) 3.
Edited collections are indicated by (ed.) for single editors and (eds) for multiple authors. For collections edited by three or more authors, give the first author and indicate the others as follows: et al. If the collection is part of a series, list the number of volumes after the title and the volume number in Roman numerals after the date:
Bonnie G. Smith (ed.), Women’s History in Global Perspective, 3 vols (Urbana, 2004), I, 23-8.
Jonathan Barry and Christopher Brooks (eds), The Middling Sort of People: Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550-1800 (Basingstoke, 1994) 12-15.
Chapters in edited collections should follow this pattern:
Keith Wrightson, ‘The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England’, in Paul Griffiths et al (eds), The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 1996).
Journal articles should be cited using the following pattern, with the volume number in Arabic numerals, and the page number(s) of any direct citation:
Susan E. Reid, ‘Makeshift Modernity’, History, Culture and Modernity 2:2 (2014) 89.
For subsequent citations, use the surname of the author(s) and a short title:
Butler, Gender Trouble, 12.
Barry and Brooks (eds), Middling Sort.
Unpublished dissertations should be cited as follows:
Claude Kanaan, ‘The Historical Background to Twentieth-Century Cultural Politics in the Lebanon’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of London, 1996.
For web references, list the title of the website, the url, and the date of access:
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834, www.oldbaileyonline.org, accessed 1 April 2004.
For pamphlets or occasional papers which are part of a series, put the name of the series and the number of the paper in brackets after the title, along with the publisher, place and date of publication). British official publications should be listed under the name of the department, or as Parliamentary Papers (abbreviated after first citation to PP), and for foreign official papers, place the name/abbreviation of the country before the department.
For references to newspapers, give the title of the newspaper, followed by the date and the page number (if available):
The Times, 7 June 1871, 10.
Manuscript references should always be cited by place of repository, repository and reference code, with the repository name abbreviated after the first citation. Where all manuscripts are in one repository, the repository title need only be given at the first citation. Reference codes should follow the conventions used in the relevant repository.
Please contact the editors if you have any questions by sending an email to .
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
With Microsoft Office documents, author identification should also be removed from the properties for the file (see under File in Word), by clicking on the following, beginning with File on the main menu of the Microsoft application: File > Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.
The Author warrants and represents that the Work does not infringe upon any copyright, proprietary, or personal right of any third party. If the Work contains any material that is owned or controlled by a third party, the Author certifies that he/she has obtained permission for its use and that the material is clearly acknowledged within the text. This warrant concerns the entire manuscript, text as well as pictures, sound, video, data sets etc. The author also warrants to us that he/she has full authority to enter into this agreement and that the rights he/she is granting to HCM are done so without breaching any obligations he/she may have.
All authors have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper. The corresponding author is authorized to speak on behalf of the authors.
All DOIs for the references have been provided, when available.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are explicitly encouraged to deposit their article in their institutional repository.