JBHR Style Guide
This is a living document designed to supplement our Submissions Guidelines and help writers make consistent and appropriate stylistic choices. However, as an author, you have freedom to express your argument as you may use this advice as you see fit.
JBHR uses Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, which has been the standard in the historical discipline since 2017. Writers should refer to:
JBHR uses Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, which has been the standard in the historical discipline since 2017. Writers should refer to:
- Purdue OWL for general format of citations. See “Sample Paper.”
- CMOS Online for specific questions. Check if your institution subscribes to CMOS Online. The Search feature is especially useful.
General Structure
There is no “official” structure to which you must adhere, and we welcome innovative historical work. However, quality historical manuscripts generally contain:
- An introduction that “sets the stage” and summarizes the historical problem. (What do readers need to understand to “get” your coming argument?)
- A thesis: a concise statement of your argument which guides the rest of your paper. Theses often appear somewhere in the introduction and they can begin with a phrase like “This paper argues …”, but neither convention is strictly necessary. (What is your work “about”?)
- A discussion of the secondary sources that recognizes previous authors’ contributions, displays your literacy of the literature, and makes a case for your work’s originality. (What have previous scholars written? What did they miss, and how are you filling that gap?)
- An analysis of the primary sources that digs deep into the historical text, placing it within its historical context and in conversation with your argument and the other sources. Make the sources “alive” for your readers. (What do the sources tell us? Why did the author write it, and to what effect? How do you know?)
- A conclusion that sums up your argument, discusses the broader implications of your work, and suggests areas for future scholarship. It is just not a simple restatement of your thesis. (“So What”? What sentiment do you want your readers to end with? If you had more time or access to different sources, how would you continue investigating this topic?)
- Abstracts are optional. If you choose to write one, try to distill the main points of your paper in 100-200 words such that a potential reader would have a good impression of the whole after a cursory skim of the abstract.
Footnotes
Footnotes are designed to properly attribute your sources. Ask yourself: If I were a curious reader, would I be able to find this source based on the footnote? Crafting footnotes is a careful balance between consistency, thoroughness, accuracy, and conciseness. (See CMOS 14.1 and 14.4.)
- Ensure that you cite the archive or “container” in which you found the source. Citing a specific database such as JSTOR is only sometimes necessary.
- Automatic citation managers such as Zotero are a valuable resource, but cannot be expected to make appropriate stylistic choices. As an author, you should review your own footnotes. They are not ancillary to your main text, but a critical part of it. Footnotes help tell the story of your research.
- “Ibid” is discouraged. For subsequent references to the same source, use the shortened form “Last Name, Shortened Title, page.” (CMOS 14.34)
- For a third subsequent reference to the same source, you may use “Last name, page” if your bibliography only contains one work by that author.
- Ibid may be acceptable in limited circumstances which CMOS describes in the section referenced above.
- Access dates are not necessary “unless no date of publication or revision can be determined from the source.” (CMOS 14.12)
- Inserting multiple footnotes on the same sentence is discouraged. (ie, 14, 15) Separate the citations with a semicolon. (CMOS 14.28)
- Footnotes should generally appear at the end of a sentence. Footnotes appearing in the middle of a sentence is discouraged, unless it is unclear which citations correspond to which material. (CMOS 14.26)
- Shortened DOIs and URLs are encouraged as they help readers find your sources. Very often, long URLs can be shortened. Check for a “Copy Link” button. Sometimes the URL can be cut after the document identifier number appears in the directory.
Graphics
We love including images, maps, and charts in the journal! But they must be
- High quality: Most software programs compress images. For print, our layout editor will use the uncompressed archival image.
- Properly sourced: See guide for citing images. If you took a photo or created a graph, indicate that you own it.
- Legal: According to intellectual property laws.
Quoting Material
- All quoted material should be
- Accurate: Respect the original author’s voice.
- Well integrated: To grammatically and logically integrate a quote, you may change tense and capitalization with brackets. You may also specify the unclear pronoun antecedents. For extensive advice on specific cases, see CMOS Chapter 13.
- Properly cited: All quotes require a footnote.
- Block quotes are suitable for longer quotations. Treat block quotes as part of the larger paragraph. For instance, the sentence after a block quote is generally not indented. (CMOS 13.23)
- Use [sic] to call attention to misspelled or wrongly used material. It is unnecessary for alternate spellings – for instance, the British spelling “labour” does not need [sic]. [sic] appears in italics and enclosed in brackets. (CMOS 13.61)
Titles & Subheads
- Conciseness and style is encouraged for titles. Brainstorm memorable but short titles. Subtitles may be slightly longer and more descriptive.
- Subheaders (such as “Introduction” or “Part I: The Origins of the Know-Nothing Party”) generally shouldn’t be more than ten words.
Miscellaneous
- Numbers under one hundred are spelled out: “seventeenth century,” not “17th century.” Further, “seventeenth century” is a noun, while “seventeenth-century” with a hyphen is an adjective. (CMOS 9.2, 9.32)
- Abbreviations and initialisms: Provide the full name with a parenthetical abbreviation on first usage. (“The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) …”)
- Punctuation
- Single spaces after periods.
- Em dashes (“—”) do not have a space on either side, but en dashes (“ – ”) do. The use case for each dash varies, but it’s common convention to use em dashes in pairs to interrupt a sentence — such as this one — with a phrase. (CMOS 6.75, 6.87)
- Judicious use of semicolons and parentheticals.
- Colons can be used to introduce a quotation, a list, or a clarifying statement.
- Ellipses (“...”) indicate missing material. (CMOS 13.50-13.56)
- Contractions are generally not advised.
Writing Guides
- Southwestern University’s fantastic “Guide for Writing in History.”
- W&M Clem History Writing Center’s Resources