Style guide for The Journal

1. Introduction

The editor is responsible for making sure that Arbitration is produced consistently and in the style that has been agreed with the publishers. What follows is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to that style but it sets out what authors need to do if they are to help the editor in that task. It saves time and effort if all material is delivered in the publisher's house style. Authors are not expected to abide by every minute requirement of the editor and the publishers. This is more a matter of good manners between the parties, rather than prescriptive instructions, to make the editor's job easier.

One request is paramount: REMOVE ALL FANCY FORMATTING!

It is common practice in all professions to have an office style. It is often devised by experts with a cunning that defeats all the editor's necessary efforts to neutralise it. So please do not submit material which has the firm's name decorously shaded in on each page, or puts all text in natty boxes, or embellishes the plain text in any way. No fancy stuff at all.

_Arbitration _ now has separate compartments: articles, lectures and addresses, discussion, legislation and guidelines, cases, book reviews. This Guide applies to all. Everything should be sent as email attachments in Word. Please use Times New Roman, 12 point, and single space. Articles are peer reviewed. There is no word limit but pressure of space means that it is more difficult to find room for articles of more than 6,000 words - and 4,000 word submissions are likely to be published sooner.

Details of authors of articles and lectures and addresses appear at the start of each issue. Please send information about yourself in the form in which it will appear in the list of Contributors, e.g:

PETER FENN: FCIArb; Chartered Surveyor; senior lecturer, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology; Chair, CIArb ADR Committee.

KENNETH T SALMON: FCIArb; solicitor, partner, Mace and Jones, Manchester.

2. Headings

We usually manage with title and author and only two levels of heading, like this:

Ombudsmen

by MARGARET DOYLE and PETER FENN

1. INTRODUCTION [Note: numbered]

Public Ombudsmen [Note: not numbered]
Third Heading But, if we need a third heading, it is in italics and run into the text.

3 Lists

(1) Bullet points are permissible, if used properly and with economy, but the usual way to make a list is:
(2) Numbers and letters. This is the order:

1.
(1)
(a)
(i)

4. Citations

Cases

The name of the case should be in the text, but not the citation, thus: Henry v London General Transport Services Ltd. Avoid superfluous verbiage: "In the case of". Usually "in the recent case" or even "in the shipping case" add nothing.

NOTE:

  1. Italicised case name
  2. No full point after v
  3. Square brackets around the year if it is essential to the reference (if the report or journal can be located by volume number alone, then use round brackets for the year)
  4. Full pointed law report or journal, L.Q.R. and Lloyd's Rep., All E.E., Q.B.
  5. The citation includes only the number of the page on which it begins and is not preceded by "p."
  6. The court is never full pointed e.g. CA, QB, DC, HL, EAT, PC, CFA
  7. Always abbreviate Ltd
  8. "Ex p." always to be capitalised and full pointed, not written out in full or italicised
  9. Abbreviated party names should not be full pointed (apart from "R." for "Regina")

Statutes

Like this: the Law of Property Act 1925 s.1 [not s.1 of the Law of Property Act 1925]; Law of Property Act 1925 Sch.1. Abbreviate section to s., Schedule to Sch., paragraph to para., etc. in main text and footnotes, except when it is the first word of a sentence.

Statutory Instruments

Like this: the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 SI 1981/1794 i.e. SI date and number in full and abbreviated.

5. Footnotes

Footnotes, abbreviated to n or nn, should always be at the bottom of the page, never endnotes. Numbered throughout. No asterisks and such, unless they are for a special purpose. Footnote indicators should be inserted in the text after punctuation, so:[small raised number here, follwong the colon]

Books

All references to books must have authors' names with first name in full (or initials if more than one), title (in italics) in full with subtitles, edition (if not first), place of publication, publisher, date. Pages shown "p23" and "pp234-38", e.g.:
Alan Redfern and Martin Hunter _Law and Practice of International Commercial Arbitration _2nd ed., London, Sweet & Maxwell, 2002 pp234-82

Articles

The sequences is: author(s) as for books; title of article in double quotation marks; year in round brackets; volume number (if any); title of journal in italics, unabbreviated; page numbers, first and last, thus:
Adebayo Adalegbe "Arbitration in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry" (2003) 69 _Arbitration _265-271

Note that the initial letters of words in the title are in capitals.

6. Miscellaneous conventions

Quotations

Double quotation marks are always used first, with single quotation marks for quoted material inside quotations. Do not italicise quotations. If the quotation is of three lines or more, it should be indented, with quotation marks.

Italics

The following are always italicised: e.g., i.e. these are always preceded by a comma, but never followed by one and are also full pointed. They are always in lower case even at the start of footnotes. Phrases in Latin, French and other languages are italicised unless they have been absorbed into everyday language, so _sine die _ and _habeas corpus _ but not "she has produced a huge corpus of research". If you cannot avoid using longer foreign passages, put them in italics and translate them. Do not italicise ", etc.", which is always full-pointed and preceded by a comma.

Full Points

No full points (full stops, periods) in abbreviated forms (e.g. ACAS, USA, RA, UK, US, EU, EC). Try to avoid UK by writing it in full (United Kingdom), unless it is used as an adjective. No full point is needed where the abbreviation is a contraction of the word (i.e. the last letter of the abbreviation is the same as the last letter of the word, e.g. Mr, Mrs, Dr and St but Prof.).

Numbers and Words

  1. Spell out one to nine. 10 onwards in numerals.
  2. Per cent is always written in full, after a figure, rather than words (6 per cent, 23 per cent).
  3. Use a comma for four or more figures (e.g. 1,234), not a space
  4. Ordinal numbers: 1st, 2nd, 3rd not 1st, 2nd, 3rd

Dates

This is the formula: Month (in full) Date, Year (e.g. August 7, 1972, August 7 or
August 1972). Also, 1984-88 or 1984-1988 not 1984-8. The 1970s (not 1970's).

Cross-references

Avoid ibid. and et seq. Use above and below instead of ante/post or supra/infra.

Names of Newspapers

The Times, The Sunday Times and _The Economist _ but _Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent _ and _Financial Times _ and all others have no definite article.

7. Stylistic preferences

Spelling

Judgment, acknowledgment, lodgment and abridgment (no "e" between the g and the m). Anglicise American spelling unless it is quoted directly from source (i.e. -ise not -ize). Case law (not case-law). Up to date, when adverbial, "the book has been brought up to date to January 1, 1993); but up-to-date when an adjective: "a up-to-date book".

Capitals

Avoid capitals. Do not capitalise court or judge, except in names, nor arbitrator, architect, engineer, claim, defence, claimant, respondent, tribunal or award.

Gender

It is usually quite easy, and is always preferable, to avoid using a masculine pronoun where no element of gender is needed. Devices such as "he/she" are rarely necessary. When we are talking about arbitrators as a class, it is more appropriate to use the plural: "arbitrators are less likely to be tempted by bribes and they", rather than "the arbitrator is less likely... and he". After all, this guide is predicated on good manners, and it is time male arbitrators got used to having female colleagues.

Active and Passive

Avoid the passive. Write, "the arbitrator must have meant" rather than "it must have been meant by the arbitrator".

Opinion

Authors are expected to have opinions. They need not fear to express them frankly, whether about judgments or legislation or other authors. They need not "submit" or express their humility.

Judges

A High Court judge is Smith J.; in the Court of Appeal Smith L.J.; in the House of Lords Lord Smith. County Court and other judges are Judge Smith. No other honorifics are attached. Likewise in overseas jurisdictions - eg in Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal, Bokhary P.J.

8. Corrections

When your text has been accepted and edited, it will be sent back to you with any suggestions from the anonymous reviewer. Please make any corrections and suggestions in a way that is immediately obvious to me. That means either by making them on a separate document or using some form of highlighting in the text. Please do not make any unacknowledged changes. What you send back is your final draft. Authors do not receive proofs.

9. Copyright

It is a condition of publication of any material in Arbitration that authors assign copyright to the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, which will not unreasonably refuse permission for authors to use that material for any purpose, provided that it is not published in any form elsewhere before it appears in Arbitration, and that the Institute's permission is sought in writing in advance, and that the Institute's copyright is acknowledged in the form which will be supplied to the author. CIArb needs to take the copyright because it has sold rights of reproduction on the Internet.

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that nothing in the submitted material is subject to another's copyright. By submitting the material, the author undertakes a duty of care to CIArb to avoid responsibility for breach of copyright and defamation.

Thanks in advance..

If you follow these guidelines, it will reduce my workload considerably and allow me to concentrate on more difficult and important editorial tasks. In return, I promise to take seriously any additions or changes you recommend. Please send all communications to Sandra David, Secretary to the Editorial Board, by email: sdavid@arbitrators.org and, if communicating with me at roebuck@btinternet.com, copy Sandra in. Authors receive an immediate acknowledgment of receipt and a timely letter from the editor with immediate questions. It usually takes about a month for articles to be refereed.

Derek Roebuck
Editor Arbitration
(6/04)

Last Updated: 23 March 2009

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