We are always on the lookout for new and original articles, and if you are interested in writing for Morgannwg, we would love to hear from you. Please contact the editor, Kim Collis (email editor.glamhistsoc@gmx.co.uk) to discuss the proposal. The guidelines below should be followed throughout the article.
Guidelines for contributors
Morgannwg is usually composed of a mixture of long and short articles. The longer articles preferably do not exceed 8,000 words (somewhat longer contributions may be accepted at editorial discretion) and are accompanied by an abstract at the start (in italics) of about 150 words which outlines the subject matter of your article and the argument or interpretation of events that you are putting forward. Shorter articles preferably do not exceed 2,000 words and may also include reports on work in progress and requests for help or information Shorter articles do not need to have an abstract.
All articles for consideration should be submitted electronically to the editor in the first instance, Microsoft Word being the preferred file-type, although an OpenDocument Text file is an acceptable alternative. It is essential that the overall structure and division of your article into paragraphs should be clear, with a blank line space inserted between paragraphs. Please do not add headers or footers to your text, including your own page numbers – the correct page number will depend on the article’s place within the overall volume and, if you need it, the page number of your document displays in the taskbar.
When sub-edited, your text will be placed in Times New Roman 11 with single (1.0) line-spacing. Your first paragraph will not be indented (nor any other paragraph beginning a new section under a sub-heading), however all subsequent paragraphs will begin with an indentation. While these finer points can be left to the editor, you may wish to follow these rules yourself. Particular attention, however, is drawn to the following points of convention and house style:
1. Longer quotations should be indented, on the left only, without quotation marks and with a line space before and after. Short quotations within running text should be in single quotation marks (double inverted commas to be used for quotes within quotes).
2. The use of capital letters should be kept to a minimum in the text. Article titles should be written in sentence rather than title case (i.e. where only the first word and proper nouns are capitalised). The use of italics should similarly be kept to a minimum, being used typically when strong emphasis in the text is required; in listing book and periodical titles (but not those of articles, see examples below); or where a loan-word from another language is not to be found in standard English dictionaries (unless the intention is to emphasise its foreign nature). Italics can be used sparingly for individual Welsh words or phrases that are uncommon in contexts when embedded in English language text, however quotations in Welsh should not in general be italicised. Please note that viz, sic, op. cit. and ibid. are customarily italicised as a matter of house style.
3. If forming part of the main narrative, dates should be expressed thus: 1 May 1750; Saturday 13 March 1999; the 1860s; the twelfth century (but ‘a twelfth-century manuscript’); 1884-5; 1912-13. In headings describing a chronological period, the unabbreviated form of years (e.g. 1720-1786) is more appropriate. Dates between 1 January and 24 March up to and including 1751 should give the year as reckoned by both the old and new calendars, for example, 18 February 1749/50. On occasion, a date may be most appropriately written in words, particularly so when a date starts a sentence. Dates in endnotes can be expressed less formally with the month abbreviated, e.g. ‘letter dated 29 Dec. 1849’.
4. Numbers up to ninety-nine should be written in words, unless they are statistical, part of a list of numbers, or percentages. Numbers at the beginning of sentences should always be written in words.
5. Abbreviations and initials should have a full stop, contractions on the other hand (those which end with the same letter as the full word, e.g. ‘Ltd’, ‘Mr’) should not. A list of standard abbreviations of institutions and publications can be included at the end of the article and those abbreviations used consistently throughout the endnotes.
6. In other matters not covered here, the Oxford Style Manual is a useful guide.
Images
An article is often embellished and improved by the inclusion of a small number of relevant images. These are best submitted separately as JPG files with an indication of their correct placing in the article, though, if you wish, you may place them in situ. All images should be be accompanied by a suitable caption (Times New Roman 10, bold). The caption should describe the image succinctly and indicate the source from whence it came (including where it is your own work, for example, ‘Photograph by the author’). If copyright permission for use is required, you are responsible for obtaining it.
Endnotes
Morgannwg prefers the use of endnotes over footnotes, notes and references numbered sequentially and added at the end of the article. Endnotes should be kept to a minimum and contain specific references (for example, to source material) rather than amplification of the text to which they refer: please use superscript Arabic (not Roman) numerals.
Bibliographical references in the endnotes should give author, title in italics, publisher, date, and page number. In the case of books published before 1900, give place of publication and publisher if these can both be identified. Here are some examples:
Books: Glanmor Williams, Wales and the Reformation (University of Wales Press, 1997), 86.
Article in edited volume: Deirdre Beddoe, ‘Images of Welsh Women’, in T. Curtis (ed.), Wales: the Imagined Nation (Poetry Wales Press, 1986), 227-38.
Article in a journal: Kenneth O. Morgan, ‘The New Liberalism and the challenge of Labour: the Welsh experience, 1885-1929’, Welsh History Review, VI, No. 3 (1973), 136-39.
Unpublished thesis: Joanna Martin, ‘The landed Estate in Glamorgan, circa 1660-1760’ (unpublished University of Cambridge PhD thesis, 1978).
Manuscripts: Glamorgan Archives [hereafter GA], Ewenny Collection DE 529; National Library of Wales [hereafter NLW], Penrice and Margam MS 5732.
Next steps
It is not the editor’s role to challenge the basis of your argument or any point of historical accuracy, but in some cases your article may be submitted for review by a suitable expert prior to the editor’s acceptance of it for publication. The reviewer may suggest, for example, other historical source material that has not been referenced in the article and suggest ways in which it could be reworked to incorporate this overlooked material. In all cases, the editor’s decision on whether an article should be accepted is final: the most likely instance of rejection being where it is felt your article does not fit within the scope and remit of a journal of Glamorgan history.
Once an article has been accepted for publication, it will be carefully proof-read for any typographical or grammatical errors (or variations from house style) and an amended version with tracked changes will be provided to the author. If the editor feels that a sentence, or set of sentences, could be better expressed to make a point clearer, this will be subject to discussion and agreement with the author, and it will be progressed through the use of comments back and forth.
Provided the article has been submitted in good time, it may be possible to make later minor alterations up to the point that the journal is submitted to the printer (however, it is not practical to rewrite your thoughts on the article’s subject matter). Before it goes to the printer, a final proof-read by a third party of the whole journal may discover minor errors (for example, a previously overlooked spelling mistake or punctuation error), which will be silently sub-edited without reference back to the contributor, unless there is a point of query.
Copyright of articles published in Morgannwg is held jointly by the individual contributor and Glamorgan History Society.