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. Authors should supply a conflict of interest statement and funding statement into the submission site at submission stage, even if there are none to declare. Please see more information on this below. 

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 (Author-Date). 

Citations should follow a footnotes format. Footnotes should be used sparingly and only for key additional information. Full publication details should appear in the reference list, and author-date citations should be placed in the notes (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 notes only.

Footnote formatting

• Footnotes should be used sparingly and only for key additional information.
• They should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals. 
• Footnotes should always appear at the end of a sentence. In the case of multiple footnotes in the same sentence, these should be merged into a single cohesive footnote addressing all relevant information together.
• Hyperlinks should be kept to a minimum, only providing external links where necessary. Any hyperlink in body text must also be cited in the references as normal for a website reference.

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:

• Footnote citation: Thoreau 2016, 177–78.  
• Reference list entry: Thoreau, Henry David. 2016. “Walking.” In The Making of the American Essay, edited by John D’Agata, 167–95. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press. 

Journal article:

• Footnote citation: Keng, Lin, and Orazem 2017, 9–10. 
• Reference list entry: Keng, Shao-Hsun, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem. 2017. “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality.” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1 (Spring): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1086/690235.  

Website:

• Footnote citation: Bouman, 2016.
• Reference list entry: Batie. 2016. “How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole.” Filmed November 2016 at TEDxBeaconStreet, Brookline, MA. Video, 12:51. 

Book:

• Footnote citation: Smith 2016, 315–16. 
• Reference list entry: Smith, Zadie. 2016. Swing Time. New York: Penguin Press. 

For further guidance, see the Chicago Manual of Style Guide. 

Journal style

• Author affiliations, where applicable, 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.

• Profession: PH welcomes all authors to self-articulate their profession, particularly those that fall under the widely used category of 'independent scholar'. 
• Abstract: no more than 250 words. All article types require an abstract apart from Editorials. 
• Keywords: no more than six.
• Commas: the serial comma should be used. 
• 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.
• Author biographies are optional. If submitted, they should be included at acceptance stage as part of the title page, and be no more than 150 words. 

      

Abstract

Your abstract is extremely important: don’t just copy-and-paste your first paragraph. In addition to appearing with your published article, your abstract will be sent to potential peer-reviewers when inviting them to review the piece. A high-quality abstract that gets readers excited about the piece helps reviewers determine if they’re a good fit to serve as a reader. A good abstract will state a topic, a driving question / problem, a method of interpretation, your main point, an overview of the body of the piece, and the implications.

Figures and tables

All figures and tables 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, alongside captions. 

Figures may have sources, and tables must have sources.

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

See our full artwork guide here. 

Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any material, including illustrations, in which they do not hold the copyright and for ensuring that the appropriate acknowledgements are included in their paper. In quoting from copyright material, contributors should keep in mind that the rule of thumb for ‘fair use’ confines direct quotation to a maximum of 200 words. In obtaining permissions, authors must seek permission to reproduce material not within the author’s copyright for dissemination worldwide in electronic publication. It should be possible in most cases to obtain permissions for use of copyright material in the context of an academic journal article, but authors in need of advice are encouraged to consult the PH inbox, [email protected].

Please note that, if your paper is accepted for publication, we will not be able to move your manuscript into Production until all permissions have been secured.

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. 

Submission of a funding statement declaring any type of funding information or financial support is mandatory, even if there is no funding to declare. This should be 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)]."

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Competing Interests

All authors must include a competing interest declaration during the submission process. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and will be published in the article. If your paper is accepted, you will be asked to provide a 'title page' to accompany the final version of your paper, which must include a competing interest declaration as well as a funding statement. Please see the section on Disclosure of interests and funding here for more information.

Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.