Notes for Contributors - Ambix

Ambix welcomes original contributions on the history of alchemy, chemistry and the chemical industry that match the aims and scope of the journal on the understanding that their contents have not previously been published or are currently submitted for publication elsewhere. All submissions will be sent to independent referees. It is a condition of publication that papers become the copyright of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry and an assignment form will be circulated with proofs. All editorial correspondence should be sent, via email wherever possible, to the Editor: Dr Peter Morris, Science Museum, London SW7 2DD, UK. Email: peter.morris@nmsi.ac.uk. Authors should consider consulting the Editor prior to submission.

Presentation and Style        

A Word document should be emailed to the Editor and one complete hard copy should be posted. It should be printed double-spaced with ample margins and not normally exceeding 10,000 words (including footnotes). All pages should be numbered and for each author, a short institutional affiliation should be given. The full name and address to which all correspondence, including proofs, should be sent. The article should contain an abstract of about 150 words. Authors should also supply a short biography of themselves with an address for correspondance and an email address.

Contributions should follow the house-style of the journal. Words should not be hyphenated at the end of a line. Use double inverted commas for short quotations (single for quotations within quotations), but quotations over 50 words should be indented and single-spaced without inverted commas.

In preparing the Word document, there is no need to format articles: please include italics or bold type where necessary, but not style or endnote codes. In the main text, numbering of notes should be indicated by superscript numbers. References and captions should be placed at the end of the file. Please use hard returns only at the end of paragraphs; switch auto-hyphenation off; do not justify text; and do not use automatic numbering routines. Consistency in spacing, punctuation, and spelling will be of help. Although Ambix follows Chicago style, all papers should use British English.

Notes and References        

Contributors should adhere to the journal's house-style in the presentation of numbered references. Within the text, notes should be indicated by a superscript Arabic numeral. Ambix follows the conventions of The Chicago Manual of Style. The following examples cover the most common formats:

1. Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-1952 (London: Macmillan, 1974), vol. 2, 431-441. Subsequent references should use Gowing, Independence and Deterrence, vol. 2, 352. Do not use op. cit. and ibid.

2. Noel G. Coley, “Forensic Chemistry in 19th Century Britain,” Endeavor 22 (1998): 143-147, on 144. Standard journal abbreviations (JCS, BJHS) should be used, and use DNB, DSB (etc.) for standard reference works. Subsequent references should use Coley, “Forensic Chemistry,” 145.

3. Mary Jo Nye, “At the Boundaries: Michael Polanyi's Work on Surfaces and the Solid State,” inChemical Sciences in the 20th Century: Bridging Boundaries, ed. Carsten Reinhardt (Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2001), 246-257, on 250. Subsequent references should use Nye, “At the Boundaries,” 253.

Books for Review        

Please send copies and full publication details to the Book Review Editor: Professor Ernst Homburg, Department of History, University of Maastricht, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. Email: E.Homburg@history.unimaas.nl. Books for review should not be sent to the Editor, Dr Peter Morris.

Tables and Illustrations       

Small tables should be incorporated into the document and large tables and figures should be supplied separately with a separate list of captions, including credit for reproduction. In the text there should be a reference for each figure (see figure 1, etc.). The Society has no facility for producing artwork, so all illustrations must be provided at the final stage, to a publishable standard at the author's cost, either in the form of glossy prints or high-quality scanned images. Half tones should be scanned at 350/400 dpi; simple line drawings at 800 dpi; and fine line drawings at 1200dpi. All scanned images should be accompanied by a hard copy print out for reference. Avoid inserting artwork or diagrams into the text file, but for equations, chemical structures or formulae it is acceptable to use packages such as Chemdraw. Permission to reproduce illustrations should be obtained by the author before including the illustrations in the work. 

Proofs        

Proofs will be sent to the author nominated for correspondence by email. Proofs are supplied for checking and making essential typographical corrections, not for general revision, alteration, or changes to illustrations, which will not be allowed. Proofs must be returned to the editor within 4 days of receipt, preferably by email.

Eprints        

Authors of papers in Ambix receive a screen-resolution PDF file of the published version. Orders for digital reprints may be made at the time proofs are distributed.