Notes for Contributors - Medieval Sermon Studies

Please read the following guidelines carefully. The stylesheet used is MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for Authors, Editors, and Writers of Theses (London, 2002); this must be strictly adhered to; full details about this guide and how to order copies are available on the www.maney.co.uk site. Below we include those points from MHRA that will be of most relevance to our contributors; readers should note, however, that contrary to MHRA practice, publishers should not be provided in publication details. 

1. Please submit three hard copies of your manuscript. The article, which should be double-spaced, justified and preferably in the Times New Roman font, should normally be no more than 10,000 words, including notes; you should also include a brief summary of your article of no more than 200 words. Authors will also be expected to supply a copy of their article on disk in PC format, preferably Word. Articles must not be saved in ASCII format since codes such as italic will not be preserved. Please indicate on the disk label the software and format used as well as the author's name, article title, and word count. 

2. Notes: Do not use the automatic note numbering systems available on some programs. Type the number reference markers in the text as regular figures within square brackets and save the notes as a separate file, identified as [1], [2], etc. 

3. References: Please follow the examples below. (Note that the author's name should be given exactly as it stands in the publication, that is, either in full or as initials, that the publisher should not be given, and that there is one space after p. and after pp.) 

a) reference to a book: Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400-c.1580 (New Haven and London, 1992), p. 41. 

b) reference to an edited text: The Book of Tribulation, ed. by Alexandra Barratt, Middle English Texts, 15 (Heidelberg, 1983), pp. 34-45. 

c) reference to an article in an edited collection: Clare M. Kudera, 'Models of Monastic Devotion in Peter of Celle's Sermons for the Feast of Mary Magdalene', in Models of Holiness in Medieval Sermons. Proceedings of the International Symposium (Kalamazoo, 4-7 May 1995), ed. by Beverly Mayne Kienzle and others, Textes et études du moyen âge, 5 (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1996), pp. 67-84. 

d) reference to an article in a journal: Valerie Edden, 'Marian Devotion in a Carmelite Sermon Collection of the Late Middle Ages', Mediaeval Studies, 57 (1995), 101-29 (p. 114). 

e) references to encyclopaedias and dictionaries in multiple volumes: Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. by Joseph R. Strayer and others (New York, 1982-89), VI (1985). f) reference to theses and dissertations R. J. Ingram, 'Historical Drama in Great Britain from 1935 to the Present' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, 1988), p. 17. g) For all other examples not covered above please refer to: MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for Authors, Editors, and Writers of Theses (London, 2002). 

4. Where there is more than one reference to the same book or article, give a shortened form of the reference, e.g., 'Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 94'. 

5. Be consistent in the use of terminology, names, dates, etc., and double-check all notes to ensure accuracy.

6. For articles written in English, British rather than American spelling should always be used. For spelling please refer to the Oxford English Dictionary. Please note that 'ize' rather than 'ise' spellings should be used throughout (e.g. standardize not standardise). 

7. Enclose quotations in 'smart' single quotation marks; for quotations within quotations use "double" quotation marks. Italics should be used only for titles of texts not for quotations. 

8. Use the following abbreviations: p. 4; pp. 3-5; fol. 45r; fols 56v-78r. Please note that there is a space between page and folio abbreviations and the number, and that there is no full-stop after the 'fols' abbreviation. 

9. When translations of quotations are given, the original language should appear in the body of the text and a translation should appear in the notes. 

10. References to manuscripts should be given in full as follows: city, repository, manuscript, for example: London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 546. The conventions for the layout of the particular manuscript references should be strictly and consistently observed, and when in doubt the fullest reference possible should be given. 

11. All papers written in English should give names of persons and places following English usage where possible. Thus 'Bernard of Clairvaux' and not 'Bernard de Clairvaux', 'Cologne' and not 'Köln'. 

12. Biblical references should be rendered as: Genesis 1. 5-7; Matthew 4. 3, with a space before the verse number. 

13. Numbers up to a hundred, including ordinals, should be written out in full, e.g. 'fifteen manuscripts'. Employ words rather than figures in the case of a phrase, e.g. 'over a thousand'. 

14. Note that the following forms should be used for dates: '16 September 1456', 'in the fifteenth century' (not '15th century'), and 'the 1350s' (not '1350's' or 'thirteen fifties'). 

15. Dashes and hyphens should be distinguished, and the differences between 'em' dashes and 'en' dashes observed, i.e. 'em' (-) dashes are used to enclose parenthetical statements, and 'en' (-) dashes to indicate a span (such as between page numbers). Note that hyphens should be used in adjectival compounds, e.g. 'fifteenth-century sermons' 

16. Materials may be submitted in either English or French. However, where we have the qualification to cope with other languages, we are willing to accept material in those languages. Contributors should check with the editorial team first to make sure that we have the necessary linguistic expertise to deal with their particular language. Moreover, contributors whose native language is not English should not be deterred from submitting articles to us in English as we are willing, if necessary, to make small adjustments to render the language more idiomatic, although we cannot undertake large-scale re-writing. 

17. If you have any further editorial queries please contact the Editors: Dr Carolyn Muessig, Medieval Sermon Studies, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, The University of Bristol BS8 1TB, UK (C.A.Muessig@bristol.ac.uk); or Dr Veronica O'Mara, Medieval Sermon Studies, Department of Humanities (English), The University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK (V.M.OMara@hull.ac.uk).