Style Guidelines

The LIS Publications Wiki uses the following style guidelines:

Note: Our goals for style and formatting are consistency, findability, and readability. Although we generally follow the published guidelines above, we sometimes adapt the rules to meet the wiki’s goals.


Abbreviations and acronyms

Use the full formal title, followed by the short version of the title or acronym in parentheses, for the page title, the entry in the profile’s “Title:” field, and the publication category listing.

Examples:       Society of California Archivists Newsletter (SCA Newsletter); Journal of Web Librarianship (JWL); Young Adult Library Services (YALS)            

In some instances, the acronym is used in the title of the publication. Do not try to define it in the category listing or title if the undefined acronym is part of the official publication title. Instead, clarify the acronym within the publication profile itself.

Examples:       CCL Outlook: Newsletter of the Council of Chief Librarians, California Community Colleges; The ALAN Review   

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Articles

Publication titles

If a publication includes “The” in its title, include the article in the page title and profile’s “Title:” field.

Examples:       The Active Librarian; The ALAN Review; The New Yorker

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Capitalization

Publication titles

Use headline-style capitalization (“initial caps”) for publication titles: capitalize all major words; lowercase articles, conjunctions, and prepositions; capitalize an article if it succeeds a colon.

Examples:       In the Library with the Lead Pipe; Ariadne: A Web Magazine for Information Professionals

If lowercase is intentional, use the publication’s style.

Examples:       base line; ilovelibraries; mental_floss

Use headline-style capitalization for wiki page titles. Use sentence style for subheads.

Seasons 

Lowercase titles of seasons – e.g., spring semester, fall semester

Subheadings 

Use sentence-style capitalization for wiki page subheadings (all levels):

Examples:      Publication analysis; About the publication; Conclusion: Evaluation of publication’s potential for LIS authors; Audience analysis

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Footnotes

Use Chicago Manual of Style to cite references to content posted online. See the “Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide,” especially the “Notes and Bibliography: Sample Citations,” for guidelines and examples. The wiki does not use bibliographies, but every entry includes footnotes.

Website

“About,” ProgrammingLibrarian.com, accessed September 29, 2015, http://www.programminglibrarian.org/about.

Subsequent references to this same reference would be:

“About.”

Blog entry

“Publisher’s Pledge to the Library Community,” Library Juice Blog, May 13, 2013, http://libraryjuicepress.com/blog/?cat=56.

Guidelines published electronically

“Litwin Books Submission Guidelines, ” Litwin Books, LLC, accessed September 21, 2015, http://litwinbooks.com/litwin-books-submission-guidelines.pdf.

*Note: In Fall 2015, the wiki transitioned from APA style to Chicago Manual of Style. Profiles published prior to late 2015 may include footnotes in APA (these will be updated over time as the profiles are revised).

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Hyphens

No hyphens with prefixes – e.g., coauthor, nonprofit, nonacademic, nonlibrarian, but non-English language, multi-institutional

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Numbers

In general, spell out whole numbers from one though one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence. For other numbers, numerals are used.

Examples:       “The publisher will acknowledge receipt of a proposal within two weeks, and aims to render a decision on acceptance within three months.”

“Library Juice also holds an annual paper contest (2,000 to 10,000 words) designed to encourage and reward good work in the field of library and information studies, humanistically understood, through a monetary award and public recognition.”

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Permalinks

When creating permalinks for a publication profile or wiki page, use dashes (rather than underscores) to indicate space between words. Omit any initial articles.

Example:         The Active Librarian = https://ischoolwikis.sjsu.edu/lispublications/wiki/active-librarian/

If the publication title includes a parenthetical acronym, do not include the parenthetical acronym in the permalink.

Example:         The Southeastern Librarian (SELn) = https://ischoolwikis.sjsu.edu/lispublications/wiki/southeastern-librarian/

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Punctuation

One space after a period, not two.

Use serial commas: This publication accepts feature articles, opinion pieces, and book reviews.

In general, final punctuation goes inside quotation marks (American style): “We love student authors,” the editor said, “but we don’t hear from them as often as we’d like to.”

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Useful links to resources

 

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