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H-South, An H-Net Network
H-South Book Review Formatting Information.

Please follow these guidelines as closely as possible. It will help us to publish a timely and scholarly review. If you have questions please contact the H-South Review Editor (binningt@uiuc.edu)

Reviews must be in ASCII format, that is, plain vanilla a-b-c's with no accents or italics (on most computers, save as *.txt).

All reviews should carry the reviewer's name, institutional affiliation and e-mail address at the top. As you format the header of your review, please consult the following template example:

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-South@h-net.msu.edu (Month, 2000)

John Smith. _Title of Book_. Trans. Jerome Healy [If there is a series, put it here]. New York: Basic Books, 1998. x + 330 pp. Tables, maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $20.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-01-567890-8; $9.95 (paper), ISBN 01-567890-8.

Reviewed for H-South by Jane Doe (doej@somewhere.edu), Department of Some Subject, Somewhere University

Jane Doe's Book Review Title

Readers will like this book a lot because ...
{After the text comes the copyright statement:}

Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact H-Net@h-net.msu.edu.

All reviews should be titled.

Paragraphs should not be indented and should be set off by a clear line of text.

All reviews must be headed with the full information concerning the book.

Please remember that books have "Forewords" -- not Forwards.

Italics can be represented in ASCII like this: _Title of Book_.

In listing the publisher and place of publication, there are three rules:

If the state is named in the name of the publisher, it's not included in the place. So Lexington: University Press of Kentucky and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

We use "literary" abbreviations for states, rather than postal codes; so Conn., not CT, Del., not DE.

Generally, if a publisher has US and overseas offices, we try to list one of each, since folks all over the world access the pages. So Cambridge University Press is New York and Cambridge, England, etc.

Please include information about bibliography, notes, tables, etc. All graphics -- tables, figures, photos, etc. -- are usually lumped by the cataloguers as "illustrations." Notes or bibliography, or both, are usually listed as "bibliographical references" without elaboration.

The "N"in ISBN stands for Number, so don't say, "ISBN No."

All reviews should be single spaced. However, it is fine skip an occasional line for the sake of appearance.

Two spaces should appear after colons and periods.

The text should be 60 to 75 columns wide, and should start at the flush left margin.

Do not use tabs or extra spaces. Nearly anything you do to optimize the look of the review in your own e-mail program will be lost in ASCII, and sometimes it will cause garbled text or added characters.

Please do not add hyphens in words to make the lines look nice on your screen. When e-mail or html rejustifies the text, extra spaces will appear, since the word will often no longer be at the end of a line.

Any standard citation form may be used. However, reviewers should use endnotes rather than footnotes which do not translate well in e-mail or the web.

For citations of internet sources, you may wish to reference Mel Page's useful General Citation Guidelines.

Page numbers should be supplied for all quoted passages. Please use the following standard:<

"... does not really answer the question" (pp. 235-36); or "... if he had thought of it," (p. xv). Note that the punctuation goes after the citation.

...in a recently published article.[2] is how to designate a note. Then, for the note itself:
[2]. James Smith, "Article," etc.

H-Net is flexible concerning the length of reviews, but 1,000 - 1,250 words is the H-South standard.

Reviewers should proofread their text carefully. Please consult the following mini styleguide:

Use U.S. as an adjective; United States as a noun.

Spell out names of centuries; and hyphenate when they are adjectives: "eighteenth-century literature."

& and % can cause problems on the Web; use "and" and "percent" unless in a quotation.

Spell out most numbers under 1000--numbers which can be spelled out in less than three words; BUT use arabic numerals in "10 percent."

Use "..." for ellipses, and "...." if a sentence ends in the omitted part; "word--word" for dashes (no spaces).

Finally, if you have any questions, please contact the H-South Review Editor (binningt@uiuc.edu).