European Journal of East Asian Studies

> Book reviews

One purpose of the EJEAS is to make European scholarship on East Asia better known internationally, and book reviews are an important element in this process. Books written in other European languages than English are often overlooked outside their country of origin, and we therefore particularly welcome reviews of such works.

All reviews should be comprehensible to a broad readership within the field of modern East Asian studies. Submission of a review is taken to mean that it has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere.

The standard length of a review is 800-1,000 words. Some publications may be better covered with short notices of about 200 to 300 words, however, while other may deserve a slightly longer review. Review articles covering several works within the same field or on a common theme are also welcome but will go through the normal procedure of peer review.

Reviewers are asked to summarize the main argument of the book under review and place it in the context of existing scholarship before evaluating its merits and shortcomings. This is particularly important for books in other languages than English, because it may be the only presentation of the book that will reach an audience, which does not read the language in which the book has been written.

Reviews are edited in line with the editorial conventions of the EJEAS. Please observe the following guidelines:

Spelling
Use British English spelling (but follow copy in quotations, book titles, etc.), with 'ise' for organise, etc.

Abbreviations
Place a full-stop after abbreviations (as in ed. for editor) but not after contractions or in acronyms (as in Mt for Mount and USA). Note p. for page and pp. for pages.

Punctuation
Single (not double) space after full stops and other punctuation marks. There should be no space before colons and semi-colons.

Capitalisation
Only use capital letters when essential – that is, when referring to a formally named entity.

Hyphenation and dashes
Hyphenate prefixes (post-war) and suffixes (maze-like). Hyphenate adjectival compounds, as large-scale plan, long-term vision. Use an 'en dash', available in all word processors or indicated with two hyphens, for ranges of figures (e.g. pp. 22-5) and linkage of two nouns, as in Labour-Liberal Alliance. Use an 'em dash', available in all word processors or indicated with three hyphens, in text with spaces on either side when appending a phrase.

Numbers
One to ten spelled out, 11 or more in figures. Use a comma for thousands, etc. Spell out centuries (nineteenth century, not 19th century). Use per cent in text, but % in notes and figures. Dates: 2 March 1993. Page references: pp 324--6 but pp 324--36. Repeat the decade for ranges of years: 1914-18.

Quotations
Use single quotation marks, but double marks for quotations within quotations. Quotation marks should go inside other punctuation marks, unless one or more full sentences are being quoted, in which case they should go outside. Indent longer quotations, leaving out quotation marks.

Romanisation of Chinese
Use pinyin without tone/diacritical marks, except the following, which use the Wade-Giles system: Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen, Taipei, Kuomintang, etc.; names of people living outside mainland China. Give Chinese characters on first occurrence to assist in proof-reading. Romanised words should be written in italics.

Romanisation of Japanese
Use the modified Hepburn system. Kanji and kana should be given on first occurrence. Romanised words should be written in italics. Suffixes should be hyphenated: machi-zukuri. Japanese personal names should follow the Japanese system, with family name first. Circumflexes should be used in place of macrons where required, except in very common place names: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Hokkaido. Note: Nihonbashi, not Nihombashi; Jun'ichi, not Junichi.

Romanisation of other languages
If in doubt, please consult the editors.

References, general

Use footnotes rather than parenthetical references in the text to a reference list. Numbers of notes in the text should come after a punctuation mark, preferably at the end of the sentence.

References: first citations

Books
English:

Author, Title of Book (Place of Publication: Publisher of Book, date), p. x.

Author, Non-English title of book (Translation of title) (Place of Publication: Publisher of Book, date), p. x.

Book chapters
English, edited volume:

Author of chapter, 'Chapter title', in Author (ed.), Book Title (Place of Publication: Publisher of Book, date), p. x.

Author of chapter, 'Non-English chapter title' (Translation of chapter title), in Author (ed.), Non-English book title (Translation of title) (Place of Publication: Publisher of Book, date), p. x.

Journal articles
English:

Author of article, 'Title of article', Journal Title, Vol. x, No. x (year), p. x.

Author of article, 'Non-English title of article' (Translation of title), Journal title, Vol. x, No. x (year), p. x.

Authors' names should be given on first citation as they appear on the title page of the publication to which reference is made.

References: subsequent citations

[English] Author, Shortened Title, p. x.
[Non-English] Author, Shortened title in original, p. x.

[English] Author, Shortened title, p. x.
[Non-English] Author, Shortened title in original, p. x.

Only give as much of the author’s name as is necessary. Do not use ibid.

Last modified: 09 August 2006, 06:22 PM