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• Contributors are requested to familiarise themselves with the aims and scope of the journal, as
  printed on the inside cover of JSIS and available on the JSIS web site.
  
  
• Contributors are invited to submit their manuscripts for consideration, preferably by e-mail or on disk, to the Editor. The full name and postal address of the author should be included with the submission but should not be apparent anywhere on the manuscript.
  
  
• Articles submitted should include an abstract of 100-150 words.
  
  
• Articles should not exceed 8000 words and book reviews should not exceed 2500 words, (but please note that unsolicited book reviews will not be accepted and contributors are requested to contact either the Editor or the relevant Reviews Editor before submitting a book review).
  
  
• Manuscript pages must be numbered unless submitted electronically.
  
  
• Electronic manuscripts must be submitted in rich text format (RTF). The reason for this is to ensure only basic formatting is maintained in the file. This helps us in preparing the layout of the journal. Preparing manuscripts in word processors such as Microsoft Word should be avoided because they write extra information in the file which we do not require. To avoid this problem manuscripts should be either (a) prepared in basic word processors which support RTF such as Word Pad (for Microsoft Windows users) or Simple Text (for Mac OS users), or (b) should be pasted into basic word processors after having been prepared.
  
  
• Contributors should not transliterate foreign words using characters and marks which are not available on the standard keyboard. The only characters which should be used for transliterations are the twenty-six letters of the alphabet [A-Z] devoid of diacritical marks uncommon to native English readers. The hyphen [-] and the inverted comma may also be used (for hamza use an inverted comma shaped like a nine [’] and for ‘ayn use an inverted comma shaped like a six [‘]). For more information see the notes on transliteration.
  
  
• Contributors must supply a list of the key transliterated terms which appear in their manuscript. Each entry in the list should be accompanied by (a) the word written in its original language e.g. Arabic, and (b) the word written using diacritics (e.g. ā, ī, and ū). For more information see the notes on transliteration.
  
  
• British spellings and style conventions should always be used. Regarding the latter, use short en-dashes [–] not long em-dashes [—]; also use single quotation marks unless quoting within a quote, in which case double quotation marks should be used. For more information on the latter please see R. M. Ritter (ed.), The Oxford Style Manual (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). The MHRA Style Guide may also prove useful (download available).

 

Guidelines on Style

• Contributors should aim to write in a style which is familiar to a native English reader. This means clarity and precision of expression is valued. Foreign words should be avoided as much as possible unless there is good reason to use them.
  
  
• Use of bullet-points should be avoided.
  
  
• Footnotes to the text should be avoided wherever this is reasonably possible (unless necessary for providing references).
  
  
• The only symbols which should be used for quotation marks and inverted commas are [ ‘ ’ “ ” ]. Failing this the following symbols can be used [ ' " ]. No other symbols such as [ ` « » „ ‛ ′ ″ ] should be used.
  
  
• Long quotations should be fully indented (e.g. quotes longer than 30 words). The first line of a new paragraph should be indented.
  
  
• In a list, a comma before the final ‘and’ is useful. For example: ‘one, two, and three’ rather than ‘one two and three’.
  
  
• Foreign words should be italicized. For more information see the notes on foreign words.
  
  
• When an historical author is being discussed it may at times be useful to mention his birth and death dates in brackets after the first mention of his name e.g. ‘Mulla Sadra (1571-1640) was an influential philosopher’.

Referencing

Contributors may choose to use either the author-date method of referencing or the endnote method, as discussed below. Whichever method is adopted the following points apply:

• Title of books and journals should appear in italics.
  
  
• Titles of journal articles and chapters should appear in single quotes.
  
  
• Titles of journals should not be abbreviated.
  
  
• When the publication date of an item is not available an approximate date should be given where possible.
  
  
• Volume numbers should be given in capital roman numerals e.g. ‘VII’.
  
  
• Journal issue numbers should be preceded by ‘no.’
  
  
• Hadith numbers (and other numbered articles) should be preceded by ‘no.’
  
  
• Page numbers should not be preceded by ‘no.’, ‘page’, ‘p’, or ‘pp’, etc.