Mississippi Encyclopedia

Contributor Instructions and Style Guide

 

Format:

  • Please provide an electronic copy of your submission to us by sending your document as an email attachment to meownby@olemiss.edu  (please contact us if you have questions about how to do this). If it is not possible for you to submit your work in electronic form, please inform us of this when submitting the printed copy of your work.
  • Acceptable word processing formats include Microsoft Word for Windows and Word Perfect.

 

Citations:

  • There will be no footnotes or endnotes in Encyclopedia articles.
  • However, you should provide a brief bibliography at the end of your article that lists works used to prepare your entry (see examples below).
    • Books: Thomas P. Abernathy, The South in the New Nation, 1789-1819 (1961); Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (1992).
    • Edited Book: Henning Cohen and William B. Dillingham, eds., Humor of the Old South (1964).
    • Article in Edited Book: Barbara Ellen Smith, “A Comparative Study of Risk in the Workplace” in Health and Work Under Capitalism: An International Perspective, eds. Vincent Navarro and Daniel M. Berman (1983).
    • Journal Article: James R. Shortridge, “The Search for Archeological Evidence in Iraq,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (June 1977).

 

  • Additionally, please provide a list of resources that will help in fact checking statistics, figures, and dates. Please make clear which facts came from which resources.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Style Guide

Mississippi Encyclopedia

 

Reference: General guides are The Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press), Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, and Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary

 

Capitalize: South, Southerner, nouns and adjectives designating cultural movements and styles when they are derived from proper nouns; proper names of places (Deep South, Old South, the Piedmont, Old Dominion); appellations of historical, political, economic, and cultural events (Kentucky Derby, Prohibition, Reconstruction); titles of works of art; the full names of governmental  and judicial bodies; religious bodies and denominations; religious councils, synods, and meetings; religious events and concepts; the full titles of military groups; political and economic organizations and alliances; full titles of institutions and companies; associations and conferences (Ku Klux Klan, Knights of Columbus); religious groups (Negro, Native American); trademarks (Coca-Cola, Martha White Flour).  DO NOT capitalize points of the compass (north, south, east, and west).  Designations based on color or local usage are lower-cased (black, white, redneck).

 

Dates: Cite as day, month, and year without internal punctuation (5 October 1968).  Spell out references to specific centuries and decades (twentieth century, the sixties); decades in numeral will be written solid (the 1960s); do not use a comma between month and year (May 1994).

 

Abbreviations: Keep these to a minimum.  Titles of address (Dr., the Rev., Mr.), names of states, months (when accompanied by day and year) are acceptable.

 

Numbers: Spell out all cardinal numerals from one to one hundred; use Arabic figures for the rest.  However, numerals will be used for numbers less than 100 that are being compared with numbers more than 100 (20 of the 230 respondents).

 

Italics: Underline all foreign words and phrases unless they appear in Webster’s.  Underline and capitalize legal cases, books, long poems, magazines, newspapers, plays, motion pictures, works of art, titles of exhibitions, and musical compositions.  Song titles should be quoted.  Use italics for tv and radio series and quotation marks for names of individual programs in a series.

 

Punctuation: Use an apostrophe and an “s” to form proper noun possessives even when they end in “s” (Smith’s, Jones’s).  Use a comma to separate items in a series of three or more words.  Place a comma or a period inside quotations marks.  Place a semicolon or colon outside quotation marks.  Use a colon to introduce a long quotation.  Parentheses set off supplementary or explanatory material when the interruption is more marked than usually indicated by commas.  Brackets are used to indicate an author’s comments within quoted material and at the end of block quotations to give the source of the quotation.

 

Spelling: Words with the following prefixes will not be hyphenated: ante, anti, bi, co, counter, extra, inter, intra, non, re, post, pre, pro, pseudo, semi, socio, sub, trans (for example: prewar, interregional).  The hyphen will be retained when the second element is in numerical form or begins with a capital (anti-Semitic, pre-Civil War, pre-1939).  Words with the suffix “like” will be spelled solid (warlike).  Compound nouns in common usage will be spelled solid (headache, farmland).  Compound nouns that are capitalized will usually not be hyphenated (African American), but certain other forms (Afro-American) are hyphenated.