Style Sheet for Submissions

To ensure that there is a maintained standard and consistency with all works
published to the Curtin Writers Club, please follow this Style Sheet when formatting
your piece for submission to our publications. We understand that a lot of formatting
you may have applied to your piece will not transfer to online text, and formatting
that you may not have applied will be applied to text for publication in the zine/any
printed works.
Please adhere to the following guidelines. Submission to CWC means your
acknowledgement of the following guidelines and that your piece will be structurally
edited upon its reception if there are any inconsistencies.

Capitalisation

In poetry Capitalise first letter of each line

Capitalise proper nouns (e.g. places, names, institutions/organisations, titles, etc.)
No words in ALL CAPS for emphasis
Do not capitalise season names (e.g. Autumn)

Italics

Italics for titles of books, magazines, periodicals, newspapers, plays, films, operas, album
titles, artworks, ships and aircraft, and names of genera, species and subspecies
Use italics for words in languages other than Australian English
Do not use italics for titles of chapters, articles, essays, poems, short stories use single
quotation marks ()
Use italics for narrator/characters inner thoughts

Punctuation

Single spacing after full stops

Oxford comma (e.g. Red, blue, and green.)
Ellipses (no longer than three periods) and spaced on both sides: text text
Use apostrophes after informal abbreviations (eg. Cos)
No s after apostrophes after s (e.g. Thomas, not Thomass)
Hyphenate compound words (e.g. Food-splattered shirt, nine-year-old)
Spaces between both sides of n-rule/n-dash (e.g. Text other text text)
(Literary) interrupted sentences use an m-rule (e.g. Text)
Use n-rule in between numbers, no spacing (e.g. 2125)

Quotes

Single quotation marks in dialogue; double quotation marks for quotes within quotes
Single quotation marks for dialogue in poems
If a quotation is over 30 words long, it should be indented without quotation marks, except
where they appear within the quotation
If 1 or more complete sentences are quoted, or if the quotation is introduced with a colon,
the final full stop should be placed inside the quoted text.

Example:
What matters, said Jane, is the price.

Numerals

Spell out numbers 1 to 99

Time should be in the format 2:30 a.m.
Prices should be in the format $3.25
Years are in numerals (e.g. 1969)
When referencing specific decades, reference the whole year also (e.g. 1990s)
Addresses are in numerals (e.g. number 34, Rose St.)
Dates should be in the format 23 October 2014
No comma in figures (e.g. 200 000)
Spell out metric units (e.g. two Litres)
Ages (when succeeded by -year-old) are written (e.g. seventy-three-year-old)
Use words for general, approximate, or rounded numbers (e.g. one thousand, about six
million)
Groups of numbers, measurements, time, currency should be expressed in figures (e.g. 10
km, 5:00 a.m., $25.00, US$25.00
Centuries in words (e.g. Fifth century)
Use words for percentages (unless in reports, articles, etc.)

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Closed up initials with full stops and space before surname (e.g. C.Y. OConnor)
Full stops in abbreviations (e.g. R.I.P)
No full stop after abbreviations ending in last letter (e.g. Mr)
Abbreviations that dont end in last letter do take a full stop:
Example:
e.g., et al., etc., a.m., p.m., co.,

Acronyms do not take full stops (e.g. USA)

Spelling

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

http://www.oed.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/
English spelling
o our not or
o iour not ior
o ise not ize
o yse not yze
o re not er
o lled not led
o lling not ling
Retain US spelling for proper nouns (e.g. Pearl Harbor)
Other spellings to note:
o Acknowledgment not acknowledgement
o Best-seller
o Coordinate

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Cooperate
Judgement not judgment (latter for legal cases)
No one
Per cent not percent, except percentage
Post-war
Practice and licence (nouns)
Practise and license (verbs)
Reissue

Formatting

No asterisks between paragraphs

No spaces between paragraphs
No indents in poems (unless artistically employed)
Middle alignment for titles of essays and by line
Left alignment for titles of poems and by line