Journal of the Institute of Conservation

The Journal of the Institute of Conservationis published twice a year by Routledge, in association with the Institute of Conservation (Icon). The journal is peer-reviewed, and its aim is to help improve the practice of conservation by communicating ideas relating to the conservation of cultural heritage. Articles should not normally exceed 10,000 words in toto (usually between 4,000 and 5,000 words in the main body). Shorter articles of up to 3,000 words are also welcome but are not peer-reviewed. Book reviews are also accepted.  

It is regretted that no payment is made for contributions.

Manuscripts

   Queries and any necessary substantive changes will be referred to the author for approval. Where there is more than one author all correspondence will be through the first-named person.

It is a condition of publication that authors assign copyright or license the publication rights in their articles, including abstracts, to Taylor and Francis under license from The Institute of Conservation. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and of course the Journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Authors retain many rights under the Taylor & Francis author rights policies, which can be found at www.informaworld.com/authors_journals_copyright_position. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources.

Proofs

Electronic proofs will be sent to authors for the correction of typesetting errors only. Alterations of proofs should be kept to a minimum. The author will be advised when corrected proofs should be returned; normally this will be within 72 hours of receipt. The Editor cannot undertake to make corrections not promptly received. Authors cannot make alterations to their article after first-proof stage.

Arrangement of text

1 Headings

The Journal style is to have two textual divisions only: sub-headings, printed in bold, and sub-sub-headings, printed in regular roman and numbered 1, 2, etc. (as in these guidelines).

2 Abstract

An abstract describing the main points of the article should be included, up to a maximum of 150 words. The English abstract will be translated into French, German and Spanish. If contributors are able to provide the abstract in any of these languages they may do so.

3 Keywords

Authors should list six keywords.

4 Footnotes

The house style is to use footnotes rather than endnotes, and should include any supplementary information, e.g. Health and Safety, references to unpublished information. These should be numbered consecutively and should be as short as possible. Please do not use the automatic footnote application in the word-processing package. Notes are typeset separately and should always be listed in a separate file, not embedded in the text. Personal communications should be dated. The British Chicago footnotes only referencing system is preferred.

5 Illustrations (figures)

Normally up to eight black and white half-tone illustrations or drawings may be used in each article. Line drawings and diagrams must be reproducible in black and white. They should be clear and simple; computer-generated bitmap diagrams should be avoided, as these are problematic to resize. To save typesetting time, text such as labels, keys or legends should not be put on the artwork itself. Such text should be marked on a second copy of the illustration.

Authors are encouraged to supply images which most accurately reflect the point being explained and to keep a copy of any photographic material submitted. Please ensure that images are of the highest possible quality, as poorly focused, low contrast, or very dark pictures will not reproduce well and may have to be rejected. Colour reproduction is expensive and can only be considered when its use is essential. Colour illustrations submitted may be published in black and white, at the Editor's discretion. The Editor reserves the right to adjust the size and framing of illustrations.

 Digital images should be at least 300–400dpi at the size they are intended to print. When taking digital pictures intended for reproduction, the largest file size should be chosen or the fewest pictures, whichever the camera uses to describe its largest volume capability. Image files can be submitted by post on CD-ROM, or in TIFF and JPEG formats. Please do not embed images in the text, as extracting them for publication greatly reduces resolution and quality. Images should be saved as separate files.

   Figures are numbered consecutively, in the order of citation in the text, irrespective of whether they are black and white or colour photographs, graphs, or diagrams. Please label the digital file with the correct Fig. number and indicate the approximate position of text Figs. in the manuscript.

 If the authors do not own the copyright of illustrations, permission to reproduce them both in print and electronic formats in the Journal of the Institute of Conservation,and in any subsequent form (e.g. electronic database), must have been obtained from the copyright owner.

 Material supplied for illustrations will be returned. Although all reasonable care is taken, no responsibility can be accepted either by The Institute of Conservation, the Editor or Taylor & Francis for loss of, or damage to, original works submitted for reproduction.

6 Tables

Note that tables are left-justified and should not have borders or vertical lines. Tables generated electronically should be saved in a separate file and not embedded as objects in the text file. Each table should be submitted on a separate page. Tables are numbered consecutively, in the order cited in the text, in a separate sequence from that of the figures.

7 Captions

A caption must be supplied for each figure and table. Captions may include relevant information or highlight details of the image. Do not duplicate information already in the text. Captions should be listed on a separate page and saved in a separate disk file. If applicable, acknowledgement of copyright must be included with each caption.

8 Acknowledgements

Include brief acknowledgements if desired.

9 Appendices

Brief appendices may be included. This is an appropriate place to put any relevant detailed health and safety information.

10 Bibliographic references

Reference to published work or that which is likely to remain reasonably accessible in the long term, is made according to the Chicago (British) referencing system.

Do not use the terms ibid, idem, op. cit, and loc. cit when referring to previously cited works: just cite author's surname(s), short form of the title and relevant page number(s).

11 Materials and suppliers

The manufacturers of all commercial products must be given. Trade marks and registered names should be given the appropriate symbol, in superscript. Please ensure that the full address is given, including the country. Where a trade name is used, it should be given a capital letter and be followed after its first mention with its chemical name or description in brackets e.g. Paraloid B-72 (poly(ethyl methacrylate-co-methyl acrylate)).

12 Biographies

The title, position and place of work of each author, together with a short biography of up to 100 words must be included.

13 Contact address

A contact and email address for each author must be provided. However, for reasons of consistency telephone and fax numbers are not printed.

House style

Spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc. should conform to Icon house style. The following is offered as a guide to the preferred style, to assist authors in their preparation and to ensure consistency throughout the journal and across other Icon publications. Language employed should be clear, straightforward and free from idiomatic expressions. Jargon and culture-specific terms should be avoided, unless defined or explained in full in the text.

1 Electronic documents

Only true fonts should be used; such as Times New Roman or Arial found in the pull-down menu on ‘Word' documents. Greek letters should also be taken from a true font; the pull-down menu has one called ‘Symbols' which is a Greek font. Use of symbols from the ‘Insert' button on the tool bar should be avoided, as they are not true fonts and may not come through in the printing.

   Text submitted should be left-justified and without hyphenation, except for compound words. Please do not set the text of footnotes and captions to a smaller font size – this will be done by the typesetter. Pages of drafts should be numbered. Footnotes should appear in numerical order. The number should be placed as a superscript at the end of the sentence to which it refers, after the full stop. Do not generate footnotes using the automatic footnote/endnote application in the word-processing package. The text of footnotes should be placed in order of citation in a separate file, preceded by the footnote number in bold.

   Paragraphs should be distinguished by a tabular indent of two character spaces in the first line, except for the first paragraph in a sub-heading. Quotations of two or more lines in length should be preceded by a colon and placed on a new line, indented by two tabular stops. Try to keep the use of lists to a minimum. If lists are necessary, place each item on a new line, indented two character spaces and preceded by an item number if necessary. Do not use bullet points.

   Do not put any extra spacing between lines, paragraphs, references, etc. Necessary spacing is done by the typesetter. Use single spaces after full stops, commas, colons, and semi-colons.

2 Titles and headings

The authors' names appear in full before the main title on a separate line. The main title should reflect clearly and succinctly the contents of the article, in order to assist indexing and information retrieval services. Capitalization is used only for the first letter of the first word unless proper nouns are used in the title, e.g. ‘Displaying the Wernher Collection: a pragmatic approach to display cases'.

Sub-headings and sub-sub-headings in the text have first letter only capitalized. Sub-headings are also set bold (as in these guidelines).

3 Spelling

UK spelling conventions should be used. Ensure that spellings are consistent throughout the text. Some preferred spellings are noted here, but a style sheet for the chosen version of all words with alternative spellings would be impracticable, so authors are referred to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary to determine which version to use. Technical and chemical names should be checked for accuracy with a recognized reference work. Preferred spellings include:

 Acknowledgement not acknowledgment

 Ageing not aging

 Centre not center

 Colour not color (but colorant is acceptable)

 Gelatine not gelatin (unless referring to photographic gelatin)

 Grey not gray

 Programme not program (unless referring to computer program)

 -ize spellings not -ise spellings, generally. Exceptions are advertise, advise, comprise, compromise, demise, devise, enterprise, excise, exercise, improvise, incise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise. Also analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, not analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze.

 Be careful also to distinguish between apparently similar words, eg silicon/silicone.

4 Foreign words, Latin words and phrases

These are usually set in italic, e.g. circa (also its abbreviation c.), en route, funori, kozo, tour de force. Ensure correct accents are used where appropriate. Foreign words assimilated into English or which have a technical meaning do not need italics, e.g. catalogue raisonné, chiaroscuro, impasto, pentimento, putto, oeuvre, recto, verso. Foreign proper nouns do not need italics: Académie Française, unless they are also titles of works of art, literature, etc. et al. is in general use and is not italicised.

5 Capitalization

Capitalize all proper nouns, including period and style names, e.g. Middle Ages, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Mughal, Tang Dynasty, Victorian, Cubist, etc. Qualifiers for these are also capitalized: Late Gothic. Capitalize royal and noble titles when referring to an individual, e.g.: ‘the Duke of York', but use lower case when generalizing: ‘the dukes and earls'. Religious events are usually capitalized, e.g. ‘the Agony in the Garden'.

   Capitalize proprietary names. (Registered names and Trade Marks should be given the appropriate superscript symbol). Names of chemical elements and compounds are not capitalized: alum, methyl cellulose, tri-ammonium citrate, xylene (exceptions are certain organic compounds containing a nitrogen atom, e.g. N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone).

6 Abbreviations

For figure references use e.g.: ‘Fig. 1', ‘Figs. 2–5' in both text and captions. Do not use a full stop after contractions such as Dr, Mr, St (saint), unless they fall at the end of a sentence (but Prof. is correct). Do not use a full stop in acronyms or in AD, BC, MS. See also Bibliographic references below.

 Ensure consistency when a title or term is abbreviated. The full term should be given when first mentioned, with the abbreviation in parentheses, e.g. The Institute of Conservation (Icon), ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA). The abbreviation should be used consistently after this. Commonly used abbreviations are:

FTIR             fourier transform infra-red (spectroscopy)

IMS              industrial methylated spirit

PVAC          polyvinyl acetate

PVAL           polyvinyl alcohol

UV               ultraviolet

7 Numbers

Spell out numbers one to nine; use figures for 10 and over. If figures under and over 10 appear in the same sentence change both to figures. Use figures for ages and with abbreviations of units. Use a comma separator for numbers over 9999, but not in strings of numbers such as inventory or serial numbers. For decimals use a point, not a comma. Precede decimals of values less than one with an initial zero, eg: 0.12 not .12. Express very large or very small numbers using powers of 10, eg: 1.23 x10⁷, not 12,300,000; 9.87 x10^-5, not 0.0000987.

8 Dates

Use day, month, year: ‘1 January 2000'. AD is assumed unless otherwise indicated. If another dating system is referred to, give the Christian Era equivalent where possible. Spell out century numbers e.g. nineteenth-century. When part of an adjectival phrase use a hyphen: ‘mid-nineteenth-century album', but no hyphenation when used as a noun: ‘albums in the mid nineteenth century'. For date ranges use 1834–37 not 1834–7. For alternative dates use 1648/9. No apostrophe is needed in ‘the 1980s', etc.

9 Dimensions, units, and nomenclature

Where possible Système International (SI) units (based on the metre, kilogramme, second, candela, ampere and kelvin) should be used: any good dictionary will have a list of these, together with derived units such as the volt and joule. It is acceptable to use degrees Celsius for temperatures unless referring to very high or low temperatures, where the kelvin is more appropriate, e.g.: ‘a colour temperature of 3500K'.

 Metric units of measurement are abbreviated and closed up to figures, e.g. 8mm, but given in full if referred to generally in the text, e.g. ‘measurements were taken in millimetres'. Note that for units the abbreviation of the plural does not take a final s, e.g.; cm not cms for centimetres. Imperial or other units of measurement should only be used if appropriate to the subject (e.g. when quoting a historical reference). Otherwise they should be converted to metric measurements or the metric equivalent should be added after, in parentheses. The symbol µ is acceptable for micron (micrometre).

 Dimensions of objects should be given as height before width in the case of two-dimensional items, and height before width before breadth for three-dimensional items.

 Ratios of units should be expressed using superscript notation: gm^-2 not g/m² or gsm for grammes per square metre.

 Nomenclature (e.g. chemicals, colour, minerals) should follow international or UK (BSI) standards.

10 Emphasis

If emphasis is necessary in the text use italic, not bold or upper case. Use italic for titles of works of art, books, journals, plays, movies, videos, etc. In captions use bold for ‘Table 1', ‘Fig. 2'.

11 Punctuation

Use single quotation marks. If a quote within a quote ends at the same time the full stop is placed between quotation marks, e.g.: '.' Use the ellipsis: . . . (note single spaces between points) in quotations to denote intentionally missing words. Use round brackets (parentheses) around explanations, translations, etc. Use square brackets around additions/explanations added by someone other than the original author. (A complete sentence within parentheses or quotes should end with a full stop before closing the bracket or quote.) Use apostrophes for possessive meaning, e.g. ‘Icon's policy'. Use hyphens for clarity, to avoid confusion in reading. Hyphenate iron-gall, non-reversible, cost-effective. Do not hyphenate acid free, self portrait, so called, well preserved.

Please refer to the following publication for guidance on writing an article on conservation:

C.V. Horie and J. Navarro, 'Writing for Conservation', Conservation News 69, July (1999),11–15 (available on Icon website www.icon.org.uk).

Address for Editor:

Email: mailto:janet.berry@live.co.uk

Icon—Institute of Conservation:

Downstream Building
1 London Bridge
London SE1 9BG
UK

Tel: 0207 7853807
Website: www.icon.org.uk