GENERAL GUIDELINES

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Authors should format text as they would like it to appear in print. The editors may augment artistic formatting due to printing issues. 

Alabastron will only accept original art to accompany poetry and flash fiction submissions at this time. This is optional and will not affect the status of your submission. 

The work must be original, contain no copyrighted material, be legally free to publish, and pertain to the written piece. 

Art should be submitted as a PNG file in both full colour and grayscale. 

The editors reserve the right to publish the written work without the accompanying art. 

Embodied Narratives should be written in the first person using ‘I’ and ‘We’ language. 

Research articles should be created in the author’s preferred style. However, Alabastron is a community-oriented journal. The author should take pains wherever possible to consider readability. This includes steps such as using inclusive language, avoiding unnecessary jargon and explaining terms obscure to the average person. 

Do not include an abstract in your final manuscript.

Define acronyms at their first occurrence in the text (with the abbreviated form in brackets). After this, use the acronym only.

Do not use an acronym if the definition or phrase is used only once

Alabastron adheres to the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook for in-line citations and references. 

Whenever possible online sources should include their DOI or Permalink URL; other URL addresses often decay over time.

Do not hyperlink URLs

A reference section should be at the end of your work, do not place citations in footnotes

A reference should give your reader enough information to locate the article

Dates are given in the form 1 January 2023, and periods are given using a full span, (e.g. 2003—2023).

All figures and tables should be static images submitted as PNG files.

Files should be submitted either in grayscale or in full colour and grayscale.

Place figures and tables between paragraphs of text; please do not embed in the text.

Place figures and tables as close as possible to the text where that data is discussed.

If the figure has been previously published elsewhere, obtain permission from the original publisher and include the wording of the appropriate permissions in your figure caption, even if it is your own work.

Figure and table captions should have numerical labels followed by a colon, then the image’s title followed by a dash, and finally, a description if necessary. [Example] Table 1: Title-Description

When referring to tables and figures in the text, use ‘table 1’ and ‘figure 1’ (or ‘Table 1’ and ‘Figure 1’ if at the beginning of a sentence), respectively. Please do not use contractions (e.g. ‘tab. 2’, ‘fig. 1’).

Number footnotes sequentially throughout the article.

Denote table footnotes with lowercase superscript roman letters (e.g. a,b,c).

Footnotes count towards your total word count, but citations and references do not.

Do not use endnotes.

Do not use a hyphen at the end of a line to divide a word. Instead, bring the whole word down to the next line.

If using hyphens to express a compound word, do so consistently throughout the manuscript.

The editors may return a draft to you for revision. Please review and return a revised draft by the date indicated in the editor’s email. Failure to revise by the given due date may result in your work not being published. 

Lists may be numbered using Arabic numerals or set as bullet points.

Non-English terms that are not adopted into English should be italicized upon their first use in the text. 

A translation or explanation of the term should be provided in brackets the first time the word is used if it is not evident from the text. 

The term does not need to be in italics beyond the first usage.  

For example, the French would crêpe is widely adopted in English and does not need to be italicized. Whereas the informal Spanish use of the word aguinaldo should be styles aguinaldo (end of the year bonus) the first time it is used.

Numbers from zero to ninety-nine should be spelt out. Arabic numerals are used for 100 and beyond. Numbers over 1,000 use a comma and not a period as a thousand separator.

Any photos submitted must be in PNG format in two versions, a full colour and a grayscale version of the photo with no stylistic editing or filters. 

The author must show written consent for publication for every person whose face is visible in the photo. Photos of children must have the parents written consent for publication. 

Those who do not consent or can not be found can have their faces and identifying markers obscured, provided that is sufficient to hide their identity (i.e. a responsible person could not identify them in a crowd.) 

The author should be in legal ownership of the photos or provide written consent for publication by the owner. 

If the photos have been previously published, the author must ensure that they possess the copyright for the photos or have obtained permission from the previous publisher and the photos are cited correctly. 

All photos should have captions and alt-text

Quotations should be given in single quote marks, with double quote marks for quotes within quotes; quotations of more than 50 words should be set apart from the main text and indented.

Section headings should not be numbered: first-level headings should be in bold text, second-level headings in italic text, and third-level headings in italic and included as part of the paragraph text.