Style

Style refers to the system of spelling, punctuation, referencing and design which is applied to an edited work. We follow Oxford style for most matters, including citation and referencing (for which we use a footnotes system). For spelling and grammar in Australian English, the Macquarie Dictionary is the authoritative source.

Oxford style is summarised by New Hart's Rules (NHR). For writing by, for or about Indigenous Australians, refer to the AIATSIS Style Guide for Authors and Editors and the Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges.

If you are a student, you likely have access the these resources through your University Library. Otherwise, contact the editors if you have enquries.

Common pain points in referencing

Legal sources

Legal references in Oxford style are outlined in the Oxford Standard to the Citation of Legal Authorities, but the main information is also available in NHR, chap. 13. They are very similar to the prescriptions of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) with which most law students will be familiar.

Do not cite editions that you did not use

There a lot of historical texts in political economy which have been published many times, in many places, in many languages. If you use, for example, the English Penguin 1992 version of Marx's Capital, there is no reason to cite the 1918 Russian edition published in Moscow. This is academic dishonesty.

Do not provide incomplete references

When we typeset your manuscript, your references are generated by a computer program. Therefore it is not important that your manuscript has perfect references (though this is good practice of course). However, your references MUST include all the relevant details. As far as applicable, each of the following details should be provided—

Authors, editors, translators

In the order listed and using the spelling as used by the work. Titular prefixes (Mr, Mrs, Revd, Dr, Prof) are not necessary. For organisations, do not provide abbreviations (British Broadcasting Corporation, not BBC).

Titles and subtitles

In most cases, match the title to the spelling and punctuation of the work cited. Titles of books, periodicals, and albums are set in italics with maximal capitalisation (Transgender Studies Quarterly) but individual components such as chapters, articles, short stories or poems are minimally capitalised and set in single quotes ('Scientific management').

Publisher and place of publication

Use the shortest intelligible unit without shortening words to identify the publisher as it appears on the imprint (on the title page or half-title of the work). For the place of publication, use the first listed city on the title or copyright page. You may add a US state abbreviation if necessary (Cambridge, MA). 

Year or date

For most works, it is sufficient to include a year of publication. However, most periodicals publish more frequently so that the issue should be identified by a season or month (Feb. 2017). Try to avoid seasons as these are reversed across the hemispheres. You may use a full date or time when referencing social media posts or other online sources. For web sources, you might have to include the dates of creation, publication, latest update and your access as necessary.

Reprints and editions

Reprints (repr.) and fascimile editions (facs. edn) are reproductions that do not substantially change the content of a work, but might add a preface or similar. There are also revised reprints (rev. repr.) and new editions where page numbers and content could change substantially. It is good practice to include the details of the first edition as well as the details of whichever version you are using. If the copyright page of the work lists multiple years, use first printing of your specific edition. If you're not using the first edition, include the edition number in ordinal form (2nd, 23rd) in your citation.

Periodical volume and number

Most periodicals or serial publications follow the rule of one volume per year. Some periodicals that do not publish more than once a year therefore do not bother with volume numbers, or simply use the year as the volume number. In this case, there is no need to repeat the volume number since this information is already captured in the date. Most periodicals number their issues sequentially using Arabic numerals within each volume, but not all of them. Follow the conventions of your publication so that an interested reader can find your source easily.

Pagination

With chapters and essays in books, as well as articles in periodicals, it is customary to end the citation with the page range showing the extent of the work cited. This is especially important for through-paginated periodicals with no issue numbers, since the page numbers span a number of issues within the same volume and there might not be a single contents page. In some legal sources, you can provide paragraphs numbers alongside or in lieu of page numbers, and for web resources you may need to use paragraph or section numbers as appropriate.

Address of online source or DOI

All web pages should include a URL, or preferably a DOI if one is available. Some e-print servers have their own address or reference systems as well, such as the arXiv (2505.07461 [math-ph]). For hosted files, do not include a direct link to the location of the file (https://[...]/name.pdf) as these often change, rather use a web page that links to the file.