IJMES STYLE IN BRIEF
Follow Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and the Chicago Manual of Style.
For transliteration, follow the IJMES Transliteration Guide.
Other guidelines:
1) Spelling and word choice
• American spelling: glamorous, not glamourous; analyze, not analyse.
• If an English term exists for an Arabic word, use it.
• Avoid nisba adjectives unless technical terms: jihadist, not jihadi, unless you want jihādī.
2) Capitalization
• Check the dictionary.
• When in doubt, don’t.
• President Obama; Obama, president of the United States; the president.
3) Dates
• Use European-style dating: 2 January 1992.
• 20th century, not twentieth century; 1990s, not 1990’s or the nineties.
• Use common-era (B.C., A.D.) dates only, unless quoting from an original source, in which case use the date as quoted (hijra, solar, etc.) with the common-era date in parentheses.
4) Quotes
• Gandhi stated, “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
• Gandhi stated that “poverty is the worst form of violence.”
• Gandhi linked forms of oppression: “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
5) Citations
• Use endnotes instead of footnotes. In book reviews only, use parenthetical page numbers: (p.53).
• Follow rules in Chicago Manual of Style chapter 17.
• Study examples. Use a comma before page numbers in books and newspapers and a colon before page numbers in journals or magazines.
• Follow the IJMES Endnotes Guidelines.
6) Numbers
• Spell out whole numbers, cardinal and ordinal, from one to one hundred (Chicago Manual of Style 9.3, rest of section for exceptions).
• Spell out numbers at the start of a sentence.
• Spell out the word percent in main copy and notes: 20 percent.
• Use the symbol % in tables and when in parentheses: (20%).
7) Punctuation
• Use serial commas: blue, green, and yellow.
