PRISM Style Guide

Download this guide in pdf 345.7KB .pdf file

The PRISM Style Guide is based on the Museums Victoria Style Guide. As it is not exhaustive, other style guides should be used as required:

APA Style, 7th edition. These are helpful summaries for quick reference:
Australian Government Style Manual https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/
Macquarie Dictionary

The following content highlights specific information for authors and editors. It reiterates content from the above sources and provides clarity where they are contradictory. (Contradictions or alternatives are even found within these sources). If confusion persists after referring to the below section, the issue can be flagged as a comment in the submitted paper for the PRISM editorial board to review.

Overall Content of Submission

Article type
Title, subtitle (both in sentence case) and author
Abstract (up to 250 words)
Keywords (for search engine optimisation)
Body text (with heading to signify where it starts. Body text contains all footnotes, cited sources and bibliographical references. The body text should be structured by section headings as needed).
Section headings (bold)
Footnotes (not endnotes) including bibliographic references in APA 7th edition style; no bibliography. DOIs should be included where possible.
Captions & Copyrights
About the Author
Maximum 400 characters with spaces / 70 words, starting with “XXX is…” ORCID iD should be included if applicable.
Contact Information
First name / Surname
Institution, Role
Email
Postal address
Declaration of any conflicts of interest. Note: This is anything that interferes with or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with the full and objective presentation or publication of articles submitted to the journal, or the peer review and editorial decision-making processes.

Overall Format of Submission

Font, body text: Arial 11pt and 1.5 spacing
Font, footnotes: Arial 9pt and 1.0 spacing. Footnotes end with full stop in all cases.
Margins: 3cm on all sides
Text left justified
No page numbers
Between sentences: single space, not double
Between paragraphs: double line spacing
Short quotations (more than two words): in italics, with single inverted commas (Museums Victoria requires italics)
Long quotations: in separate paragraphs, in italics, without inverted commas (unless within quoted text), indented 1.25
Section headings should be bold, in sentence case; no more than three levels
Reference numbers in text: outside punctuation – as noted by Smith.¹
No bibliography at end; references within footnotes

Format, Expression & Capitalisation

This publication should be referred to as a journal, in preference to “volume”, “work” or “title”
Each contribution in the journal is an article
Museums Victoria; thereafter “the museum” (lower case). Similarly, the State Library of Victoria; thereafter “the library”
The names of divisions and departments use “and” rather than “&”
Exhibition names in italics. Note: all words in exhibition titles to be capitalised except for conjunctions, etc (as these are names of creative works); after colon, only capitalise first word and proper nouns – e.g. Beyond Perception: Seeing the unseen
Object numbers and names (MV): ST 046726, Steam Traction Engine – Cowley's Eureka Ironworks, Ballarat, Victoria, 1916
For collection material, use the term “object”, “item”, “document” or “photograph”, or similar specific terms. (MV Style Guide doesn’t provide advice, except to remind us to spell it “artefact”; it also uses term “object”.)
Communities: use the singular and collective names used by the communities themselves, and/or traditional names. Undertake appropriate consultation with contemporary community representatives as required to confirm usage
Title/role capitalisation: use capitalisation when referring to a particular position – e.g. “Agricultural Scientist Jon Peters”; use lower-case thereafter, such as “Jon’s work as an agricultural scientist”
Qualifications: Check current usage. For instance, Bachelor of Agricultural Science is BAgrSc
Personal communication: P. M. Walker (personal communication, 18 April 2015)
Photos and images: e.g. Bill was active in the store (fig. 1) (See also IMAGES, below)
Twentieth century not 20th century
Wars: World War I
Dates:
- in-text and footnotes: 20 March 1916, except where the footnotes are long – then use 20.3.16
- use shortest form possible for spans – e.g. 2002-3, not 2002-03
- Mid-90s, not mid-nineties
Numbers: spell out one – nine; 10 and above as numerals, except nineteenth and twentieth centuries. No commas under 9999
Area: 2000 m2 / 23 km (note space after number)

Punctuation & Contractions

No spaces around slash / except where this would be hard to read or understand
Inverted commas: ‘single’; use “double” within quote
Dashes: En – dashes for dates or spans, such as 1914–1918 or pp. 20–24. Use Em — dashes in-text, with spaces on each side for clarity. Use hyphens to connect words as usual.
Inter-war (with hyphen) and post-war
Hand-written
First-hand (not firsthand, although both are fine by the Macquarie Dictionary)
Single space after full stops.
Etc: use with comma before, and no stop after – thus: “French, Spanish, etc, would be considered…”
Use the forms i.e. and e.g.
p. 116 or pp. 116–8 for pages (with space) in-text; use in footnotes/references too, for consistency (departure from the APA guide)
Initials: use full stops and spacing between – e.g. R. L. Jones
Post-nominals: don’t insert commas before or between initials – e.g. Dame Bridget Ogilvie AC DBE FRS FAA
Hyperlinks: should have comma before them (depending on preceding text) and full stop after, avoiding including either punctuation in the hyperlink. Ideally include date accessed as well. It should also be visible as hyperlink font: Loddon site, Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) H0276, https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/1278.

Spelling

Use Macquarie Dictionary (sixth edition). See Word lists - Museums Victoria.

Use common British suffixes and spellings, as per the Macquarie’s first instance – eg. -ise:
- misdemeanours
- categorise
- organise
- organisational
- focused
- memorise
- realisation
Programme (schedule of events) and program (computers only)

Referencing & Footnotes

In-text referencing – refer to author (as needed) then all further info into footnotes – e.g.
- as Jones says1 or as Jones argued in 2015.¹
- ‘We are part of the land, it is part of us’ (Philippe, 2008, as cited in Maldonado et al., 2013, p. 610). OR Philippe (2008, as cited in Maldonado et al., 2013) states ‘we are part of the land, it is part of us’ (p. 610).
- …as Rogers says (2015); others agree with this perspective (Jones, 2003, p. 30).
Book names are uppercase for first word and proper nouns; after semicolon, first word is capitalised, then following words in lower case (except proper nouns)
Journal names have title case – e.g. Journal of Geography
Between multiple sources in footnotes use semicolon; between final two footnotes in the list prefer and unless this doesn’t read properly as a result.
If repeating a source, used shortened form with comma after date – i.e. Orazi, D. et al (2014), p. 32.
P. M. Walker (personal communication, 18 April 2015).
Book: Finlayson, C. (2019). The smart Neanderthal: Bird catching, cave art and the cognitive revolution. Oxford University Press.
- Include DOI or URL after publisher if referencing electronic book, omit for print books.
- For editions other than the first, include the edition number in brackets after the book title, e.g. (2nd ed.).
Chapter in book: Easton, B. (2008). Does poverty affect health? Maybe it does. In K. Dew & A. Matheson (Eds.), Understanding health inequalities in Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 97–106). Otago University Press.
Journal article: Dayton, K. J. (2019). Tangled arms: Modernizing and unifying the arm-of-the-state doctrine. The University of Chicago Law Review, 86(6), pp. 1497– 1737.
Website or web page:
- Department of Education and Training. (2016). Improving Australian and European mobility, https://www.education.gov.au/news/improving-australianand-european-mobility
- Europeana. (2014, 4 December). Linking history and EDM. Case study, https://pro.europeana.eu/page/linkinghistory-edm, accessed 31 May 2021.
Newspaper article: M'lean Bros and Rigg. (1887, 27 August). The Australasian, The Australian Supplement, p. 9. (The title moves to the author position when there is no author.)
Lecture, seminar or talk: Boyd, S., Hallett. M., Raberts, M., Scott, M. & Wright, A. (1997/8). Snapshots from behind the scenes: Relocating the State's collections [Public lecture]. Museums Victoria.
Oral history: Hallett, M. (2003, 21 January). Martin Hallett interviewed by David Demant on the history of the museum’s collection management system. Museums Victoria HT 28120.16.
Patents: Victorian Patent no. 3918, 16 December 1884. Victorian Government Gazette, no. 12 (1885, 9 January), p. 139.
Government reports: when the author is also the publisher, omit the publisher’s name from the reference. If there is no report or catalogue number, omit this from the reference. If needed for clarity, add a note about unpublished in brackets at end, e.g. Harley J. (2003, June). Cultural Broadband Network Summary. Arts Victoria (unpublished internal papers). Or: Hallett, M. (2003). Cultural broadband network issues. Unpublished.
URL for online access/publications: Comma – e.g. Journal of Geography, 115(5), 198-211, https://doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2016.1153133
Include date accessed for non-journal URLs, such as exhibition web sites – e.g. accessed 14 March 2021.

Images

Image captions: “Bill was active in the store (fig. 1).”
- To locate image in the draft article, use <FIGURE 1 HERE>
Captions and copyrights: at end of each article, as follows:
- Caption formula: Figure 1: XXXXXXXXXX, date of work. [Photo source] XXXXXXXXXX; photographer: xxxx; copyright/ rights holder / source XXXXXXXXXXXXX.
- E.g. Joan Rogers in Scienceworks collection store, 1991. Museums Victoria; photographer: Geoff West.