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• Email: cha-shc@cha-shc.ca
• Phone: (613) 233-7885

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• The subscription to the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association is included in a membership with the Canadian Historical Association. You can join the CHA by filling out the membership form online at https://www.fedcan-association.ca/cha-shc?lang=en
   

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Information for contributors

Author Guidelines. Journal of the Canadian Historical Association. March 23, 2023

1. Submission

All submissions are made online here. The work must be the author’s own, the scholarship must be original, and the submission must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Any questions regarding submission should be addressed to the Managing Editor at jcha-rshc@cha-shc.ca.

2. Preparation of Manuscripts

2.1 Word limit

Articles should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words in length, including footnotes.

2.2 Title page

Provide a title page that includes the title of the article, the name of the author, the author’s email address, and an abstract of no more than 200 words.

2.2 Layout

Spacing should be 1.15 in the article and use Garamond 12-point font. Endnotes should single spaced and 11-point font.

Insert page numbers in the upper right-hand corner.

Indent the first line of each paragraph. Do not include extra spaces between paragraphs. Do not indent the first paragraph of the article nor the first paragraph of any additional subsection.

Subsections or subheadings are optional. If used, subtitles should be brief, and no more than four subheadings plus one for the conclusion should be used. Subheadings should be bolded and preceded by an additional line. Subheadings should capitalize the first letter of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. There should not be an “Introduction” subheading, and subheadings should not be numbered.

Any graphs, tables, maps, and photographs should be provided in a separate file. Indicate clearly in the paper where each would be placed, using [Insert Figure 1 here]. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain all necessary permissions for the reproduction of images. We encourage authors to obtain permissions when revising for final submission and to send these permissions to the jcha-rshc@cha-shc.ca.  The format for images should be:

Title (underlined)

[Insert Figure 1 here]

Source: Full bibliographic citation. “Image courtesy of” or “Map made by” as needed.

The JCHA uses endnotes rather than footnotes. They should use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) rather than Roman numerals. Endnotes should be 11-point font. The section header should be bolded and 12 pt Garamond.

Authors should submit a title page with an abstract and biography, and after acceptance of an article,  authors should move this information into the main article text (placing the abstract at the beginning and the biography at the end). The abstract and biography can be written in either English or French, and the journal will translate into the other language. Authors are welcome to do this translation themselves.

In the final submission, the order on page one should be:

Title (bolded)

AUTHOR NAME (bolded and capitalized)

Abstract (bolded and italicized)

2.3 Anonymizing

All submissions will be anonymized before being sent out for peer review. Remove all references to the author by name in the main text, and ensure that the author’s name does not appear in the “properties” of the file.

2.4 Spelling

Follow English Canadian spelling conventions (e.g., behaviour, centre, decolonize, enrol, organize, Montreal, skilful). We recommend consult one of many recent dictionaries of Canadian English (such as Oxford or Collins).

Other spelling considerations:

• Put isolated words and phrases from languages other than English in italics.
• Avoid the use of accents for words that are commonly used in English (e.g., elite, role), but retain them in proper names and terms that are less commonly used (e.g., Françoise, longue durée).
• Do not include accents in Montreal and Quebec (unless quoting a French-language source or referring to the place of publication of French-language sources).
• Capitalize the names and initials of persons (e.g., John A. Macdonald), but defer to individual preference of the bearer of the name (e.g., bell hooks). Follow convention with the capitalization of particles (e.g., Marie de l’Incarnation).
• Capitalize the names of ethnic and national groups (e.g., Métis, Haudenosaunee, French, Chinese) and adjectives associated with identities of these groups (e.g., Chicano, Jewish).
• The journal capitalizes the word Indigenous and the word Black when referring to people.
• Capitalize the proper names of places (e.g., Canada, Turtle Island, Atlantic Ocean) and adjectives derived from them (e.g., Atlantic).
• Expand acronyms and abbreviations at their first mention in the text. If an acronym is used infrequently in an article, spelling it out every time might be clearer.

2.5 Style Guide

Except when specifically specified in the document, the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association follows the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS).

Strive for clarity in language and write for intelligent readers who may not be specialists in the field. Keep technical language and jargon to a minimum. If you need to use a term whose meaning may be unclear to readers, supply a definition at the term’s first appearance.

Please consult chapter 5.250: “Good usage versus common usage” in CMOS.

Write out a person’s name in full the first time that person is introduced and refer to that person by last name or commonly used name in subsequent mentions (e.g., Viola Desmond, then Desmond; Galileo Galilei, then Galileo; Li Bai, then Li).

When referring to a specific group of people, use the name that this group uses to self-identify. Consider providing other names in parentheses if these are likely to be more familiar to readers. When quoting from a source that employs an older term that is now outdated, use only in the quoted material and use updated preferred terminology in your analysis.

Cardinal numbers: write out one to one hundred, in accordance with CMOS 9.2.

Ordinal numbers: write out first to hundredth (see CMOS 9.6); 101st and above numerals and not superscript.  There are some exceptions: e.g., 49th parallel

Ordinary fractions: write out, e.g., one-half rather than 1/2

Percentages:  27 percent, not % 

Write out dates in the form of day month year (e.g., 1 July 1967), and decades with Arabic numbers followed by an s (e.g., 1860s). Spell out the century, and hyphenate when within a compound adjective (e.g., during the seventeenth century, but in seventeenth-century New France). When necessary, specify whether BCE or CE.

Enclose quotations under four lines within double quotation marks and integrate them smoothly into the main text. Any quotations within these quotations should be enclosed within single quotation marks. Format longer quotations as indented block quotations without quotation marks. If quoting in languages other than English or French, use only the English translation and add a note such as “all translations by the author”.

Insert a single space after all punctuation, including periods.

In a list of three or more items, insert a comma (the “serial comma” or “Oxford comma”) before the conjunction that precedes the final item on the list (e.g., the archives, libraries, and museums).

Quotations:  comma and period inside end quotation marks; semi-colon and other end punctuation outside 

Brackets:  use round brackets (parenthesis) throughout, except with [sic] and inside quotations 

Hyphens and dashes:  a single (-) is a hyphen; a double (–) is an en-dash or “dash”; a triple (—) is an em-dash.  Dashes are elements best inserted using Word’s “Insert Symbol” function.  Use hyphens only for hyphenated words (double-spaced).  Use en-dashes with date or number ranges and no spaces on either side (40–50).  Use em-dashes as text punctuation with spaces on either side (here — and there) 

Ellipsis (…):  one space before and after, e.g., one space … before 

i.e. and e.g.:  no spaces after the first period 

emphasis added in quotation:  use [emphasis added] in the text, at end of quotation, not in the note

When using an epigraph, put in italics. The reference that follows should be the line below preceded by an en-dash. Epigraphs should be aligned right and indented (.5 in).

2.6 References

Provide all references as footnotes formatted according to the directions in the most recent edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. Write full references for the first instance of each source, and shortened references for subsequent instances. In the 17th edition of the CMOS, it states, “in a departure from previous editions, Chicago discourages the use of ibid. in favor of shortened citations as described elsewhere in this section; to avoid repetition, the title of a work just cited may be omitted.” In these instances, one can write

1. Morrison, Beloved, 3.            

2. Morrison, 18.          

Other formatting considerations

The abstract itself should be italicized (except any items that would otherwise be italicized--e.g., book titles, words as words, non-English terms).

The abstract, text, author bios, and endnotes should be fully justified.

Extracted quotations should be indented on both the left and the right (.5 in).

Extracted quotations have no space between them and the preceding text but a line space afterward.

Line spaces before and after any section headers.

No indent for first line of first paragraphs of articles and first paragraphs of all sections. Otherwise indentations for each paragraph.

The last line of the article should be followed by three centred asterisks, then a line space, then the authors biography.

Author names in biographies are bold and capitalized.

Acknowledgements should be placed in the endnotes, before note 1.