Guidelines for submitting manuscripts

Before submitting your manuscript, please provide us with a précis, table of contents, sample chapter and information about yourself. E-mail is fine, to

Our postal address is

Room 4, 26th Floor Global Trade Center
#15 Wing Kin Road
Kwai Chung, N.T., Hong Kong

Please submit manuscripts only if requested, and then only after noting submission requirements below. Authors should submit works on floppy disk as well as in clear hard-copy form.

Microsoft Word is our preferred word processor. We may or may not be able to read other formats. Avoid embedded text formatting statements.

Punctuation and spacing

All headings and text should be flush left, not indented, justified or centered. Use normal capitalization.

Words should not be hyphenated, except when part of the normal spelling – turn off auto-hyphenation on your word processor.

Chapter names and numbers should be rendered without periods.

Tabs should not be used, except to make tables, which should be submitted in separate files. Tables can be submitted in spreadsheet files – preferably Microsoft Excel – but please discuss at an early stage.

Allow your word processor to wrap lines within paragraphs; don't force line breaks with carriage returns. Don't force page breaks except at the beginning of chapters. Put at least one blank line ahead of any page break (they will not survive translation).

Don't type page numbers and running heads into the text file. If your word processor can't generate them automatically, forget them.

Sentences should be separated by a single space, paragraphs by a single return.

Em or En dashes should be indicated by --.

# bullets should be indicated thusly, or if # is used otherwise in the manuscript, then by +, * or some other distinctive character – but NOT by @, <, or >, which will confuse the typesetting program.

Characters such as é‚ ç , etc. can be entered directly in the text file in most word processors: in DOS use the ALT key and the ASCII number, in the range 128-168, entered on the number pad; in WordStar use ^P0, in WordPerfect ^V, in Windows use Char map, on Mac use Keycaps. Otherwise, please make a separate list of special characters used. (Chinese or other non-Roman characters can be used, if really necessary.)

Try to be consistent in using italics or bold (bold not preferred) and state your policy for using them. In general, minimize their use.

State whether you are following British or American spelling and style. Run your file through a spellchecker, but check all its suggested corrections (e.g. it may be using an American dictionary and you want British spelling).

Be wary of multiple punctuation. US style is to have periods and commas always before close quotes, British style allows quotes before periods when the period is not part of the item quoted. Three punctuation characters in a row are to be avoided, e.g. xxx," -- should be xxx" --.

Footnotes may be inserted in the text, but please ask us for the correct format before doing so – your word processor's native format may not translate automatically.

Other information

When submitting a manuscript, please include with it:

your name, address, phone, fax numbers and e-mail address (if any),

a table of contents,

a précis of the work.

Please do not submit original slides, photo negatives or artwork without prior arrangement.

Manuscripts and other submitted materials will not be returned without postage paid (especially overseas) and we take no responsibility for damage or loss.

If you still have questions, contact us:

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