Focus and Scope

THE OLD POTTER'S ALMANACK is the joint letter of the Ceramic Petrology Group an the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group.

Notes for contributors

Submission of manuscripts: articles should be in English and should be submitted as e-mail attachments in a ‘Word’ document to michelaspataro@yahoo.co.uk

Articles may contain a maximum of 4000 words plus up to 10 images (colour or B&W).

Font used in the publication is Garamond 11 and at single spacing.

To assist production editing:  please avoid unnecessary hidden and automatic formatting in ‘Word’; no indentation of bibliography.

Illustrations:

The OPA text will be set in two columns (by the production editor); the illustrations and tables can be in one column or across both. The text area, which is the maximum area for illustrations, is 225 mm high by 167 mm wide. Please provide figure captions. Column width for smaller illustrations is 77mm.

Illustrations and tables need to be saved as separate files and not embedded in the text.

TIFF: This is our preferred format for original digital or scanned images at the following resolutions:

• Original digital images at ca 2500 pixels wide.
• Scan photos at 350 dpi/A4 size.
• Scan 35mm slides at 2000 dpi.
• Scan b/w line artwork at 1200 dpi/A4 size
• Scan mixed line and tone illustrations at 600 dpi/A4 size    

JPEGS:  We can accept JPEGS providing they are at high resolution. See specifications for TIFFs above.

Numerals and Measurements:

Use no full stops after abbreviations such as m (=metre), cm (=centimetre), mm (=millimetre) and other abbreviations of measurements.

Use leading zero before measurements and numbers that are less than 1, thus 0.56 rather than .56, and so on.

In continuous text whole numbers from one through nine are spelled out; larger numbers are expressed in numerals, except at the beginning of a sentence. Commas should be used in numerals of 1,000 or greater, except for page numbers, addresses, and years (e.g., 3,000 nails, but 3000 BC). Always use numerals when units of measurement are abbreviated (e.g., 30.15 m, 4 km).

The metric system should be used in all cases.

Bibliography:

Citations should be complete, including subtitle, series, and the names of all authors. It is the author’s responsibility to make sure that all citations are correct. The order of the entries in the reference list is, first, alphabetical and, second, chronological under each author. If more than one work in the same year by the same author is cited, use “a,” “b,” etc. Use the author’s first initial, not the complete first name; if an author has more than one initial, leave a space between letters.

Titles in English are capitalized following the headline style of capitalization, in which most words, except articles, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions are capitalized.

Greek titles should be written by preference in accented monotonic Greek.

Authors’ names in foreign alphabets (Greek, Cyrillic, etc.) should be transliterated, but titles of articles and books should be given in the original language, using a Unicode font.

Volume numbers are generally written in Arabic numerals, except those of excavation series, encyclopedia volumes, and numismatic catalogues. Further subdivisions, such as parts, are written in Arabic numerals after a full stop (e.g., Fouilles de Delphes III.1). Descriptive words (volume, part, etc.) are generally omitted. Supplements to series or journals are also written in Arabic numerals. When citing inclusive volume numbers and dates, use a dash, not a slash: e.g., 41–42, 1979–1980.

Refer to works not yet published as “in prep.” or “forthcoming” (if the latter, include the name of the journal or series). Use the English forms of place-names: e.g., Venice, not Venezia.

Write all journal titles out IN FULL, don’t abbreviate.

Please follow the format:

Author. Date. Title of article . Title of journal  Vol, Page numbers. 

e.g. Li, J., Deng, Z. and Xu, J. 2001. Technical studies and replication of Guan ware, an ancient Chinese ceramic. MRS Bulletin 26, 31–37.

Author. Date. Title of book.  Place, Publisher.

e.g. Krahl, R. and Harrison-Hall, J. 2009. Chinese ceramics. London, The British Museum Press.