Manuscripts may be returned to authors if they do not conform to these guidelines.
General submission guidelines
Articles should be between 10,000 and 12,000 words; please contact the Editor regarding lengthier manuscripts.
Central European History uses the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), 17th edition, as its authority on style. Please conform to its recommendations as closely as possible.
Please use American spelling and punctuation styles, as outlined in CMOS.
Notes should be provided as footnotes numbered consecutively.
Acknowledgements should be provided in an initial unnumbered note placed right before the first footnote.
The entire manuscript must be double-spaced: this includes the title, text, block quotations, and footnotes.
There should be no extra space between sentences, paragraphs, or individual footnotes.
Miscellaneous style guidelines
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Please spell out acronyms and abbreviations when they first appear; they should be followed by the shortened form in parentheses, which should then be used in the rest of the manuscript. If German or English, please use the original language, for example, Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Socialist Unity Party, SED). For other languages, please provide the English translation.
Em-dash
Use the em-dash symbol in Word with no space on either side.
Italics
Use italics for books, films, newspapers, journal titles, words in languages other than English, and words referred to as terms.
Italicized words and phrases should be typed in an italic typeface (not underlined).
Names
First name must be provided for every person mentioned for the first time, no matter how well known.
Numbers and Numerals
In general, please spell out whole numbers from one through one hundred, as well as any of those numbers followed by “hundred,” “thousand,” “million,” and so on, for example, “fifteen thousand soldiers” or “three million people.” For all other numbers, use numerals.
If the use of numerals is required for one number in a group of similar items in close proximity to each other in your text, use numerals for them all: “482 soldiers left home, but only 62 returned.”
Use a comma in numbers of four digits or more when they are expressed in numerals: “1,000.”
Numerals should always be used for percentages and for numbered parts of publications, such as pages, chapters, parts, volumes, tables, and figures, for example, “pages 4–6” or “chapter 1.”
“Percent” should be written out in both text and notes, for example, “only 45 percent responded.” The percent sign (%) may be used in tables.
Dates should be written out as Month Day, Year (for example, April 30, 2005).
Decades: the 1990s (no apostrophe); the nineties.
Inclusive numbers should be condensed according to the rules outlined in CMOS 9.60.
Quotations
Block quotations should be used only for quoted material of 100 words or more. Shorter quotations should be run into the text.
For quotations that run into the text, please use “smart” (curly), not "straight" quotation marks.
Punctuation with quotation marks: periods and commas are always inside closing quoatation marks (single, double, or both together); colons and semicolons are always outside. Question marks and exclamation points are also outside closing quotation marks unless they are part of the quoted material.
Single quotation marks should be used only for nested quotes. Whenever words need to be emphasized as words, please use italics. “Scare quotes” are always double quotes and should be used sparingly.
Guidelines for Notes
Footnotes should be double-spaced.
Please follow Chapter 17 of the CMOS as a guide for your note format. Initial citations must be complete, including publishers' names; subsequent citations of the same work should be abbreviated using the author's last name and the short title. For more information on shortened citations, see CMOS 14.24–31.
Page numbers should be given without p. or pp. See sample notes below for examples.
Use the English versions of place names (for example, Zurich, not Zürich; Munich, not München).
For archival citations, please provide the full name and location of the archive, followed by an abbreviation in parentheses, when first cited: for example, Bundesarchiv (BArch).
Please provide the following information in this order: Archive (usually abbreviation), Name of Holding, File Number (etc.), Author of document, “Title of document” [or Type of document, if no title], Date of document.
When citing correspondence, where appropriate, please include both sender and recipient as well as the date.
Sample Notes
Journal Article
John Smith and Mary Jones, “Title of Article,” Title of Journal 6, no.2 (1977): 143–44.
Book
Mary Apples, Title of Book (Place of Publication: Publisher, 1990), 164–66.
Mary Wine, ed., Title of Book (Place of Publication: Publisher, 1991), 130–32.
Tom Jones, Title of Book, 3 vols. (Place of Publication: Publisher, 1980–83).
Tom Jones, Title of Book, vol. 1, Title of Volume 1 (Place of Publication: Publisher, 1980).
Chapter in a Single-Author Book
Mary Apples, “Chapter title,” in Title of Book (Place of Publication: Publisher, 1990), 102–79.
Contribution to an Edited Volume
Iolanthe Mab, “Title of essay,” in Title of Edited Book, ed. William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (Place of Publication: Publishers, 1990), 80–95.
Subsequent References
Apples, Abbreviated Title, 89.
PhD Dissertations
Kenneth F. Ledford, “My Dissertation” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1996), 200.
Newspaper Articles
John B. Reporter, “The State of History,” New York Times, Oct. 1, 2007.
Magazine Articles
Stephen Lacey, “The New German Style,” Horticulture, March 2000, 44.
Guidelines for Review Essays
Books under review should be cited with page numbers in parentheses (without “p.” or “pp.”).
Publication dates should not be repeated when titles of books under review are introduced int eh text.
Guidelines for Book Reviews
Title. By/Edited by [author(s)]. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Pp. […]. Cloth/Paper [price]. ISBN […].
Examples
Thieves in Court: The Making of the German Legal System in the Nineteenth Century. By Rebekka Habermas. Translated by Kathleen Mitchell Dell'Orto. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 349. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-1107046771.
Rescuing the Vulnerable: Poverty, Welfare and Social Ties in Modern Europe. Edited by Beate Althammer, Lutz Raphael, and Tamara Stazic-Wendt. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016. Pp. ix + 427. Cloth $140.00. ISBN 978-1785331367.
Review author's name and affiliation should be provided at the end of the review, flush right.
Citations should be provided in parentheses in the text.
Page numbers for quotations should be inserted immediately after the closing quotation mark.
Books under review should be cited with page numbers in parentheses (without “p.” or “pp.&rdquo).
Other books should be cited as (Author, Title [date]). Authors' names may be omitted if already referenced in the text.
Articles should be cited in parentheses just as they would appear in a note, except that the author's name should be omitted if already referenced in the text.
Guidelines for Images
Requirements for publishable image files can be found here.
Authors are responsible for securing all permissions. You can find guidance from Cambridge University Press here.
Please be sure to review the journal's ethical requirements here.
Authorship and contributorship
All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.
Author affiliations
Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.
For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.
Competing Interests
All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their title page. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.
Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.