STAR ONE HOUSE STYLE
Below is a set of recommended article submissions guidelines. By following these new parameters Star One will present a more uniform – and more professional – look. A consistent house style will also make the work of the respective editors a good deal simpler.
Please find listed below the new Star One house style guidelines:
- All titles (television programmes, plays, books, films, individual episode titles, etc.) should be italicised (e.g. Are You Being Served?, Midsomer Murders, etc).
- Double-quotation marks should only be used to indicate a quotation (e.g. Chris Boucher said that “it was a hard season to make.”).
- Single-quotations marks should only be used for emphasis (e.g. Avon had an ‘interesting’ taste in clothes); or for indicating reported speech within a quotation (e.g. “He was always saying ‘I don’t like cheese.’”).
- Ellipses (i.e. ‘…’) should have no space before them, but one space after (e.g. Many fans thought that he… was a good actor).
- Numbers one to ten should be written as words, numbers 11 and over as numbers. However, season numbers should be written in full and capitalised (e.g. Series Four, Season Eighteen).
- Years and decades should be written in full as numbers (e.g. 1971, not ’71; the 1980s, not the 80s or Eighties); also, there is no need for an apostrophe when referring to decades (e.g. 1990s, not 1990′s).
- Centuries should be written as words and not numbers; nor should they be capitalised (e.g. the twentieth century, not the 20th Century). When used as an adjective they should be hyphenated (e.g. twentieth-century technology, not twentieth century technology).
- Articles should be presented in 12pt Arial or Times New Roman, with double-line spacing.
- Only use a single space after any punctuation, including full stops.
- Acronyms should not contain dots (e.g. UNIT, not U.N.I.T.)
- The author’s name, article title, date of submission and word count should be given at the head of the article.
- All submissions should highlight two or three possible sections of text which could be used as call-outs. Aside from being in the body of the article, these sections should be identified by being positioned separately, and in bold, at the beginning of the article.
- Always hyphenate two-part, three-part and four-part adventures etc.
- Main Feature articles should be circa 3000-5000 words.
- Column articles should be circa 1000-2000 words.
- Feature articles should be circa 2000-3000 words.
- Reviews should be circa 800-1000 words. NB. There are exceptions to this limit, depending on the subject of the review. Please check in advance before tackling what might prove to be an over-lengthy review.
- Commonly confused words:
- “It’s” with an apostrophe is a contraction for “it is” as in “it’s raining hard.”
- “Its” without an apostrophe is a possessive pronoun as in “its head was pink.”
- “To” as in “…send this to Bob.”
- “Too” as in “…there are too many dogs in the house.”
- “Two” as in “I saw two shows today.”
19. Contractions for words such as cannot, will not, do not, etc. are: can’t, won’t, don’t, etc.
If you have any questions regarding the above, please contact us directly.
