Notes for Editors
Preparing a themed volume in the Proceedings of the British Academy series.
Once your proposal for a themed volume has been accepted by the Publishing and Conferences Committee, the following points below outline your responsibility as Editor for this volume.
The Editor(s) will receive a Letter of Agreement and Licence to Publish form once the proposal has been accepted. Each contributor will also receive a Licence to Publish form form for their contribution.
Author email addresses will be required from all contributors to enable the dissemination of Licence to Publish forms.
All Licence to Publish forms should be signed and returned to the Publishing department prior to submitting the final work.
The authors’ draft manuscripts should be submitted to you directly by the deadline stipulated in the Licence to Publish form. It is your responsibility as Editor to make sure that authors adhere to the agreed submission date.
As Editor you will decide on the referencing format for your volume. This will include either the Harvard or the footnote reference. Please ensure that you indicate your preferred reference style to the Publishing department. Authors will prepare their work according to the appropriate references as confirmed by the Editor and the Publishing department will reiterate the style with each author at the contract stage.
As Editor you are responsible for managing the peer review process and for ensuring the quality of the volume. How you wish to determine this arrangement is within your discretion as Editor, though each paper should be sent for comment to at least one referee who is not an Editor of the volume nor an author contributing to the volume. It is important that papers for these themed volumes are refereed to the same standards, therefore your role in this process is crucial.
The British Academy understands that as a consequence of the reviewing and editing process, it may be necessary to amend the contents list of the volume as originally agreed. If you think that a contribution is for any reason unsuitable for inclusion in the volume and that it should therefore be omitted or replaced by an alternative, please inform the Publishing department.
Please follow the British Academy's Style Guide when preparing the volume.
The Editor is not required to undertake any copyediting, however when providing editorial feedback to the authors, please draw their attention to any significant deviations from the style guide so that they may correct these in their final draft.
It is important that each author understands the precise topic of their paper to confirm they understand their role within the volume.
The volume should contain an ambitious and substantial Introduction by the Editor(s), which will sell the topic and the volume to the reader. The British Academy’s Publishing and Conferences Committee takes a keen interest in each volume’s Introduction and it will be reviewed by them alongside the manuscript's reader's report.
Illustrations
It is the responsibility of each author to obtain the necessary permissions for images used in the volume, and authors are responsible for any costs associated with these permissions. Please remind authors to pursue this promptly and to provide you with copies of the relevant permissions documentation, as these will need to be submitted to the British Academy when the final manuscript is delivered.
For detailed information relating to image requirements, refer to the Illustrations section in the Style Guide.
The use of colour illustrations should be discussed with the Publishing department during the contract stage. Whilst the British Academy will publish colour figures, it is important to consider how vital the requirement of colour is for the purpose of the volume. Colour printing impacts on the production costs and therefore the price of the book. If the volume is particularly colour heavy, please consider if funding can be obtained, and discuss this with the Publishing department as early as possible.
Abstracts and keywords
For the purposes of publishing your volume online, we require keywords and abstracts for each chapter. The Editor is also requested to provide keywords and an abstract to describe the book. This information is required for the online publication and is not for print purposes.
Download a copy of the Keywords & abstracts template and refer to the Keywords & abstracts submission guidelines for examples of chapter and book information published online.
Content structure
Please ensure that chapters, figures and tables are numbered correctly throughout the volume.
All papers should constitute numbered chapters.
Figures and Tables should be numbered in sequence for each chapter, e.g. Figure 1.1, Figure 1.2, Table 1.1, Table 1.2, etc.
The preliminary pages of the complete volume text should include, in the following order:
- Title page
- Contents list
- List of illustrations (if applicable)
- List of tables (if applicable)
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface and/or Acknowledgements
Other front matter not listed above, for instance Abbreviations, etc, is acceptable.
Once you are happy with the shape and content of both the individual papers and the overall volume, and you have completed the peer review process described above, the complete and final text of the volume should be submitted to the Publishing department ([email protected]).
The manuscript will be sent to a reader for a final evaluation of the entire work before the committee meets to discuss the volume. At this stage, the committee will decide whether the volume is suitable for publication or if further work is required. The Academy reserves the right not to publish the volume on quality grounds.
Final approval for publication rests with the Academy’s Publishing and Conferences Committee.
On approval of the final text by the Publishing and Conferences Committee, you may wish to tweak your manuscript prior to sending this to us.
If you are satisfied that no changes are required, please ensure the Publishing department has received the word files for your volume along with high resolution images in a TIF file (see the Illustrations section in the Style Guide).
Production work can only proceed once the complete manuscript is submitted to the Publishing department along with all required forms. Refer to the submission checklist to ensure all components are included when submitting the final manuscript.
Your project manager
A project manager will be appointed to you to manage the production stages of your volume. They will provide you with a schedule and they will be your main point of contact for proofs and queries.
Where there is more than one Editor, it is important to establish who will be responsible for dealing with copyediting queries and proofs (or involve each Editor who will assume a different responsibility – how you wish to manage this process is entirely up to you).
Editing and typesetting
Copyediting
The copyeditor will liaise directly with the volume Editor. Copyediting queries along with the tracked chapter will be sent to the Editor.
Index
The Editor will be required to index the volume at the copyediting stage using Word's embedded indexing tools. Indexing at this stage in production has a number of advantages, particularly as it allows you to concentrate on checking proofs when they arrive, without the added task of indexing from the proofs. This way of indexing also adds to the functionality of e-books and any other electronic versions of your book that may be produced. Guidelines on producing the index by this system will be provided to the Editor by your project manager.
Proofs
First proofs of each chapter will be sent to the relevant (lead) author. Please note that at this stage, all queries should be resolved from the earlier copyediting stage. First proofs are designed for minor corrections, adding text where essential, and to ensure tables and figures are correctly positioned and presented as you would like them. Extensive changes to first proofs may impact upon the schedule, therefore it is advisable for authors to ensure they check their copyedited chapter very carefully, and to note any additional changes at the copyediting stage.
The Editor will be sent a full set of first proofs. Authors will be asked to return their corrected set to the Editor, and it will be the Editor's responsibility to collate the proofs into one master set to be returned to the project manager. A second set of proofs will be provided to the Editor only.
Cover
The Publishing department will request a cover image from you as soon as the manuscript is approved for production. It is the Editor’s responsibility to ensure where necessary, any permission related costs for the cover is resolved. If the Editor cannot source a suitable cover image, the Publishing department will discuss options with the department’s designer and provide an alternative for the Editor’s approval.
Authors will receive a PDF file of their final published contribution which they may use to run off additional paper copies for non-commercial distribution to colleagues, or which they may email as a ‘virtual’ offprint to individual colleagues for their own scholarly use (which excludes the right for them to email it on to others); this PDF file of the final published version may not be posted on an electronic bulletin board or website, or deposited in an institutional or subject repository.
Editor/s will also receive a complimentary print copy of the volume. Please refer to your contract for details.
The British Academy Scholarship Online platform hosts all Proceedings of the British Academy series volumes on https://academic.oup.com/british-academy-scholarship-online
We operate a green open access policy for volumes in the Proceedings of the British Academy series. You may upload the ‘author accepted manuscript’ version of your chapter in the Proceedings volume to an institutional or centrally organised subject repository where it may be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-ND), provided that (a) it is not made publicly available until 12 months after the publication in the Proceedings of the British Academy series, and (b) the Proceedings is attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given.
Oxford University Press (OUP) manages the marketing, sales and distribution of volumes on behalf of the British Academy.
Once the Committee has approved the volume for production, the Publishing department will supply you with a marketing form in order to prepare advance publicity information for your volume. It is essential that this form is returned as quickly as possible. The Publishing department will also request ideas for a cover image from you. Submitting a cover image (once the necessary permissions have cleared) as early as possible enables us to further promote the title.
Once the volume has been printed and bound, an OUP Marketing Executive will contact you with a marketing plan for your book. The information you provided in the marketing form will be included in this plan. If you have more ideas about review copies or appropriate forthcoming conferences, please communicate this directly to the OUP Marketing Executive. Where you are able to identify an appropriate marketing opportunity (such as a forthcoming conference), we may be able to promote the volume at a discount.
The British Academy will also provide promotional opportunities to showcase your book with the Academy’s own Digital and Press teams.
For any queries relating to your title or about the publishing process, please contact the Publishing department; [email protected].
Thank you. We look forward to working with you.
The Publishing department.