Author Guidelines

M/C Journal is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal of media and culture. We invite submissions from writers across the broad range of professions, disciplines, and interests. Submissions should, however, be clearly relevant to the central topic of the individual issue they are intended for, and to the overall media and culture focus of M/C Journal.

Accepted articles are published as open access under a Creative Commons licence, and the journal does not and will never charge article submission, processing, or publication fees.

If you intend to submit an article to M/C Journal, please first register as a user.

In writing your article, please strictly follow the guidelines below (in particular also regarding your approach to bibliographic referencing):

1. Before you write

1.1 Topic

M/C Journal is a journal of media and culture, with each issue organised around a central topic. The topic of an issue will usually be a single word that has a large number of possible ties to issues in media and culture. For an indication of how widely article topics can spread from the focal term, please have a look at past issues of M/C Journal. If you wish to submit an article to M/C Journal, please ensure that it addresses the central topic of the issue it is intended for. Off-topic submissions will not be considered.

1.2 Submission deadlines

For topics and deadlines of upcoming issues, please see our list of upcoming issues.

1.3 Abstract and Biography

Before you start writing an article for M/C Journal, please e-mail the issue editor(s) a 100-word abstract of the piece you intend to write, along with a brief biography. The biography should be three to four sentences in length and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. For style and content examples, see the contributors page. Please see the upcoming issues page for a list of future issue editors’ e-mail addresses. If you wish your proposed article to be considered for the feature article (see 2.1, below), please include this information in your e-mail.

2. As you write

2.1 Word limit

Each issue of M/C Journal consists of a feature article of about 4000 words, and a number of shorter pieces of 3000 words. The feature article will usually be an invited contribution from an academically established guest writer. However, if you feel your intended topic would qualify for the feature article, please do suggest this to the issue editor(s).

2.2 General guidelines for writing in an online environment

Accessibility

M/C Journal is a crossover journal between the popular and the academic, so your submission should reflect that aim stylistically. You should present your thoughts in a way that is open to readers who are not necessarily involved in your field. Again, the articles we have already published (see past issues) will give you an indication of how to approach writing for M/C Journal.

Weblinks

As an online journal, M/C Journal also encourages contributors to adopt a new-media focus when writing and submitting articles. The journal, therefore, encourages authors to include links to relevant external websites, provided these links enrich the article’s content and do not detract from it. Linking to external resources does not remove the scholarly obligation to include full bibliographical references for material cited or referred to in your text.

Active vs passive voice

M/C Journal advocates using active voice over passive voice, where possible, to promote clarity.

Paragraphing

Please keep paragraphs short. This makes documents easier to read in the online environment.

Endnotes and footnotes

Please do not include endnotes or footnotes in your submission. All referencing should be done using parenthetical referencing (see citation style guidelines, below).

2.3 M/C Journal-specific style guidelines

M/C Journal aims for a consistent writing style across the articles it publishes, and follows MLA style (6th edition) for most style decisions. As a contributor, it is your responsibility to ensure that your submission adheres to MLA style. Editors reserve the right to make minor editorial changes to the articles you submit to M/C Journal, including changes to grammar, punctuation and spelling, but no major alterations will be carried out without authorial approval.

The most important style considerations for M/C Journal (including any exceptions to MLA style) are outlined below, under the following headings:

• Underlining and italics
• Spelling
• Capitalisation
• Quotations
• Numbers, dates, and time
• Punctuation
• Acronyms 

Underlining and Italics:

• Italicise the name or title of Websites, newspapers, books, magazines, television shows, poems, plays, movies, TV programs, art works, song titles, and music.
• Italicise foreign expressions, but please note that foreign expressions should only be used when absolutely necessary and when their meaning would be understood by the general readership of M/C Journal.
• Italicise for emphasis. However, use this minimally, as excess italicisation can be confusing for online readers.

Spelling

• Use Australian spelling (e.g., organise instead of organize, behaviour instead of behavior, per cent rather than percent). However, do not change the spelling of any material quoted directly from another source.

Capitalisation

• Capitalise the words Internet, Web, and Net, and their derivations.

Quotations

• Use double quotation marks for all direct quotations, except where the citation is more than four lines. In this case, format the quotation as a block quotation without quotation marks.
• Use double quotation marks around directly quoted material, direct speech, for titles of articles, episodes, and speeches, for colloquialisms, or if you are using a word in an unusual way.
• Use single quotation marks for quotes inside quotes.
• Place commas and full-stops outside closing quotation marks. For example:

• “You must read ‘The Metamorphosis’”, she told me. (Comma is placed outside quotation marks.)

• His cat was named “Whiskers”. (Full stop is placed outside quotation marks.)

• This is a clear instance of “reduction and totalization” (53). (Full stop placed after parenthetical reference.)

• Make any case changes at the start of quotations silently. For example,

As Foucault writes, “the year ...”
Not: As Foucault writes, “[t]he year ...”

Numbers, dates, and time

• Number format: In general, spell out numbers one to nine and express numbers 10 and over as numerals. However, express related numbers in the same style (e.g., only 3 of the 550 surveys were incomplete). Do not begin a sentence with a numeral.
• Number ranges: For numbers under 100, give the second number in full (e.g., 1–7, 29–99). For numbers 100 and over, give only the last two digits of the second number, unless more are necessary (e.g., 102–07, 213–15, 67–102, 297–307). For ranges of years, write the years in full unless they are within the same century (e.g., 1992–2008, 2008–10). Use an unspaced en dash between the two numbers.
• Date format: 20 March 2008, or Thursday 20 March 2008.
• Decades: spell out 1960s instead of ’60s.
• Centuries: spell out, e.g. nineteenth century.
• Time format: 21:00, not 9:00 p.m.

Punctuation

• Full stop: use only a single space after a full-stop.
• Comma: use the serial comma (e.g., bread, butter, and jam)
• Dash: use an unspaced em dash. Always use the em dash, with no spacing before or after the dash. The em dash is obtained by using two hyphens (--) and typing the next word straight after the hyphens. (To make sure the em dash function is switched on, check the “Autocorrect Options” option in the “Tools” menu in Word and ensure there is a tick next to the option that replaces “Hyphens (--) with dash (—)”.
• Ellipsis: Type a space before and after an ellipsis.
• Possessive apostrophe: Always add an apostrophe and an ‘s’ to form possessives from singular nouns and names, irrespective of whether they already end in an ‘s’. For example,

• Singular Noun: Congress’s decision
• Singular Name: Bill Gates’s Microsoft

Acronyms

• Spell out acronyms on first use, and use the shortened form every time thereafter. Spell out the acronym every time if it is uncommon or the same as another acronym.

2.4 Referencing and citations

Submissions to M/C Journal should be thoroughly researched and referenced, and should include a list of works cited formatted in MLA style. Do not include footnotes or endnotes. The following guidelines explain the basic principles of MLA citation style. For further information on the list of works cited or in-text citation, please consult the 6th edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.

List of Works Cited:

• Names: provide the author’s full name, including given name.
• Titles: capitalise all major words in titles and names.
• Place of publication: give only the first place of publication if more than one is listed in the source.
• Publisher details: Abbreviate “University” and “Press” (e.g. “U of Queensland P," "Oxford UP"), but do not include “& Co.,” “Ltd.,” etc. in publisher’s names.
• Page span: Give the second number in full if it is below 99 or the last two digits if it is above 99 (e.g., 64–69 or 364–69). Use an en dash, not a hyphen, between the digits.
• Hanging indent: indent by one centimetre the second line of an entry in your list of works cited.

Please refer to the following examples of MLA style:

Articles in print journals:

Surname, Firstname. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year): Page span.

Hazelhurst, Cameron. “The Dawn of the Satellite Era.” Media Information Australia 58 (1990): 9–22.

Morris, Meaghan. “On Going to Bed Early: Once Upon a Time in America.” Meanjin 4 (1998): 700.

Articles in online journals:

Surname, Firstname. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal Volume.Issue (Year). Date of retrieval ‹URL›.

Ferreday, Debra. "Bad Communities: Virtual Community and Hate Speech." M/C Journal 8.1 (2005). 25 Oct. 2005 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0502/07-ferreday.php›.

Shalit, Ruth. “Welcome to the Habbo Hotel.” mpulse Magazine Mar. 2002. 1 Apr. 2004‹http://www.cooltown.com/cooltown/mpulse/0302-habbo.asp›.

Book by a single author or editor:

Surname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher’s name, Year.

Batchelor, D. Chromophobia. London: Reaktion Books, 2000.

Apollonio, Umbro, ed. Futurist Manifestos. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973.

Books by two or more authors/editors:

Surname, Firstname, and Firstname Surname. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher’s name, Year.

Sinclair, Iain, and Dave McKean. Slow Chocolate Autopsy. London: Phoenix, 1997.

Hodge, B., and D. Tripp. Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986.

Chapter of an edited book:

Surname, Firstname. “Title of Chapter.” Title of Book. Ed. Firstname Surname. Place of publication: Publisher’s name, Year. Pagespan.

Jones, John Paul. “Making Geography Objectively: Ocularity, Representation, and The Nature of Geography.” Objectivity and Its Other. Ed. Wolfgang Natter, Theodore R. Schatzki, and John Paul Jones. New York: Guilford, 1995. 67–92.

Newspaper article:

Surname, Firstname. “Title of Article.” Section of newspaper. Name of newspaper Date of publication: Page span.

Matchett, Stephen. “A Theory on Einstein.” Weekend Australian 11 Jun. 2005: Review 4.

Film:

Title of Film. Director. Studio/Distributor, Year.

Muriel’s Wedding. Dir. P. J. Hogan. Village Roadshow, 1994.

Mask of Zorro, The. Screenplay by J. McCulley. UA, 1920.

In-text citations:

• Make in-text citations as brief as possible; only include information that is needed to
• identify the source. This generally consists of the author’s surname and the page number, with no punctuation between the two. Where multiple works by the same author are cited, a short title (usually one word) should be added for example, "(Foucault, Discipline 34)".
• When referencing quotations or citations of the text being reviewed, use page number; for example (236)

Please refer to the following examples:

Author’s name is referred to in text:

T. S. Eliot’s assertion that Hamlet is “most certainly an artistic failure” is clearly a polemical one (143).

Author’s name is not referred to in text:

Hamlet is “most certainly an artistic failure” (Eliot 143).

More than one author, referred to in text:

This may be contested, as Yannick and Roy suggest (53).

More than one author, not referred to in text:

It has been suggested… (Yannick and Roy 53).

When your bibliography includes two works by the same author:

Both practices engage with similar materials through a process of reflection (Marshall, Vertigo 17).

3. When you’re ready to submit your article

3.1 Formatting your document

1. Save your file in Word or Rich Text Format (RTF). If you are including graphics, you can include them in the file, but also must also submit separate files as per the graphics instructions below. 
2. Open the “Properties” window for your file (in Word, go to File → Properties) and delete anything that appears in the “Author” field. This ensures your anonymity in the peer-review process.
3. You’re now ready to submit your article. From the M/C Journal homepage, click on “login”.  (If you have not submitted an article to M/C Journal before, you will be required to register.) Once you have logged in, begin the submission process.
4. Graphics: If your article contains images, upload them as separate files with a note in the document indicating placement. Submit each full size image as a separate file in PNG format.