I. Articles and shorter contributions | II. Roman Britain in 20XX | Supplementary materials | Policy on prior publication | ORCID | Authorship and contributorship | Author affiliations | Competing interests | Author Hub | English language editing services
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BRITANNIA
NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS
I. ARTICLES AND SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS
1. Authors are welcome to discuss their plans for submission in advance with the Editor, Professor Will Bowden, Department of Classics and Archaeology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD (will.bowden@nottingham.ac.uk). Papers may be submitted at any time during the year; potential contributors may wish to discuss scheduling with the Editor in advance of submission. We suggest a word limit of 12,000 words for articles as a guideline. Proposals for longer papers should be discussed with the Editor prior to submission.
All authors retain copyright in their contributions but are required to sign a form assigning the Society an exclusive licence to publish, except in the case of Gold Open Access articles which will be published under a non-exclusive licence. Authors selecting Gold Open Access publication will be able to choose an appropriate CC-BY licence. If a paper includes textual or illustrative material not in the author’s copyright, permission must be obtained from the relevant copyright owner for the non-exclusive right to reproduce the material worldwide in all forms and media. The author is held responsible for paying any fees required as a condition for obtaining such permission. Authors should initially seek the permission of the publisher to reproduce copyrighted material that has been published. For unpublished material, authors should seek permission of the owners, whether individuals or institutions.
2. Excavation reports will be considered for publication if they are: (a) concise; (b) of national importance and/or offer a significant element of contextualisation and synthesis. Additional parts of the report can be placed online (see 6 below), but the main argument of the report submitted for publication in Britannia should be free-standing and should contain enough information to be coherent without reference to the supplementary material. It is essential that authors discuss proposed contributions with the Editor at an early stage: many excavation reports, even if clearly of national importance, will not be suitable for inclusion in Britannia.
3. The electronic submission system provides further information on the number and format of files to be submitted. Britannia style should be followed, but complex layout should not be attempted. Notes will appear as footnotes but should be presented as endnotes. Tables and figures should be supplied in separate files. Figure and table positions should be highlighted in the text.
4. All articles and shorter contributions should include an abstract (c. 120 and 80 words respectively), competing interests statement and c. 4–8 keywords. For style, refer to previous copies of Britannia. Note the language of publication will normally be English. Publications are to be cited by the author’s name and the year of publication followed by the specific page or pages in a numbered footnote (e.g. Jones 1980, 6–9). The full reference to a publication is to be given in an alphabetical bibliography at the end of the paper; journal names should be given in full in the bibliography. Page references should only be given in the footnote if the reference is to a specific page or pages. Full page references of articles etc. should appear in the bibliography (f. and ff. should not be used to indicate following pages). Authors’ initials should only appear in the footnotes if the bibliography contains two or more authors with the same surname (e.g. J. Smith 1990). For joint authorship give both names, for multiple authorship Jones et al. is acceptable in the footnotes but all authors should be listed in the bibliography. a, b, c etc. should be used to distinguish several works of the same year (e.g. Smith 1990a). Historical sources should appear in abbreviated form in the footnotes with full references in the bibliography.
5. Illustrations. The type area of a page in Britannia measures 194 by 138 mm. All drawings and photographs should be designed to be reduced to or within such a space. Scales in metres should be provided on plans and be long enough for any likely use. Illustrations do not need to be titled, captions should contain this information. Line artwork should be submitted as tif or eps files at 1200 dpi (black and white for line drawings; grayscale for line/tone). Black and white halftones should be submitted as tifs (grayscale) at a minimum 300 dpi. Colour images should be in CMYK colour at a minimum 300 dpi. All electronic artwork should be sized to final publication size; reproduction size should be indicated on a list of the illustrations. For further information on artwork see instructions for authors at www.cambridge.org/core/services/authors/journals/journals-artwork-guide.
6. Supplementary material (catalogues, tables, illustrations etc.). Please see the standard guidelines below, and for further information see Appendix below. Authors planning to submit supplementary material should contact the Editor.
II. ROMAN BRITAIN IN 20XX
All contributions should be prepared in accordance with the journal’s established style, as set out in the Notes for Contributors for Articles and Shorter Contributions.
(a) Inscriptions
1. This section will be published in its entirety both in the print and online versions of the journal.
2. Information should be sent to Dr R.S.O. Tomlin, Wolfson College, Oxford, OX2 6UD (roger.tomlin@wolfson.ox.ac.uk), as soon as the inscribed material is ready for reporting, or at latest before 1 March of the year following discovery. See (b) 6 below for details required.
3. When photographs are taken the light should be raking and, where possible, from the left and well above the horizontal axis.
4. The principles which are followed for the inclusion or exclusion of inscriptions on pottery and tiles are set out in RIB I, p. xvii, s.v. scope (d) 1–4.
(b) Sites and Discoveries
1. This section is intended to incorporate as comprehensive a resume as possible of all work undertaken across Roman Britain in any given year. It will be published in two parts:
- A selection of the most significant sites and discoveries for each region will be included both in the print and online versions of the journal. Particular emphasis will be placed on entries which have national importance or make a significant contribution to the subject, have accompanying plans and illustrations, and where the findings have ideally been suitably contextualised. The selection of material to be included will be made by the overall editor of the Sites and Discoveries section in consultation with the appropriate regional editor, with reference to the space available in the print journal and the significance of the findings. The selection will also seek to achieve a regional and thematic balance.
- All the remaining contributions for each region will only be included in an online file of Supplementary Material. This is likely to include material from smaller-scale interventions, sites of more regional or local significance, or discoveries of Roman material which testify to Roman-period activity at a specific locality. All the supplementary online material will be in A4 format, with footnotes, and will be accessible via the online journal webpage.
2. All information about sites and discoveries other than inscriptions or those reported via the Portable Antiquities Scheme should be sent before 31 March of the year following discovery to:
Wales (Section 1): Mr E. Chapman, Department of Archaeology and Numismatics, National Museum of Wales, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP (evan.chapman@museumwales.ac.uk).
Scotland (Section 2): Dr F. Hunter, National Museums of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JF (f.hunter@nms.ac.uk).
Hadrian’s Wall (Section 3) and Northern England (Section 4, which comprises Cheshire, County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland, Yorkshire, and associated unitary authorities): Dr Anna Walas, Centre for Advanced Studies, Highfield House, Office B12, University Park Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD (anna.walas@nottingham.ac.uk).
The Midlands (Section 5, which comprises Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and associated unitary authorities ) and East Anglia (Section 6, which comprises Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and associated unitary authorities): Pete Wilson, Rarey Farm, Weaverthorpe, Malton, YO17 8EY (pete.wilson331@btopenworld.com)
Greater London (Section 7) and Southern Counties (east) (Section 9b, which comprises Berkshire, East Sussex, Kent, Surrey, West Sussex, and associated unitary authorities): Sadie Watson, MoLA, Mortimer Wheeler House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1 7ED (swatson@mola.org.uk).
Southern Counties (west) (Section 9a, which comprises Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Wiltshire, and associated unitary authorities) and South-Western Counties (Section 8, which comprises Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, and associated unitary authorities): Dr John Salvatore, JPS Heritage Services, Apt. 1, Old St Loyes, Salters Road, Exeter EX2 5SZ (johnpsalvatore@gmail.com).
3. Information on projects including surveys, excavations and evaluations that yield evidence for Roman-period activity is welcomed. Reports should be as concise as is consonant with clarity and comprehensibility, make reference to significant dating evidence, and seek to provide an appropriate level of interpretation and contextualisation. They should avoid the level of detail appropriate to an interim or final report, and in all but exceptional circumstances should be less than 1,000 words in length. Negative evidence will not normally be included except where it is relevant to the wider aspects of an otherwise significant site.
4. Where results are particularly significant, or where there is the opportunity to collate the results of several years’ work on a long-running investigation which has reached a significant stage or terminated, contributors are also encouraged to contact the Editor at an early stage as the submission of a Shorter Contribution may be deemed advantageous to the readership in advance of final publication (this would allow for accounts of up to 3,500 words). Such contributions will be subject to the normal peer review process.
5. Plans and other illustrations which enhance understanding of complex and significant investigations are particularly welcomed. It is the responsibility of contributors to ensure that appropriate copyright permissions have been obtained for all illustrations submitted, including those applicable to Ordnance Survey mapping. If a contribution contains illustrative material that is not in the contributor’s copyright, permission must be obtained from the relevant copyright owner for the non-exclusive right to reproduce the material worldwide in all forms and media. Illustrations submitted for inclusion in the print journal should conform to the instructions relating to illustrations accompanying Articles and Shorter Contributions.
6. Contributions should be submitted as MS Word compatible files by email attachment or via a file-sharing platform. They should state the county or unitary authority area, and on a separate line the parish (in bold type), site name (in italic type) and eight figure National Grid Reference with letter preface (e.g. SU 1830 3915). If the contribution is accompanied by illustrations, captions should be supplied which state the name of the individual or organisation responsible for the illustration, and any copyright accreditations. The following details should be included as footnotes:
(a) The name(s) of the individuals responsible for the direction of the investigation (in a commercial environment this might be the Project Officer and/or the Project Manager) and/or for the drafting of the contribution, and where appropriate, the name of the investigating organisation.
(b) The body funding the investigation (where applicable).
(c) A reference to any previous exploration of the site, where this is directly relevant to the investigation being reported.
(d) Recent and forthcoming publications. Where the investigation is reported in a grey literature report which is available on line, a hyperlink should be included (where possible, a DOI should be cited).
7. Dimensions should be given in Système Internationale units, e.g. metres (m), kilometres (km), hectares (ha), grammes (g). Non-metric equivalents may also be given where useful for comparison with earlier data.
Supplementary materials
Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.
Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.
Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.
Appendix: Supplementary Material
Supplementary material which supports an article but cannot be included in the print journal for reasons of space may be published online as an attachment to the electronic journal. Supplementary material might include extra illustrations, tables, lengthy catalogues and specialist reports. Given that supplementary material is exclusively published online, file types incompatible with print format, e.g. computer generated images, can also be considered.
Since the main article alone will appear in the print journal it must be free-standing and the reader must be able to follow its arguments without reference to the supplementary material; catalogues and specialist data should be included in the article itself if essential to the main arguments.
Although there is no formal limit on the quantity of the supplementary material it is not intended to serve as a project archive.
Authors planning to submit supplementary material should contact the Editor to discuss the content. Supplementary material is subject to the same peer review process and copyright requirements as all primary content.
Supplementary material must be submitted in the form it is intended to appear online (e.g. pdf). In the main article text a section directing readers to the supplementary material will appear before the references; this will include a link to the online page from which it can be accessed. Further cross-references may be inserted in the main article.
Supplementary material will be part of Britannia and therefore its contents and presentation must be of an acceptable standard. It will be included in the refereeing process. Although detailed copy-editing of the supplementary material will not be carried out, the author will be required to make any changes recommended by the editorial team. The supplementary material will not be typeset by CUP; hence formatting should follow the conventions of the main journal as closely as possible.
The file should include a title page listing main authors/contributors and, if lengthy, a table of contents with page references. Page numbers should be preceded by ‘D’ for digital content. The file should also include a bibliography of all works referred to in the supplementary material.
There is no limit on the use of colour images in Britannia online. Figure and table numbers should be numbered separately as ONLINE FIGS/TABLES. In lengthy texts where the material is divided into sections the illustrations can be grouped at the end of each section.
Policy on prior publication
When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.
ORCID
We encourage authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information. If you don’t already have an iD, you can create one by registering directly at https://ORCID.org/register.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
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”.
Author Hub
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English language editing services
Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.
In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.
Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.