Instructions for potential authors

Asia Maior is an English-language yearly scientific journal. Its articles analyse the political, economic and, if need be, social developments in an Asian country. The geopolitical space analysed by the Asia Maior think tank is that part of Asia bounded to the north by the Caucasus mountain range and the southern border of Siberia, to the west by the oriental borders of Turkey and the Arab countries, to the south by the Indian Ocean and to the east by the Pacific Ocean. The articles published in the journal Asia Maior are usually focussed on the year preceding the date of publication of the issue. However, in case of countries which have not been previously analysed or have not been analysed for more than one year, the focus is on the whole period previously left unattended.
The standard Asia Maior article is made of three parts: one dealing with internal policy, one with economic policy, and another one with foreign policy. The succession of these three topics and the relative lengths are decided by the single author/s, who should base his/her choice on the relative importance of the different topics in the chronological period which is analysed. For the China-related and India-related articles, this rule does not apply, as, for both countries, there are separate articles, usually one dealing with the internal situation and the other with foreign policy.
Apart from the articles focussed on single Asian countries, Asia Maior publishes review articles and reviews of monographs which, by making use of different methodologies (historical, sociological, economic, anthropological, etc.), contribute to illuminate the present situation of any Asian nation or region. The monographs in question need not necessarily focus on the present or the near past, but also on historical junctures that have characterized even the distant past, but which, in some way, can illuminate the present.
Occasionally, Asia Maior can publish ‘special articles’, usually dealing with topics related either to transnational problems or problematic areas such as Kashmir or Xinjiang.
Asia Maior does not have professional proof-readers who can take care take care of the standardization of the articles to be published in the journal according to its rules. It is therefore essential that the articles offered for publication reach the editors written according to the style rules of the journal.

2. Page format

The page format is:
page dimension 14×21,
top margin 2,1,
left margin 2,
down 2,5,
right 1,8.
Character
In the text: Times New Roman 9.5 or NewBaskerville 9, interline 10.5;
In the footnotes: Times New Roman or NewBaskerville 8, interline 9.

3. How an article must start

An Asia Maior article must begin as follows:

Title (in small caps)

Name and Surname of the author/s (in Italics)

University of …/or Independent scholar/or Asia Maior – An Italian think tank on Asia
yourmail@… (in Romans)

Please, insert two spaces between the title and the name of the author, plus two spaces between the name of the author and his/her affiliation, and no space between the affiliation and the email. 

After three spaces, insert the abstract of your article. As a rule, it should not be longer than one page. Italics should be made use of. The abstract must not be preceded by the word «Abstract».

After the abstract, with an interval of two spaces, some key-words must be inserted (please, do not exceed with the number!). The style should be the following:

Keywords – First keyword; second keyword; third keyword; fourth keyword; etc.

Please take note that the word «Keywords» is in small caps; the single keywords are in normal characters.

After three spaces, the text of the article starts.

4. How an Asia Maior article is subdivided

The Asia Maior articles are divided in numbered and titled sections. The number should be in Roman and should be followed by a dot; the title of the sections should be in Italics.
Two spaces must be inserted before the title of each section and one space must be inserted following it.
In the case of subsections (e.g., a section numbered 2.1.), only a space must be inserted before the title (and one after it). Even in the case of subsections, the number must be followed by a final dot.
The beginning of each section of the article is aligned to the left margin. All the successive paragraphs begin with an indent.
The Asia Maior indent is the equivalent of six blank spaces.

5. Asia Maior’s language

Asia Maior makes use of British English, according to the Oxford spelling (also Oxford English Dictionary spelling, Oxford style, or Oxford English spelling). This is the spelling standard that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with the suffix -ize in words like realize and organization, in contrast to use of -ise endings.
However, in quotations and footnotes, American English spelling is maintained, when present in the sources.

6. Capital letters in job titles

There is no single, universally agreed upon standard for capitalizing job titles. The important thing is consistency. The rule followed by Asia Maior is to capitalize a job title only when it is an integral part of a proper name or the equivalent of a proper name.
E.g.
Prime Minister Modi arrived at noon.
The Chinese delegation will meet the President tomorrow.
In all other cases, the job title is not capitalized.
E.g.
The prime minister, Narendra Modi, arrived at noon.
I would like to be the president of General Motors
For more detailed rules on when to capitalize, you can request Capital Letters: Asia Maior’s manual of style writing to the editors (emails given at the end of these Instructions).

7. Reference style

In 2023, Asia Maior adopted a new reference style, to facilitate the indexing and classification of journal articles on the part of Google Scholar and similar Web search engines. The new rules are as follows.

In the text of the article, any quotation must be inserted in abbreviated form, between square brackets. The full quotation will be given at the end of the article, in the bibliography.
Hereafter the style to be adhered to is exemplified.

Two different styles are to be followed, depending on the fact that the author of the article to be quoted is indicated or not.

1) If the author of the article is indicated in the source as in Prem Shankar Jha, ‘Who is really behind the Islamic State?’, Tehelka, 3 September 2014.
the abbreviated quotation is:
[Jha 2014, 3 September]

The whole quotation, given in the bibliography, is:
Jha, Prem Shankar, 2014, ‘Who is really behind the Islamic State?’, Tehelka, 3 September.

2) If the author of the article is not indicated in the source as in the following example:

‘A chaotic conference fractures Liz Truss’s young premiership’, The Economist, 5 October 2022

the abbreviated quotation is:
[The Economist 2022, 5 October]

The whole quotation, given in the bibliography, is:

The Economist, 2022, October 5, ‘A chaotic conference fractures Liz Truss’s young premiership’.

Of course, should you quote more than one anonymous article from the same source, the quotations will be differentiated by a letter of the alphabet

Accordingly, e.g., should you quote in the same article the source quoted above and this other source:

‘Is the world economy in a debt trap?’, The Economist, 5 October 2022.

The first will be quoted as
[The Economist 2022a, 5 October]
And the second as
[The Economist 2022b, 5 October]

When the quotation of the title of a newspaper includes a part between quotes, the quotes will be transformed into French inverted commas (guillemets), namely in the symbols « and ». E.g., the following title

‘Make in India’ pitch from Sept. 25

which heads an article by Puja Mehra published in The Hindu of 21 September 2014, will be quoted in the text as
[Mehra 2014, 21 September]
and, in the bibliography:

Mehra, Puja, 2014, ‘«Make in India» pitch from Sept. 25’, The Hindu, 21 September.

The symbols « and » are available among the symbols of any good word processor.

If the name of the author is available the source, as in the following case:
Keith Jones, ‘US elite rolls out red carpet for Indian PM Modi’, World Socialist Web Site, 30 September 2014.
the abbreviated quotation is:
[Jones 2014]

The whole quotation, given in the bibliography, is:
Jones, Keith, 2014, ‘US elite rolls out red carpet for Indian PM Modi’, World Socialist Web Site, 30 September.

If the name of the author is not available, as in the following source,

‘PM’s address and interaction at Council on Foreign Relations in New York’, PMINDIA,29 September 2014.
The in-text abbreviated quotation is:
[‘PM’s address and interaction’ 2014]
Or any other abbreviation chosen by the author and followed by the year of publication.
The general rule is: insert an abbreviated title of no more than three or four words, followed by the year.

The whole quotation, to be given in the bibliography is:
‘PM’s address and interaction at Council on Foreign Relations in New York’, 2014, PMINDIA,29 September.

Please do not insert the URL of a source available on the web as the title of the article, its date and the name of the website are sufficient to locate the article in the web.
However, URLs must be inserted:
(a) when quoting a site in a non-European language;
(b) when, as sometimes happens, a website does not have a name or there is reason to think that the title of the article, its date and the name of the website are not sufficient to locate the article
In these cases, the whole URL should be supplied, between parentheses (), in the bibliography.

When a URL becomes necessary, it is usually possible to give either a shorter or longer indication. The longer one brings directly to the quoted document, but it is more subject to change in the course of time. The shorter indication does imply some additional operations on the part of whoever wants to reach the document, but is more lasting and handier. Therefore, it is the one suggested.

If the source is an article published in a scholarly journal, as, e.g.,

D. A. Washbrook, ‘Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1981, pp. 649-721,
the abbreviated quotation is:
[Washbrook 1981]
If the reference is not the whole article, but an information in a given page, or in a given number of pages, the abbreviated quotation is:
[Washbrook 1981: 650] if the quotation is at page 650, or
[Washbrook 1981: 711-712] if the quotation is at pages 711-712

The whole quotation, given in the bibliography, is:
Washbrook, D. A., 1981, ‘Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India’, Modern Asian Studies, 15(3): 649-721.

Quotations from an Asia Maior article present a peculiar difficulty, because, due to the history of the journal, the year on which the articles are focused, which is indicated in the front cover together with the name of the journal, and the year of publication do not coincide anymore. Hence the editors’ decision to solve the problem through the indication of both years, as shown below.
If, e.g., you must quote the following article:
Michelguglielmo Torri, ‘India 2019: Assaulting the world’s largest democracy: building a kingdom of cruelty and fear’, which was published in vol. XXXIX, the extended quotation in the bibliography will be:
Torri, Michelguglielmo, 2020, ‘India 2019: Assaulting the world’s largest democracy: building a kingdom of cruelty and fear’, Asia Maior, Vol. XXIX/2019: 156-59.
the abbreviated quotation, to be inserted between square brackets is:
[Torri 2020]
or, if you quote, a particular passage of the article, the indication Torri 2020, followed by a colon, and the number/s of the relevant pages. E.g.:
[Torri 2o20: 160]
[Torri 2020: 160-62]

When the source to be quoted is, e.g.:
Abdul Majed Khan, The Transition in Bengal 1756-1775. A study of Saiyid Muhammad Reza Khan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969, pp. 17-22
the in-text abbreviate quotation is:
[Khan 1969: 17-22]
The whole quotation in the bibliography is:
Khan, Abdul Majed, 1969, The Transition in Bengal 1756-1775. A study of Saiyid Muhammad Reza Khan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

If the original source is, e.g.,
Thomas A. Timberg, ‘Hiatus and Incubator: Indigenous Trade and Traders, 1837-1857’, in Asiya Siddiqi (ed.), Trade and Finance in Colonial India 1750-1860, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 251-264 [for the full article] or p. 252 [for data given in that particular page].
the in-text abbreviation is:
[Timberg 1995] or
[Timberg 1995: 252]
as appropriate.

The first name/s must be given exactly as in the source, hence. Do not shorten the first name if it is not shortened in the source.

QUOTATION FROM AN ARTICLE/BOOK AUTHORED/EDITED BY TWO AUTHORS

If the source is, e.g.,
Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblat, How Democracies Die, New York: Broadway Books, 2018,
the shortened in-text quotation is:
[Levitsky & Ziblat 2018]
The full quotation, in the bibliography is:
Levitsky, Steven, & Daniel Ziblat, 2018, How Democracies Die, New York: Broadway Books.
(Make use of either ‘&’ or ‘and’ as in the source)
Please, note that in the case of the first author, the family name is quote first, followed by the Christian name. After the Christian name and before the & or and, a comma must be inserted. In the case of the names of the second author, first comes the Christian name, followed by the family name. Of course, no comma separates them.

If the source is, e.g.,
Christopher Baker, Gordon Johnson and Anil Seal (eds.), Power, Profit and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
The in-text shortened quotation is:
[Baker et al. 1981]
The complete quotation in the bibliography is:
Baker, Christopher, Gordon Johnson and Anil Seal (eds.), Power, Profit and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
(Make use of either ‘&’ or ‘and’, as in the original.)

… must be separated by a semicolon (;)and quoted according to the date of publication.
E.g.,
[Bayly 1975; Levitsky & Ziblat 2018]

If the source is, e.g.,
Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, A Shared Vision for the 21st Century of the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China, 14 January 2008.
The shortened in-text quotation is
[Government of India 2018]
The full quotation, in the bibliography, is:
Government of India, Ministry of External Affairs, 2008, A Shared Vision for the 21st Century of the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China, 14 January.

If the source is:
White House. Statements & Releases, Statement by President Donald J. Trump on Signing the ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act’, 2 August 2017.
The shortened in-text quotation is:
[White House 2017]
The full quotation in the bibliography is:
White House. Statements & Releases, 2017, Statement by President Donald J. Trump on Signing the ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act’, 2 August.

When, by adhering to the above rules, different sources could end up with the same shortened quotations, they must be differentiated by making use of the letters of the alphabet. Accordingly, the following two documents:
White House. Statements and Releases, FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Strengthens the Federal Government’s Resilience to Climate Change Impacts, October 06, 2022
and
White House. Statements and Releases, Statement by President Joe Biden on Protecting Dreamers, October 05, 2022
will be shortened as follows:
the one which is chronologically the first will become:
[White House 2022a]
and the other
[White House 2022b]

The full quotations in the bibliography will be, respectively:
[White House 2022a] White House. Statements and Releases, 2022, Statement by President Joe Biden on Protecting Dreamers, 5 October.
(Please, note that the original ‘October 05’ must be changed into ‘5 October’)
and
[White House 2022b] White House. Statements and Releases, 2022, FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Strengthens the Federal Government’s Resilience to Climate Change Impacts, 6 October.
(Please, note that the original ‘October 06’ must be changed into ‘6 October’)

When quoting any source in a language which has a non-Latin alphabet, the in-text shortened quotation, to be made between square parentheses, will indicate, in Latin characters, either the name of the author or the shortened title of the document, or an acronym, followed by the year of publication.
For example,
[TAOSC 2012]
stands for:
Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council
In the bibliography, the shortened in-text quotation between square parentheses will be repeated, followed by the full quotation in the original alphabet. The full quotation in the non-Latin alphabet will adhere to the same style indicated above for the sources in English. It will be followed by the English translation, between parentheses, of what is written in the non-European language. When the source is available on the internet, the URL will be given. E.g.,
[TAOSC 2012] ‘王毅在欢迎吴敦义一行招待酒会上的即席致辞’ (Wang Yi Delivers an Impromptu Speech at the Cocktail Reception for Wu Den-yih and His Party), 2 April 2012 (http://www.gwytb.gov.cn/wyly/201204/t20120402_2418794.htm).

The sources quoted between square brackets in the text are collected in a bibliography at the end of the text.
The bibliography will be separated by the text by four spaces.
It will begin with title Bibliography (in small caps). The word Bibliography must be in the middle of the line. It will be followed by two spaces before the beginning of the list of the sources.

INFORMATIONAL INTERVIEWS

Informational interviews provide non-recoverable data; hence they are not cited in the bibliography and are only included in the in-text citations, according to the following style:
[Last name, first names, personal communication, location, date in the European format, namely: day, month, year]. The location is the one where the interviewee was located when he/she gave the interview.
E.g.:
[Corvino, Marco Valerio, personal communication, New Delhi, 28 September 2021]
Subsequent citation
[Corvino 2021]
If the interviewee is anonymous, it is opportune to indicate at least his/her status.
Example 1
[State employee, personal communication, New Delhi, 28 September 2021]
Subsequent citation
[State employee 2021].

Example 2

[Private citizen, personal communication, New Delhi, 28 September 2021]

Subsequent citation

[Private citizen 2021]

8. Peculiar uses followed by Asia Maior

For the sake of clarity, Asia Maior makes use of a space between the symbol of a currency and the number indicated. E.g., US$ 35,000.00, not US$35,000.00.

When quoting a passage either in the text of the article or in the footnotes, it must be inserted between Frech commas or guillemets, namely: « ».
Frech commas or guillemets can be found among the symbols of any good word processor.

When quoting the title of an article in the footnotes, it must be inserted between simple inverted commas: ‘ ’. If the title includes within it that same kind of inverted commas, they must be substituted with « »; if the title include the symbols “ and ”, they can be left as they are.

Explanatory footnotes can be inserted. Their number must be positioned after the punctuation mark.

9. A recurring mistake that must be avoided

Often, the number that precedes the title of a section is not justified on the left. In other words, instead of typing:

1. Title of the section

The author types:

1. Title of the section

Namely, before the number there is an indent. This happens because most word processor are customized to automatically insert it, particularly when there is a number followed by a full stop or a parenthesis. This automatic control, however, can be deactivated.

10. Conclusion

Should any of you still have any doubts on matters of style or the like, please do not hesitate to contact one of the editors at the addresses:

filippo.boni@open.ac.uk
maioranodiego@gmail.com
mg.torri@gmail.com