Notes to Contributors

Manuscript Guidelines

Dear colleagues,

In January 2015 our Manuscript Guidelines have been changed, please look through the information below to properly prepare and format your submission.

Before submission, please, see our Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.

All submissions should be prepared with the following files:

1. Manuscript, including tables and figure legends.

2. Figures (guidelines for preparing figures see below).

Prior to submission, authors who believe their manuscripts would benefit from professional editing are encouraged to use language-editing and copyediting services. Obtaining this service is the responsibility of the author, and should be done before initial submission. These services can be found on the web using search terms like “scientific editing service” or “manuscript editing service”. Submissions that do not meet the MO publication criteria for language standards may be rejected.

In the case of collective authorship all authors must approve the final manuscript before submission. MO will contact all authors by email at submission to ensure that they are aware of the submission of the manuscript. One author should be designated as the corresponding author, and her or his email address or other contact information should be included on the manuscript cover page.

Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and defined upon first use in the text. Non-standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.

In addition to the guidelines below, please refer to our downloadable sample to make sure that your submission meets our formatting requirements. Download full manuscript sample (*.pdf).

1. Manuscript Organization

MO considers manuscripts of any length. There are no explicit restrictions for the number of words, figures, or the length of the supporting information, although we encourage a concise and accessible writing style. We will not consider monographs. All manuscripts should include page numbers. Manuscripts should contain the following sections:

Author/Authors

Title

Abstract

Keywords

Acknowledgments (if any)

Text of the article

Notes

References

Figure legends

Short CV

2. Manuscript File Requirements

Authors should submit their manuscript files in Microsoft Word and Adobe Portable Document Format (*.pdf). Word files must not be protected. Do not use graphic objects. If you do not follow these instructions, MO will not be able to accept your file.

3. Abstract

The abstract should describe the main objective(s) of the study, summarize the most important results and their significance, but not exceed 200 words. Abstracts should not include citations and abbreviations (if possible). Sample:

M. Vorob'yova‑Desyatovskaya, S. Shomakhmadov 

AJITASENA‑VYĀKARAṆA‑NIRDEŚA‑NĀMA‑MAHĀYĀNA‑SŪTRA (“MAHĀYĀNA SŪTRA CALLED ‘THE EXPLANATION OF PROPHECY [FOR KING] AJITASENA’”)
OF IOM RAS MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION. PART I

Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of the manuscript from Nikolay F. Petrovsky Manuscripts' Collection which belongs to the Central Asian Manuscripts' Fund of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It presents a brief outline of the history of the discovery and the study of two Ajitasena-vyākaraõa's versions of the text (Gilgit and Khotanese) as well as the manuscript palaeographic description and the attempt of its genre identification. Authors show the closeness of the plot of Ajitasena-vyākaraõa with that of Ajitasena-vyakarana-nirdesha-nama-mahayana-sutra. Ajitasena-vyākaraõa is so-called “proto-Mahayana” sutra which was found near Gilgit in 1931.

Key words: Buddhism, manuscripts, Sanskrit, Brāhmī script, palaeography, sūtra, avadāna, jātaka, Serindia, Nikolay F. Petrovsky, Sergey F. Oldenburg, The Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

4. Acknowledgments

People who contributed to the work but do not fit the standard authorship criteria should be listed in the acknowledgments, along with their contributions. You must ensure that anyone named in the acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

5. Reference List and Endnotes

Together with the text of the article the authors should provide the Reference list according to the Harvard Referencing System.

The author bears full responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic information contained in the article. All the cited sources must be listed at the end of the article in alphabetical order by author's family/surname. Sample reference list citations:

Article

Löfgren, O. (1963), “Äthiopische Wandamuletten”, Orientalia Suecana, vol. 11, pp. 95—120.

Book

Ross, H. C. (1994), The Art of Bedouin Jewellery. A Saudi Arabian Profile, New York: Players Press. 

Book with an editor (s)

Karateke, H. T. & Reinkowski, M. (eds.) (2005), Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, Leiden & Boston: Brill.

Works in other languages

For transliteration of titles in Cyrillic characters, please, use the Library of Congress Transliteration System (LC) at http://www.translit.ru.

Rezvan, E. & Rezvan, M. (2006), “‘Chtoby prokliatiia ostalis' snaruzhi’ ili ‘plat'e-obereg’ (zhenshchina i ee odezhda v magicheskom prostranstve Tsentral'noi Azii)” [“‘So the Curse Remains on the Outside’ or the ‘Protective Dress’ (Woman and Her Clothes in Magical Space of Central Asia)”], in: Rezvan, E. (ed.), Oriental Dreams. Russian Avant-Guard and Silks of Bukhara, St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, pp. 14—20.

Nurkova, V. V. (2006), Zerkalo s pamiat'iu: fenomen fotografii: kul'turno-istoricheskii analiz [The Mirror With a Memory. The Phenomenon of Photography. Cultural and Historical Analysis], Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi institut. 

Arabic

Al-Bukhārī, Ṣalāḥ b. Mubārak (1371/1992), Anīs al-ṭālibīn wa ‘uddat al-sālikīn [The Companion of The Seekers and Provider of The Followers], Ṣārī-ūghlī, Kh. I. (ed.), Tehrаn: Intishārāt-i Kayhān.

When the same work is cited successively, “ibid.” is used. 

Archival material

Indrenius, I. B. (1899), The Report of the Captain of the Sea-Going Gun-Boat “Gilyak” Commander I. B. Indrenius on Calls of the Gulf Ports. Fund 417, description 1, file 2037. Russian State Navy Archives, St. Petersburg.

Manuscript

Author, Name (“Translation”). Material, size, number of folios. Place, time. Institution, call number, folio. Courtesy.

Al-Bakrī, Kitāb Simṭ al-la’āli’ al-durriyya wa-uslūb al-jawāhir al-baḥriyya. European paper, 26.3×17.5 cm, 106 ff. Irāq or Irān, 881/1476. Bernard Quaritch Ltd., fol. 23v—24r. Courtesy of the Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

Endnotes present each work in its abbreviated citation:

6. Figures and Figure Legends

Figures (not less then 300 dpi) should be sent as separate attachment and not included in the manuscript file, but figure legends should be.

Figure legends should describe the key messages of a figure. Legends should have a short title of 15 words or less. The full legend should have a description of the figure and allow readers to understand the figure without referring to the text. Figures should be cited in ascending numeric order upon first appearance. The full list of figure captions should be inserted immediately after the end of the text of the article. Sample:

Sharaknots (collection of hymns). Parchment, 130×90 mm, 196 f. Armenian, 14th century. Purchased in 1999. NLR, Manuscript Department, call. No.: Arm.n.s 60, fol. 79. Courtesy of the NLR.

Obtaining permission to reproduce the images is the responsibility of the authors. Copy of such permission should be sent in the same attachment as the figures.

7. Tables

Tables should be cited in ascending numeric order upon first appearance. Each table should be inserted immediately after the first paragraph in which it is cited in the article file. All tables should have a concise title. Footnotes can be used to explain abbreviations.

8. Short CV

In his short CV each author should list her/his full name, degree, associated department, university, or organizational affiliation, and field of her/his scholarly interests.

Sample: Dr. Igor A. Alimov — Head of the Department of East and Southwest Asia of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, specialist in Far Eastern ethno cultural texts. Author of the series of monographs in the field.

8. Transliteration

As a rule, for the Arabic names and terms we use transliteration, not transcription. That is why, normally, all the Persian and Turkic words connected with the Muslim world, are given in the Arabic form (e. g. zāde -> zāda, etc.) However, in some particular cases it is important to reproduce the local transcription, so for some articles we try to find individual solution.

For the Arabic we use the system, close to that of Encyclopaedia of Islam, with two exceptions: “j” instead of “dj” and “q” instead of underdotted “k”. The article should not be assimilated (e. g., Abū al-Rabī‘, not Abū l-Rabī‘).

Chinese terms, proper names, geographical names and titles of works are presented in hieroglyphics and in mainland China phonetic transcription both in the text of the article and the reference list.

The Russian texts should be transliterated using the rules presented at the web-site translit.ru.