Formatting and house style
General formatting
Please set out your manuscript plainly and avoid complex formatting.
You may use simple formatting features, like tables and bulleted and numbered lists. Where you have more detailed design requirements, please include instructions in inverted angle brackets (
Use your word processor’s standard font default, indents, numbering, line spacing, and so on.
Avoid using the space bar and tabs to indent text. These create an artificial alignment and move when the manuscript is typeset.
Press the ‘Enter’ key once to indicate a new paragraph. Please do not justify text. Alignment should be to the left.
Please ensure that any accents or special characters are clear. If an accent or character cannot be reproduced correctly, please include instructions inside inverted angle brackets.
Include only a single space after the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. Check your manuscript for multiple spaces and delete them.
Before submitting your manuscript, ensure that track changes are turned off and that any track changes have been resolved and incorporated.
House style
ACER Press follows the approach outlined in the Australian Government Style Manual. In addition to the elements we have highlighted here, for more detail we encourage you to visit https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/ .
Spelling
Please refer to an up-to-date copy of the Macquarie dictionary for spelling.
Capitalisation
ACER Press prefers minimal capitalisation.
Capitalise the first word in a sentence and use lower case for all other words, unless they are proper nouns or special forms of address. This is known as ‘sentence case’.
Capitalisation can also be used for opening quoted speech within a sentence.
Only capitalise the first letter of the first word for headings.
Use sentence case for the titles of works and publications. (An exemption is the requirement to use the same capitilisation as an organisation does when citing its entire website.)
Subtitles and subheadings should be lower case.