Inside Indonesia Style Guide for Authors and Proofreaders

This Style Guide is designed to help make your writing experience as enjoyable and trouble-free as possible. Read it carefully before you begin to write, and check your manuscript against it before you send it in. If you have queries that are not covered in the Style Guide, contact the Guest Editor for advice.

If you would like to reproduce your article elsewhere we ask that you acknowledge that it was first
published in Inside Indonesia.

General Guidelines

*   The main thing to remember is that you are writing for a general audience. Don’t try to cover everything—try to interest readers so they want to find out more about your subject. Aim for a secondary-school reading level so that your article is accessible to all.

*   If you are writing an article on a subject you have worked on in an academic context, you need to be particularly aware of the differences between academic and magazine style. A good magazine article focuses on one main story. Don’t try to adapt an academic text directly. Pick an ‘angle’ that would be interesting to readers (consult with your Guest Editor if you are having trouble with this), then sit down with a blank piece of paper and just WRITE (imagine you’re telling someone the story). You can always slot in factual material later.

*   You’ll be advised how many words to aim for by the editor. We work in full pages, so articles are short (750-800 words), middle-length (1,500-1,600 words) or occasionally long (2,250-2, 400 or 3,000-3,200 words). Remember, the closer your article is to the upper word limit, the less space there will be for a photograph or other image. If you or the Guest Editor has a good image that you want to be reproduced in a large size, you may wish to aim for an even shorter article.

*   Be consistent by saying the SAME THING in the SAME WAY throughout the article. This makes for a cleaner, clearer, more professional manuscript.

*   Keep sentences short. Use active (subject-verb-object) rather than passive sentence structures. Avoid 'big' words and excessive adjectives. Avoid repetition.

*   DO NOT include footnotes or references.

*   If possible, provide two photos or graphics with your article. Good images are very important to the ‘look’ of the magazine. Remember that the image will be reproduced in black and white, so make sure it has good composition, definition and contrast. Remember, it will be easier for you to find suitable images, because you know the topic better than the Guest Editor.

*   Send your article to the Guest Editor by email. Attach graphics in a separate file if you have an electronic copy of them (which must be scanned at a minimum of 300 dpi). If not, get in touch and we can make arrangements for you to post them in (leave plenty of time for this).

*   After your manuscript has been submitted, the editor will work with you to maximise the impact of your article. This often requires significant rewriting, so keep an open mind on your text. Once that process is completed, your article will be read by one reviewer, who will recommend whether the article should be accepted, rejected or changed. We’ll let you know how it goes and help you make any final changes necessary before publication.

Spelling and standard translations and terms

*   Inside Indonesia uses Australian spelling, not American. That includes 's' instead of 'z' (organisation, NOT organization), kilometres (NOT kilometers) and travelling (NOT traveling). If in doubt check the Macquarie Dictionary or the Oxford Concise Australian Dictionary.

*   Make sure your spell-checker is set on Australian spelling. Be aware Microsoft Word Australian spell-checker has inconsistencies in it. If you are concerned, Macquarie offers a downloadable Australian dictionary that is compatible with Word for around A$10.

*   Use Indonesian language expressions sparingly, and translate them. Where possible, use an English word. If you MUST use and Indonesian word, put the Indonesian first then the English translation in brackets, then use the Indonesian in the rest of the text. Do not use italics for the Indonesian. Make sure your translations are consistent.

*   Inside Indonesia uses the following standard transliterations: syariah, hadith, Qur'an (NOT Koran), Sunnah (the normative practice or codes based on the hadith) (capitalised), fikih and zakat.

*   Use ‘western’ (NOT ‘Western’) in phrases such as ‘western social science’, western values.

*   Use prison, NOT gaol or jail. ‘Gaol’ is correct, but so many people use the American spelling now, that it’s better to avoid both.

*   Use ‘district’ (NOT regency) for kabupaten, and ‘sub-district’ for kecamatan; ‘district head’ (NOT regent) for bupati, sub-district head for camat. Add the Indonesian in brackets on the first usage in the article.

*   Use Suharto (NOT Soeharto), Jusuf Kalla (NOT Yusuf Kalla), PDIP (NOT PDI-P)

*   Use Ministry of Religion, NOT Ministry of Religious Affairs (the official name of the ministry is Departemen Agama).

*   Inside Indonesia uses the following standard translations. People's Consultative Assembly for MPR and People's Representative Council for DPR. It is also appropriate to use the generic term ‘parliament’. Use Regional Peoples’ Representative Council for DPRD and Regional Representative Council for DPD. It is also appropriate to use regional parliament to refer to the DPRD. It is not necessary to expand the Indonesian versions of these acronyms.

*   Both Papua and West Papua may be used to refer to the province formerly known as Irian Jaya. As a rule of thumb, Papua is now the formal name of the province (though there is also another new province called West Irian Jaya on the western tip of the island) and is how the territory is referred to in official Indonesian political discourse. West Papua is the term usually preferred by Papuan nationalists. Usage in Inside Indonesia might reflect which perspective is being expressed.

*   Check the Macquarie Dictionary or the Oxford Concise Australian Dictionary if you are unsure whether a word should be hyphenated.

*   References to previous editions of Inside Indonesia should follow this form: Inside Indonesia No 79, July-September 2004. The article should appear in this form: ‘Turtle satay no longer in fashion’

*   References to legislation should appear in the following form: Law No. 24 of 2003.

*   Southeast Asia NOT South East Asia

Capitals

*   Titles of books should appear in maximum capitalisation, for example, Fluid Iron: State Formation in Southeast Asia (NOT Fluid iron: state formation in Southeast Asia).

*   Translations of book titles, works on art from Indonesian to English should appear in the following form: Perkenankan Aku Menjelaskan Sebuah Takdir (Permit Me to Describe a Destiny).

*   Directions should be written in lower case (east). The names of provinces should be capitalised (for example, West Java, South Sulawesi).

*   Use Indonesian government (NOT Indonesian Government).

*   The names of government departments and other official entities, organisations and companies take capitals, for example, the Department of National Education, the Attorney General’s Office, World Vision, and Indonesian National Shipping (PELNI). Use lower case when referring to the generic elements of these entities, for example, Department of National Education is referred to as ‘the department’ (NOT the Department), the Constitutional Court is referred to as ‘the court’ (NOT ‘the Court’), and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is referred to as ‘the commission’ (NOT ‘the Commission’).

*   The names of government bills and acts take capitals, for example, the Special Autonomy Bill, the Human Rights Act. Use lower case when referring to the generic elements so ‘the bill’ (NOT ‘the Bill’), the act (NOT ‘the Act’).

*   Always use a capital when referring to the Constitution as a specific entity, for example, ‘According to the Constitution, all Indonesian citizens have the right to an education.’ Use lower case when referring to the generic element, for example ‘constitutional rights’. ‘The Cabinet’ (as a specific entity) also takes a capital, for example, ‘On Tuesday the Cabinet met to discuss the new bill’ but ‘The president said that a new cabinet would be sworn in as soon as possible.’

*   Use capitals for academic disciplines, for example Southeast Asian Studies, Classics and World Religions, Anthropology, Indonesian Studies.

*   Use reformasi NOT Reformasi.

Italics

*   Indonesian words are not italicised.

*   The names of boats do not need to be italicised.

*   The titles of books/films etc should appear in italics.

Punctuation

*   In general, a comma is not used before ‘and’ or ‘or’ etc in a list (for example, ‘John, Elena and Warren came to lunch.’). However, a comma may be used if leaving it out would cause ambiguity (for example, ‘The long days at work, the nights of intense study, and inadequate food eventually caused them serious health problems.’). A semicolon may also be used to avoid ambiguity (for example ‘The long days at work; the nights of intense study; and inadequate food eventually caused them serious health problems.’).

*   Full stops, commas, colons and semi-colons are placed outside the quote marks if the quoted material is not a sentence. For example: 

A common response among both Indonesians and Australians was to decry the ruling for giving confessed terrorists the opportunity to walk out of jail on a 'mere technicality'. [This is just a fragment of a sentence.]

*   Punctuation is only placed inside quotation marks when quoting a complete sentence of direct speech. For example:

Houndsworth once said that ‘Indonesia is a hopeless muddle of a place.’ [Here we have a complete sentence, the full stop occurs after 'place' in the original quotation.]

‘What I don't understand,’ she said, ‘is why all the Indonesians round here don't want to talk to me.’ [Here the full sentence in the quote is broken by ‘she said, but the original sentence is a full one.]

*   Use single quote marks ‘...’ (NOT double “....” ).

Shortened Forms

*   Do not use abbreviations. Write road or street (NOT rd and st), for example, (NOT e.g.); therefore (NOT i.e.).

*   Use a full-stop in abbreviations that don’t end with the same letter, for example No. for Number. For abbreviations where the end letter is still present, there is no need to use a full-stop, for example Dr for Doctor).

*   Write nineteenth (NOT 19th) and twentieth (NOT 20th). For example, ‘In the nineteenth century…’ (NOT ‘In the 19th century…’)

*   Percentages must be written as two words (per cent) (NOT % or percent).

*   If you are using an Indonesian acronym, write the acronym, then the English translation in brackets, for example, PKI (Indonesian Communist Party). It is also acceptable to write the English first and the Indonesian acronym second, for example, Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Acronyms do not need to be expanded. For example Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) NOT Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI).

*   Do not use full-stops between the letters in acronyms. Write PKI (NOT P.K.I)

*   All letters in acronyms should appear in capitals, for example, ABRI (NOT Abri), WALHI (NOT Walhi).

Non-sexist language

*   Use gender-neutral terms wherever possible, for example, fishers (NOT fishermen).

Numbers and Dates

*   Spell out numbers under 10, for example, seven. For 10 and above, use the figures, unless the sentence begins with a number.

*   Do not use full stops when writing the time. Write it as one word, for example, 10am, 3pm.

*   The date (for example, ‘in the 1970s’) does not have an apostrophe.

*   Do not use a comma in four-digit numbers, for example, 1824. Numbers with five or more digits take a comma, for example, 10,809 or 100,307.

*   Dates should be in Australian style, for example, 24 October 2004 (NOT October 24, 2004).

*   For currencies, use A$15 (NOT AUD), US$20 (NOT USD), Rp20,000 (NOT Rupiah or rupiah). DO NOT put a space between the currency sign and the amount, and use commas where appropriate (not spaces or fullstops). Give the Australian dollar equivalent the first time a rupiah amount is used.

Formatting

*   Titles of articles, precedes and sub-headings should be in ‘sentence form’ (capital letter for first letter. Subsequent words – except names – in lower case).

*   Use a single space after full stops and colons.

*   Set your paragraph formatting to add extra space (.6) after a paragraph. Present your text in block paragraphs (no indents) with no line between paragraphs.

*   Websites should appear in brackets, except after ‘at’. Delete all hyperlinks from copy, and do not underline the link.

*   Email addresses should appear in curved brackets with no ). Delete all hyperlinks from copy, and do not underline. [ To see why this visible instruction makes little sense...click on View/source-code at the top of your browser and scroll down to here. Anything enclosed within these < brackets disappears in web browsers as they are meant to hide the source-code used to create the web pages formatting. ]

Names and Titles

*   Always put a person’s title first and their name second, for example, ‘The governor of Jakarta, Sutiyoso, said ...’

*   Avoid honorifics. At first mention the person is Megawati Soekarnoputri. If the person is Indonesian, use their common-use name after that, for example, Megawati. If the person is from America, Australia or Europe, use their surname on second mention, unless you’re telling a personal story about them.

*   For Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono: when first mentioning him, use ‘President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, or SBY,…’. All subsequent times within the same article, use ‘SBY’.

*   Names such as Abdul and Mohammad should not be abbreviated. So, for example, Mohammad Hatta (NOT Moh Hatta or Moh. Hatta).

*   Titles such as chairperson, secretary general, governor, mayor, district head, commander and general should take a capital when they are part of a person’s title, for example, ‘General Wiranto said yesterday that…’. When they are not part of a person’s title use lower case, for example, ‘The commander of the Cakrabirawa Regiment, Irawan Kudeta…’ and ‘The chairperson of the committee, Bambang Ali Anu…’.

*   Academic titles such as associate professor and professor take a capital letter when they are part of a person’s title. For example, ‘Associate Professor David Reeve coordinates the Indonesian studies program at the University of New South Wales’. When they are not part of a person’s title, they should be written in lower case. For example, ‘Elizabeth Fuller Collins is an associate professor in classics and world religions at Ohio State University’. Similarly, ‘Max Lane is a convenor of the Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference and a research fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University’.

*   Use capitals when referring to the heads of countries, for example, ‘Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday that…’, ‘Prime Minister John Howard met with …’. Use lower case when the title appears without the name, for example, ‘However, the president also said that he would not tolerate …’. Use lower case when referring to former presidents, for example, ‘The bill was introduced under former president Megawati Soekarnoputri…’. Use vice president (NOT vice-president).

*   Capitals should also be used when referring to government ministers, for example, ‘On his arrival in Jakarta, he was met by Indonesian Minister of Defence Juwono Sudarsono…’ Use lower case when the title appears without the name, for example, ‘The minister assured the delegation that aid was being channelled to affected areas’. The Attorney General should also appear in capitals.

*   If there is more than one spelling for a person’s name, use the most common spelling and put the alternative spelling in brackets at the first usage of the name in the article, for example, ‘Kahar Muzakkar (also spelled Qahhar Mudzakkar)’. Use the most common spelling throughout the rest of the article.

*   Do not use full stops with initials in personal names, for example, Sari P Setiogi (NOT Sari P. Setiogi). Where there are two initials, place them together without a space, for example, SP Setiogi (NOT S P Setiogi), KH Ahmad Dahlan (NOT K.H. Ahmad Dahlan). Also Dr I Ketut (NOT Dr. I Ketut).