Purpose of this Guide
This style guide is intended to (a) to ensure a unified style for all Lead Pipe articles while respecting the unique voices of individual authors; (b) provide clarity and support for guest authors; (c) empower new editors to understand and embrace Lead Pipe’s style and approach; and (d) to provide the most transparent experience possible for authors, editors, and readers of In the Library with the Lead Pipe.
General
In the Library with the Lead Pipe is a peer-reviewed journal that, over the past several years, has developed a unique voice in library publishing. Articles at Lead Pipe are forward thinking, and while frequently offering criticism, they are intended to help improve our library and archives community. Those articles that offer criticism also offer solutions or ideas that are intended to help our communities move toward improvements. Readers of Lead Pipe come from a broad range of library and archives backgrounds and locations, and as such editors encourage authors to write with the needs of a general audience in mind.
Tone
Lead Pipe prides itself on publishing well-written articles that use a less formal tone than many other peer-reviewed journals. Nevertheless, the quality of our content is comparable. The Editorial Board and authors at Lead Pipe are encouraged to write with their own voice. Editors remain cognizant of this, and will help authors write articles that fit with this style guide while still remaining true to the author’s unique voice and ideas.
We avoid writing in the passive voice whenever possible and, for many articles, encourage authors to write in the first-person.
Inclusive Language
Your word choice matters. Lead Pipe requires the use of inclusive language. This includes avoiding describing gender as binary (instead of men and women, use people), avoiding racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, classist language, and when describing disabilities, make decisions about whether to use people-first or identity-first language in a way that is congruent with the expressed wishes of people in those communities.
For more information see: Reduce Bias in Language and the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, especially the Transgender Glossary of Terms.
Personal Pronouns
In line with the use of inclusive language, Lead Pipe requires the use of a subjects’ preferred pronouns when known. For general singular personal pronouns Lead Pipe requires the use of singular “they” and “their” (or rephrasing so as to not use a singular pronoun).
Geographic Centricity
Lead Pipe is an international publication. Where possible, incorporate a global perspective in the context and arguments of articles (e.g., by considering what the broad international profession should do, not just what the American Library Association or U.S.-based librarians should do). It is acceptable for an article’s focus to be on one geographic region, but this should be made clear in the article, and avoid phrases like “across the country” without mentioning which country.
Where there are spelling differences, Editors should defer to the standard of the country of the author(s) (e.g., color/colour or realise/realize).
References
We encourage our authors to read widely and across disciplines as they make their arguments, to be cognizant of the perspectives and positionalities of the sources they reference, and to critically consider perspectives and positionalities that are not reflected in their scholarship.
Citations
There is no uniform citation requirement for articles at Lead Pipe. However, each article should use a consistent citation style within the piece. Articles should contain a list of references, though well chosen links may complement this requirement or even serve as a substitute in some instances, and authors should provide attribution for direct and indirect quotations.
Footnotes
Footnotes are a good way to include parenthetical statements without disrupting the narrative flow for readers. Footnotes can be added within WordPress, where they will appear as a numerical notation within the text that links to a fuller explanation at the end of the article.
Punctuation & Grammar
Authors should use appropriate grammar and punctuation, but also avoid writing sentences in which structural elements like punctuation, tense, or subject-verb agreement are likely to draw attention to themselves. While Lead Pipe generally prefers an informal tone, when in doubt about a grammatical element, remember that the citation style you use also provides writing tips!
Acronyms
If using acronyms, first use the spelled out acronym and place the acronym as a parenthetical afterwards. Throughout the rest of the article you may use the acronym. For example, “College and Research Libraries News (C&RL News) published its first article in 2008. C&RL News has since published numerous articles each year.”
Commas
Lead Pipe uses Oxford/serial commas.
Numbers
Using numbers should be consistent. Generally we follow APA style and ask that numbers less than 10 should be spelled out and larger numbers be expressed with numerals, but if you are writing in Chicago style and want to be consistent with those rules that is fine.
Paragraph Length
Paragraphs that consist of a single sentence can be effective if used sparingly. Long paragraphs should be avoided.
Quotations
Lead Pipe follows the following punctuation rules outlined by Grammar Girl: “In American English, periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark; semicolons, colons, asterisks, and dashes always go outside the closing quotation mark; and question marks and exclamation points require that you analyze the sentence and make a decision based on context.”
Tense
Tense should be consistent within each paragraph, though tense may change from paragraph to paragraph.
Formatting for the Web
In Brief
Each article begins with an “in brief” abstract around 50-100 words in length but no more than 200 words. These statements are currently formatted as a block quote.
Images, Graphics, and Tables
Every infographic, chart, or other data visualization requires a full text-based equivalent (i.e. an html table or list, in addition to brief alt text) that makes the information contained in the image perceptible for all readers, including users of screen readers and those with other print disabilities. To ensure accessibility, html tables will be used instead of images of tables. The final format of these text-based equivalents will most likely be html tables or lists included as appendices below the article’s References section, with links from the figure’s caption to the textual equivalent and back. The Editorial Board can help create these perceptible equivalents.
Images should be no wider than 550 pixels, and should generally be between 400 and 500 pixels wide. If necessary, use an image editor to change the original image’s size before including it in your article, and also use the editor’s “save for web” feature to decrease its file size. Using HTML to resize the image or posting an image whose file size is larger than it needs to be will slow down the website.
Each article begins with an image that is meant to complement its theme. Please be sure to use only images you are allowed to include, and please give credit to its creator. To comply with Lead Pipe‘s overall licensing, images should be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license or a license with even fewer restrictions. Many Lead Pipe authors make use of the Creative Commons-licensed images that have been posted on Flickr. Note: In order to search Creative Commons-licensed images, use the link labeled “see more” at the end of each license’s section, not the search box at the top of the page.
Be sure to credit the image. CC BY 4.0 requires that: “You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.” See past articles for examples.
Headers
Use headers to delineate sections of text. Headers are important for the look of articles, but are also an important component to making web published documents readable by accessibility software such as screen readers. Start with Header 3 and then use headers sequentially after that, i.e., <h3>, <h4>, <h5>, and <h6>.
Hyperlinks
Since Lead Pipe is written for the web, using hyperlinks is appropriate and encouraged, especially when readers may not be familiar with the concept being discussed, or its particular context. Give hyperlinks unique names and make them descriptive, a practice that is helpful for all readers that also dramatically increases accessibility. Hyperlinks should not replace formal references.
Hyphens, N-dashes, and M-dashes
The hyphen found on standard computer keyboard is appropriate when authors wish to use a hyphen. If you are using the HTML View within WordPress, please use – when an n-dash is appropriate, and — when an m-dash is required. Within WordPress’s Visual editor, use the punctuation page on CopyPasteCharacter.com or copy and past the appropriate punctuation from within a word processor, such as Word or Google Docs. As a style note, we believe that using m-dashes to set off ideas can be effective once or twice per article, but most sentences are clearer without the use of m-dashes. For more information on the use of n-dashes and m-dashes see Punctuation Matters.
Spaces
When publishing on the web, only a single space is used after periods.
Block Quotes
Block quotes are used for quotations that are several lines long. They are NOT used to highlight or reiterate portions of text. Block quotes do not use quotation marks. The “in brief” section is currently visually delineated by using block quotes formatting.
Peer-review Acknowledgement
At the end of each article, authors acknowledge their peer reviewers and Lead Pipe Editors. The acknowledgement section should be italicized and should appear after the article but before the list of references.
Other
When referring to your writing on Lead Pipe, refer to it as an article. When first discussing Lead Pipe, use the journal’s full title, In the Library with the Lead Pipe. This title should be italicized. Subsequent mentions of the journal may be abbreviated to Lead Pipe as has been done throughout this style guide.
Be consistent when referring to individuals. Introduce individuals with first and last name, or simply last name. If you wish to refer to individuals by their first name, first introduce them with first and last name. Also give some context as to why you are introducing this person.
Ignore the category fields in WordPress.