editor=AT=sportsci.org · webmaster=AT=sportsci.org · Homepage · Copyright ©1997

Affiliations: Will Hopkins PhD (lecturer), Department of Physiology and School of Physical Education, University of Otago, Dunedin 9001, New Zealand.
Correspondence: will=AT=clear.net.nz

SUMMARY

• punctuation
• hyphenation
• italics and bold
• fonts and symbols
• abbreviations
• headings, paragraph styles, and lists
• numbers and statistics
• tables
• figures
• use of words
• grammar
• flow of ideas
• references
  

INTRODUCTION

In this editorial I detail stylistic guidelines for all material published at the Sportscience website. If you intend to contribute material, you should read and follow the recommendations in this editorial. You should also use the appropriate template downloaded from the Sportscience site. Some of the material in the templates is duplicated here.

In general, the guidelines are consistent with the recommendations in the publication manual of the American Psychological Association (1994; also available on the Web in an adaptation by Dewey, 1996). I indicate departures from APA style in brackets, thus: [APA…].

PUNCTUATION

• Insert a comma wherever there would be a slight pause between words or phrases in the spoken sentence.
• Two related sentences can sometimes be separted by a semicolon; if in doubt, use a period.
• Use a colon to introduce an explanation or an example of something: you are reading an example right now. If there are several simple explanations or examples, separate them with commas; otherwise, use semicolons.
• Avoid excessive use of parentheses ( ). Use them to make an aside (an extra remark) only if commas or dashes could be confusing. (Don't use parentheses within parentheses (as in this example). Find another way of saying it.)
• Use brackets [ ] for material inserted into a quotation and ellipsis (three dots) for material omitted: According to Smith (1999), "few such [descriptive] studies were done… before 1950."
• Use dashes--two hyphens with no spaces anywhere--for emphatic asides.
• Use one space after a period, colon, or semicolon. Web browsers do not show more than one space.
• Use double quotation marks (") for speech and verbatim quotations.
• Show a quotation consisting of several sentences as an indented block of text without quotation marks. Example:
  Krogh's contribution to exercise science has also been recognized:
  August Krogh's research linked exercise physiology with nutrition and metabolism... He influenced the next generation of scientists in exercise physiology, particularly those in Nordic countries and the United States. They in turn taught others to investigate human nutrition during acute and chronic physical activity. (Katch, 1997)
• Use double quotation marks the first time you introduce a newly-coined or slang term; do not use quotation marks thereafter.
• Don't use "smart quotes" (66 and 99), because they can create problems when translated into Web documents.
• Use single quotation marks (') for quotes within quotes.
• Use the apostrophe (') to denote possession:
  an athlete's responses, two athletes' responses.
  But note that its = of it, whereas it's = it is.
• Put commas, semicolons, colons, and periods outside closing quotation marks: "this", for example, but not "this," or "this." Exception: "If the quotation ends in a complete sentence, the period is part of the quote and should therefore go inside the quotation marks, like this." [APA: all punctuation goes within the quotation marks.]
• Use of and/or instead of or is acceptable when you want to emphasize either or both.
• The forward slash (/) can be used instead of or in sentences that are already replete with ands or ors.
• Use Title Case (initial upper-case letters for words of four or more letters) in:
  • the title and subheadings;
  • titles of journals;
  • titles of books or articles in the text, but not in the reference list;
  • proper nouns, including trade names (Wilks's lambda, Aspro, the Web and a Web site, but not in a website);
  • names of tests (the Stroop Color-Word Test);
  • nouns followed by numbers (on Day 2, in Group B) but not in the control group;
  • names of institutional departments (Department of Sport Science, University of Wherever), but not of disciplines (a department of sport science);
  • references to sections of the article (in the Methods section; see Results; in Figure 1; in Table 2; see Appendix 3; in Chapter 4).

 HYPHENATION

• Use your spelling checker to decide whether to include a hyphen with a prefix. If the word is not recognized without a hyphen, put one in. Examples: non-athlete, ultra-marathon, pre-treatment. [APA: use a hyphen only with self-.]
• Here is the paradigm example of hyphenation of adjectives or nouns: a clear-cut case. (If you wrote a clear cut case, you would imply a cut case that was clear. The emphasis in pronunciation also provides a clue.) More examples: role-playing technique, two-way analysis of variance, high-anxiety group. Hyphenation is not necessary if the first word is an adverb or comparative adjective (according to APA, anyway): widely used text, randomly assigned subjects, higher anxiety group.
• Note also:
  t-test results, but results of t tests;
  student-centered teaching, but the teaching was student centered.
• Note also: long- and short-term memory; 2-, 5-, and 10-min trials.
  

 ITALICS AND BOLD

• Use italics for emphasis and bold for strong emphasis. Avoid italic bold, which does not always show up as bold in some browsers. [APA does not use bold.]
• Use italics in expressions such as the term whatever, and for listing descriptors of a scale. For example, items on the 5-point scale ranged from not at all to always.
• Put the title of a paper, book, or journal in italics in the body of the text. In the reference list, titles of papers are in normal case. [APA uses quote marks for titles of papers in the text.]
• Put headings in BOLD UPPER CASE.
• Put subheadings in Bold Title Case. [APA: italic.]
• Do not use italics for foreign words and abbreviations common in English, such as ad lib, per se, et al., via, ad hoc, post hoc, a priori, a posteriori.
  

FONTS AND SYMBOLS

• Keep the fonts shown in the template of the article you are writing: Times New Roman for the body of the text, and Arial/Helvetica for the headings and subheadings.
• All the symbols that can be produced by use of a normal keyboard with or without the shift key are permitted.
• You may use Insert/Symbol from the menu bar of Microsoft programs, but you must choose the normal text font in that window, not Symbol, because most of the characters available in the Symbol font in Insert/Symbol do not transfer to the Web. This method gives you access to the following symbols: ° ± … · † ‡ Œ - - ™ œ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¦ § © « ¬ ® ¯ ² ³ µ ¶ ¹ » ¼ ½ ¾ À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì ' Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö × Ø Ù Ú Û Ü Ý Þ ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì ' î ï ð ñ ò ó ô õ ö ÷ ø ù ú û ü ý þ ÿ. You can also use the following from the Special Characters sub-window of the Insert/Symbol window: © ® ™ … and non-breaking space.
• Surprisingly, you may also change the font to Symbol in the body of your text, then strike the appropriate key. People viewing the document on the Web will see the symbol you intended, if they are using Netscape 3 or similar browser supporting variable font faces. This method produces the Greek alphabet and a few other symbols: a b C c D d e F f G g h I i J j K k L l m n P p Q q r S s t u V v W w X x Y y z " ' =AT= $ ^
• You may copy and paste any of the above symbols into your document.
• Make a non-breaking space in Word documents with option-spacebar on a Mac, and with control-shift-spacebar on a PC.
• Macintosh users can also produce the following limited set of symbols by use of shift, option and command keys: °, ±, …, ·, and the usual accent marks and international characters. Do not attempt to produce any other symbols using shift, command or option keys, because the symbols do not transfer to Web documents via Microsoft Word. Use Symbol font or the Insert/Symbol (normal text) when you need other symbols.
  

ABBREVIATIONS

• An abbreviation is justified only if the full expression is excessively long or if the abbreviation is well known to most researchers in the discipline. Even so, an easily understood short form of the expression that avoids initial capitals is preferable.
• If you must use an abbreviation, define it in parentheses the first time you use it: for example, body mass index (BMI), maximum oxygen uptake (VO₂max), the fatigue dimension of the Profile of Mood States (POMS-fatigue).
• Use the following well-known Latin abbreviations only within parentheses: that is (i.e.), for example (e.g.), and so on (etc.). Do not use the abbreviations for namely (viz.) or compare (cf.), which few people understand. [APA allows these two abbreviations.]
• Use vs (versus) and et al. (and others) inside or outside parentheses without defining them.
• Use Note: instead of N.B. (note well).
• Use abbreviations without explanation for the following terms in the Summary, but define them in the Methods: standard deviation (SD), coefficient of variation (CV), 95% confidence interval (95%CI)
• Note the lack of periods in acronyms and the lack of apostrophes in their plurals: ACSM, APA, IQ, IQs.
• Use no periods or spaces in abbreviations of countries: US, UK, NZ. [APA has periods and spaces.]
• Use a period only if the last letter of the abbreviation is not the last letter of the word: Prof., Dr, Mr, Ms, Vol. 1, p. 3, p. 23-25, 2nd ed., et al., vs, etc. [Minor departures from APA style here.]
• Use the following Systeme Internationale (SI) abbreviations for units of measurement (Young, 1987) [APA uses some of these abbreviations.]

  meter m	millisecond ms
  gram g	second s
  kilogram kg	minute min
  mole mol	hour h
  liter L (not l)	day d
  milliliter ml	week wk
  degree °C	year y

• Never add an "s" to the above abbreviations.
• Use the style ml.min^-1.kg^-1, not ml/min/kg.

 HEADINGS, PARAGRAPH STYLES, AND LISTS

• Use heading, subheading, font, and paragraph styles shown in the template for the article you are writing. If sub-sub-headings are unavoidable, use Plain Title Case in Arial or Helvetica. [APA has a confusing hierarchy of formats.]
• In the templates for Journal articles, paragraphs begin by default with an indented first line, and there are no spaces between paragraphs. The converted web document does not have such indenting, and a blank line separates paragraphs.
• For articles on pages other than the Journal, you can (if you wish) produce indented first lines by starting the line with five non-breaking spaces (     ).
• Use this convention for an itemized list within a paragraph: (a) first item, (b) second item, and (c) the final item. If one or more items contains a comma, use this convention: (a) separate the items with semicolons, as shown in this example; (b) second item, etc.; and (c) the final item. Include the letters only if you refer subsequently to one or more of the items: for example, item (b).
• Use bullets to list points that are complete sentences, as shown throughout this document. [APA does not use bullets.] Exception: use numbered points if you want to refer to one or more of the points by number. For example:
  1. Use the List Bullet or List Number styles in the template document to create lists of items that could stand alone as paragraphs.
  2. Use List Bullet 2 or List Number 2 styles for lists that could belong to a single paragraph. These styles produce an indented list.
  3. Do not try to include two or more paragraphs under one bullet or number.
  4. Somewhere in the article you would have to refer to one or more of these numbered points, for example points 1 and 2, above. Otherwise you would list them with bullets.
     

NUMBERS AND STATISTICS

• Use tilde (~) to mean approximately equal to.
• Numbers beginning a sentence must be spelled. Don't start a sentence with numbers greater than ninety nine.
• Note: one, two, three… nine, 10, 11, 12… Exceptions: a 2-m tape measure; 3 million.
• Put a space between numbers and units: for example, 75 kg. Exception: 75%.
• Note: 0.32, not .32.
• Note: 143, 2,461, 21,278, 1,409,000…
• When you quote numbers, make sure you use the minimum number of significant digits or decimal places. For example, 23 ± 7 years is easier to read than 23.4 ± 6.6 years, and the loss of accuracy is not important in most situations.
• Use the appropriate number of significant figures: one for p; one or two for standard deviations (SDs); two for t, F, c2, correlations, percentages. Examples: p = 0.004; p < 0.01; F = 63; r = 0.45; 16%
• Make sure the significant digits of the mean and standard deviation are consistent. Examples: 20 ± 13; 0.020 ± 0.013; 156 ± 7; 1.56 ± 0.07; 15600 ± 700.
• Use the standard deviation as a measure of spread. Do not use the standard error of the mean.
• Show 95% confidence intervals on outcome statistics. A separate editorial on this and other statistical issues will be available soon.
  

TABLES

• Examples are shown in Tables 1-3. Use these tables for Journal articles. Insert or delete rows or merge cells as necessary.

• Copy and paste the whole table if you need more than one. Do not try to create a table from scratch for Journal articles.
  

FIGURES

• Do not use scanned images of graphs or diagrams, because the lines and symbols become too "pixelly". Draw the figures directly in a computer, using preferably Microsoft Graph or the drawing window of Microsoft Word.
• Whenever possible, figures should be exactly one column wide (8.3 cm). Do not make figures any wider than 1.5 columns (12.5 cm), because they need to be viewable in a Web-browser window without the reader having to scroll sideways.
• Place the title and any footnotes for the figure within the figure itself, not in the body of the text. Use Arial or Helvetica fonts, and make sure the font sizes are similar to that of the body of the text (12-pt Times New Roman) when the figure appears at its final magnification on the page.
• Examples are shown in Figures 1 and 2. If possible, use these figures as templates by editing them in Microsoft Word and replacing the text and graphic elements.

• Place each figure or table immediately after the paragraph that first refers to it. The editorial staff at Sportscience will reposition it to achieve the best appearance in any reprint document.
• Note these rules for choice of figure format:
  • line diagrams or scattergrams if independent and dependent variables are numeric
  • bar graphs if only the dependent variables is numeric
  • bar graphs or pie charts for proportions.
• Connect the points in a line diagram with line segments. Show curves only if you are modeling a curve to the data.
• Change the color and shape of symbols for different groups of points:
• Show scattergrams only for a good reason (e.g. to call attention to outliers, a nonzero intercept, heteroscedasticity, or a nonlinear trend); otherwise state the correlation coefficient without a figure.
• Hierarchical diagrams summarizing the relationships between concepts or variables can be confusing. Make them as simple as possible.
  

USE OF WORDS

• Use a US-English spelling checker.
• Make sure you use words according to the precise meaning understood by the average person.
• Ideally, you would check whether every word could be deleted or replaced by a better one.
• Aim for economy: because instead of based on the fact that; for or to instead of for the purpose of. Similarly: there were several subjects who completed…; it is suggested that a relationship may exist…; both alike; one and the same; a total of n subjects; four different groups; absolutely essential; found previously; small in size; in close proximity; very close to zero; much better; period of time; summarize briefly; the reason is because; also included; in order to; except for.
• Aim for precision: patient or gymnast instead of subject; concentration or frequency instead of level.
• Don't generalize unnecessarily. For example, don't say some if you know of only one instance.
• Don't use this on its own. Make it this test or this problem or whatever to remove ambiguity.
• Avoid hype (hyperbole). Words like very and extremely are usually unnecessary.
• Affect or effect? Temperature affected the outcome. There was an effect on outcome. Try this to help you remember which is which: Affluence affects attitudes. The effects of effluent are everywhere. Note also: the new regime effected (i.e. produced) substantial changes. Affect can also mean emotion.
• Note these singular and plural forms: criterion, criteria; datum, data; medium, media; phenomenon, phenomena.
• Don't use however or its synonyms twice in a paragraph, because changing the direction of an argument twice in one paragraph may annoy readers.
• Don't use however more than once every 10 paragraphs. Try a thesaurus for synonyms.
• Keep jargon (technical terms) to a minimum. Explain any that you have to use.
• Don't attribute human abilities to non-human sources. For example, use the authors concluded that… rather than the study concluded that….
• Avoid colloquialisms, such as steer clear of.
• Avoid the old-fashioned genteel whilst.
• The following APA rules, in my view, are old fashioned and need not be adhered to strictly:
  • Use while and since to refer to time. Do not use them when the meaning is whereas, although, or because.
  • Don't start sentences with because, since, or as.
• Avoid as such. Poor: The SCAT is a reliable test of state anxiety. As such, it is suitable for experimental studies. Better: The SCAT is a reliable test of state anxiety; it is therefore suitable for experimental studies.
• Avoid her, his and any other sexist language, even if the subjects are clearly of one gender.
  

GRAMMAR

• Most text is in the form of sentences. A sentence must have at least one noun and one verb.
• Use the first person (I or we tested six runners) rather than the passive voice (Six runners were tested). Similarly, say Smith reported instead of reported by Smith.
• With comparatives (more than, less than), the than may need to be than that of or than with or than by etc. to clarify the meaning. Similarly, similar to may need to be similar to that of. Examples: The measure was more valid than that of Smith et al. (1994). We experienced fewer problems with the revised instrument than with the published version. The method was similar to that of an earlier study.
• Don't use a long string of qualifiers in front of a noun: a modified test of cognitive function is better than a modified cognitive-function test.
• Avoid grammatically questionable formal clichés, such as: Based on these results, it is concluded that and The results showed that...
• Use the past tense to report results (yours or others'). Use the present tense to discuss them. We have found that…; Smith (1989) reported a similar result. A simple explanation of these findings is that…
• Avoid so-called misplaced modifiers: When sedentary, protein supplementation resulted in… Athletes were consulted when designing the questionnaire… If necessary, subjects were tested… Using stable tracers, it is possible to measure… Based on these results, we conclude… Given the importance of body mass, there has been little study of its effects… Note that a noun was verbed to verb something (e.g. an experiment was performed to test this hypothesis) is incorrect but is used so widely that it has to be accepted. A noun was verbed (by) verbing… is also acceptable.
• Put only, partly and mainly next to the word they modify: The test consists only of new items.
• Note: partly vs wholly; partially vs completely. In the same vein, continual = repeated, whereas continuous = without a break.
• The following rules are broken so frequently that I doubt whether they can be considered rules any more.
  • Which or that? Simple rule: Which always follows a comma (and a pause), but that never does. This study, which cost $10,000, was a success. The study that cost $10,000 was a success.
  • Owing to or due to? Does anyone care any more? Here's a simple rule if you do: Owing to always has a comma, due to never does. The data were lost, owing to computer malfunction. The loss of data was due to computer malfunction.
  • An adverb is placed usually after the verb. Placing it before the verb produces a split infinitive. For example, to boldly go… is acceptable if you are emphasizing go, but if the emphasis is on boldly, to go boldly is better.

FLOW OF IDEAS

• Focus your thoughts by writing the summary first, even for articles that don't require one.
• Three ways to help get your ideas are in a sensible sequence are to make an outline in the form of headings, to put the draft aside for days or weeks, and to get others to comment on the drafts.
• The first sentence of a paragraph usually sets the topic for that paragraph. Don't have any unlinked ideas (non-sequiturs) in the same paragraph.
• A paragraph must consist of more than one sentence.
• Try to make the ideas within each section flow together.
• Don't put things in the wrong section or subsection. Skim the finished document to make sure.
• When appropriate, keep the order of ideas the same in different sections of the article.
• Check that you don't contradict yourself in different sections of the article.
• Aim for simplicity: on average, at least 50% of readers are less intelligent than writers, and most readers are less knowledgeable about the topic than the writer.
  

REFERENCES

• Use Endnote or a similar reference manager to deal with more than a few references. Contributors to the journal will have to submit a separate text file of the references in Refer format for people to download from the Sportscience site.
• Cite references in APA style, but without underscored or italic elements. To remove all such elements, select the reference list output by Endnote or similar, then toggle twice for italic or underscore.
• APA has yet to make a final pronouncement on styles for citing Net publications. A draft document can be viewed on the Web (Land, 1996). Meanwhile follow the style of the references shown below. For purposes of storing in electronic reference managers like endnote, treat all Web references as journal references, and put the URL in the page-number field, with a comma and space following any real page numbers.
• Make sure you give part numbers for journals or magazines that start with page 1 in each issue (e.g. Physician and Sportsmedicine).
• Make sure every publication referred to in the article is in the reference list, and vice versa.
• The first reference in the reference list should be a reference for the article itself. The URL will be completed when the article is accepted.
• Here are some examples of references, followed by the real references for this article.

Examples of References

Brown, A. B., & Jones, C. D. (1999). The title of a paper. Sports Journal, 100, 23-46.

Jones, C. D., Smith, A. B., & Brown, E. F. (1999). The title of another paper. Journal of Sport, 100, 23-46.

Smith, C. D., & Brown, A. B. (1999). This is the book title (2nd ed.). City, State: Sport Publishers.

Smith, C. D., & Jones, A. B. (Eds). (1999). This is the title of the edited book (2nd ed.). City, Country: Free Press.

White, A. B. (1999). This is the title of the book chapter. In E. F. Brown, A. B. Jones, & C. D. Smith (Eds.), This is the book title (pp. 33-44). City, State: Kinetics Press.

White, A. B., & Brown, C. D. (1999). The title of a paper in a Web journal. Sports Journal, 100, 23-46, http://site.address/directory/subdirectory/wab.htm.

White, A. B., & Jones, C. D. (1999). The title of a Web document. http://site.address/directory/subdirectory/wab.htm.

References for this Article

Hopkins, W.G. (1997). Advice on style for contributors to the Sportscience website. Sportscience, 0, 00-00, http://www.sportsci.org/journal/jour9701/style/style.htm.

American Psychological Association (1995). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). Washington DC: APA.

Dewey, R. (1996). APA publication manual crib sheet. http://www.gasou.edu/psychweb/tipsheet/apacrib.htm

Land, T. (1996). Web extension to American Psychological Association style (Revision 1.4). http://www.beadsland.com/weapas

Young, D. S. (1987). Implementation of SI units for clinical laboratory data. Annals of Internal Medicine, 106, 114-129.