General style and usage: Based on The Chicago Manual of Style

American English spelling: Use the first listed or preferred form in the most recent editions of Webster's Collegiate Dictionary or Webster's New International Dictionary. British spelling is acceptable for contributors residing in British Commonwealth countries. Contributors who wish to employ exceptional or nonstandard spellings or styles should submit a list of such spellings or styles with their typescripts.

Punctuation: Use a serial comma or semicolon before the final conjunction or preposition in a list (red, green, yellow, and white).

Numbers: Write year spans in full (1526–1593, 420–411 BCE). Use commas in numbers greater than three digits, except in year dates and page numbers (1,000; but p. 1000). Spell out numbers one through ten. Use arabic numbers with percent spelled out (10 percent). Spell out all numbers that begin a sentence, but try to avoid this usage when possible.

Date eras: Use BCE and CE rather than B.C. and A.D.

Cross references: References to elements such as vol., chap., fig., pl. from other publications should appear in lowercase, both in the text and in notes and captions. References to elements such as Fig. or Pl. within this journal should appear with the initial letter capitalized. Note that p. or pp. will always appear in lowercase. Spell out such elements in the body of text—"is shown in Figure 12"—but abbreviate them in parentheses—"as in Huizong's Parakeet (Fig. 12)."

Foreign language words:

• All foreign words not included in the current editions of Webster's will appear in italic type, as will book and journal titles.
• All diacritical markings (in Sanskrit, both upper and lower) must be correctly and consistently included.
• Transliteration systems:
  • Chinese: Pinyin, but spell names as their authors or owners spell them, and follow other traditional spellings, such as Wade-Giles for titles of books published in W-G; Taipei rather than Taibei.
  • Japanese: Hepburn
  • Korean: Either Revised Romanization of Korea or modified McCune-Reischauer, used consistently in either case 
  • Tibetan: Wylie or THDL Extended Wylie Transliteration
  • Sanskrit: American Oriental Society/Royal Asiatic Society (not Monier-Williams)
  • Pali: Pali Text Society
  • Persian and Arabic: as used in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam
  • Others: most widely recognized scholarly system
• Translate or explain all foreign words or phrases the first time they are used; put the translations or explanations in parenthesis immediately following the foreign word, and put exact translations in quotation marks, e.g.: bifa ("brush method").
• Compile a glossary of foreign names, words, and phrases with both the transliteration and the original script. This glossary will appear at the end of the article.

Titles of books, journals, and works of art: Capitalize only the first word in foreign-language transliterations of titles. The first time they are used they should be followed by an English translation, in parentheses, with same font and capitalization as in foreign-language transliteration, e.g.: Wanluan caotang tu (Wanluan thatched cottage picture); Lidai minghua ji (Record of famous paintings of successive dynasties); Song Huizong huihua de meixue tezhi (Distinctive qualities of Song Huizong's aesthetics)

Illustration captions: Identify works as fully as possible: Artist’s name followed by lifespan years (or act. =  active; b. = born; d. = died; c. = century; ca. = circa) in parentheses; Type or title of object, in italics (whether title was assigned by artist or is merely descriptive or traditional); Date of object; Country of origin; Format and medium or material; Measurements (metric); Collection credit line; Museum accession number where applicable. Examples:

• Fig. 4. Shen Zhou (1427–1509). Landscape in the Style of Ni Zan. 1484. China. Hanging scroll; ink on paper; h. 137.2 cm. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.
• Fig. 24. Trumpet-mouthed zun. Shang dynasty, Anyang period. Funan xian, Anhui Prov., China. Bronze; h. 50.5 cm. From T. Akiyama et al., Arts of China: Neolithic Cultures to the T’ang Dynasty (Tokyo: Recent Discoveries, 1968), pl. 43.
• Fig. 2. Nawa Monju (detail). Inscribed by Ue Gukei (act. 1361–1375) sometime between 1365 and 1369 and attributed to him. Japan. Hanging scroll; ink and light color on silk; h. 61.0, W. 38.1 cm. Powers Collection, New York City.
• Fig. 7. Attrib. Li Gonglin (ca. 1041–1106). Illustrations to the Classic of Filial Piety (section). Handscroll.

Separate parts of the same illustration should be labeled A, B, etc. (e.g., 3A, 3B).  Cross references will be the same as those for text. 

Reference citations:
Books: If in your opinion the place of publication is obscure, or if several places of that name exist, please include country, state, or province (e.g.: Millbrook, N.Y.: Ducksoup Pr., 1953).

1. Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, Angkor: An Essay on Art and Imperialism (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), p. 116.
2. J. J. Boeles, “Two Yoginis of Hevajra from Thailand,” in Essays Offered to G. H. Luce, ed. Ba Shin et al., 2 vols., Artibus Asiae Supplementum 23 (Ascona, Switzerland, 1966), vol. 2, pp. 14–29.
3. Gu Kaizhi, Huaji (Taipei: Renmin chubanshe, 1988; reprint, Palo Alto: Stanford Univ. Pr., 1996).

Journals: A complete citation includes author name(s), article title, journal title, volume number (arabic numeral), issue number (arabic numeral in parentheses), month and year of publication (in parentheses, no comma between), followed by inclusive page numbers (arabic numerals). In references following the first, complete citation in the Notes, repeat the author surname(s) and the title or a shortened version of the title (do not use op. cit.).

1. B. A. Saltore, “Identification of a Mohenjo Daro Figure,” The New Review, vol. 10, no. 4 (June 1939), pp. 28–35.
2. Myrdal and Kessle, Angkor, vol. 2, pp. 486–95.
3. Saltore, “Identification of a Mohenjo Daro Figure,” p. 29.