ALTHOUGH AUTHORS and translators may be directly involved in this process only at the proof-reading stage, the rationale of the guidelines and conventions they are requested to follow will be much easier to implement if they are aware of the process as a whole.

IIIT will commission experts to assess, in confidence, work which has already been submitted or which is being prepared for publication. following the referees’ reports, the editor(s) will agree with the author(s) an outline description of the content, scope, length, level, and organization of the work. After the outline has been agreed, delivery dates and production...

IT IS ESSENTIAL that prospective authors understand the production process outlined in the previous section. Making that process more efficient (which benefits all parties) is the rationale behind these guidelines.

Work must be submitted both in paginated typescript (so-called ‘hard copy’) and in electronic form on diskette (so-called ‘soft copy’). Submitting work as an attachment to e-mail is not encouraged: the transfer process usually entails severe losses of formatting and characters. (However, see 2 .3 below.)

Do not attempt to reproduce in your typescript the look of the printed page as you would like it to be, or by analogy...

THE IDEAL TRANSLATION will have native user competence in the target language (say, English) and be highly proficient in the language he or she is translating from (say, Arabic). in addition, he or she will need to have (or to acquire) considerable skill in the subject-matter of the work being translated, and be competent to deploy that skill in both languages, as a reader in the source language and as a writer in the target language.

the task of translation must be strictly distinguished from scholarly edition, annotation, critique, etc. The translator, as a translator, must not omit or interpolate...

THE RULE OF RULES is consistency. At a number of points in this style-sheet two equally acceptable conventions are indicated. this does not mean that the two different conventions may be used randomly in the same work. on the contrary, only one of the two equally acceptable ways must be adopted and then followed consistently. whenever an alternative is offered, it must be understood as an either/or choice, not an and/or choice.

a. IIIT publications follow standard American (U.S.) conventions, rather than British. for example, in modern British practice, an abbreviated word is not followed by a full-stop if the...