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Information for Authors

The information on this page applies equally to all Oxford divisions.

Oxford University Press is one of the oldest publishing companies in the world, as well as one of the largest. Its imprint carries authority, its standards of book production are high, and its range of interests is wide. It is a department of the University of Oxford, though not subsidized by the University. It is not a company, it pays no dividend, and it has no shareholders. It is devoted to the spread of knowledge, and all its surplus is devoted to the publication of works which further scholarship and education or to sustaining some of the research on which these books may be based.

The Academic Division of the Press in the United Kingdom was for centuries known as the Clarendon Press. This imprint still appears on many of its publications, signifying that a book has been produced under the direct authority of the Delegates, the committee of senior members of the University who direct the Press's affairs. The Academic Division is responsible for the great reference works for which OUP is famous: The Oxford English Dictionary, The Dictionary of National Biography, and many others. It publishes several series of scholarly texts, a great many monographs in the arts, sciences, and medicine, and a growing list of college textbooks and academic paperbacks, as well as books aimed primarily at the general reader.

Beyond the UK, Oxford is represented by a network of Branch Offices and associates in Canada, the United States, Australia, India (four offices), Pakistan, East and Central Africa (three offices), Southern Africa, West Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Madrid and New Zealand. Hence OUP authors have access to an unrivaled worldwide sales force.

OUP Canada was established in 1904 and today is grouped into Trade, Higher Education, School, and ESL divisions. Within these groups editors are responsible for specific subject areas. In the pages that follow we offer advice to our authors on ways in which by careful preparation of manuscripts and an understanding of some perennial publishing problems-such as proof correction, copyright clearance, indexing, and scheduling-delays and misunderstandings can be reduced.

Our editors prepare your book for design and typesetting, after which it will be returned to you for final vetting and response to any queries which arise at that stage. Thereafter it will go via the production department to a typesetter-either our own or an outside one. This process may be lengthy, given the number of stages inevitably involved. When proofs arrive we do strongly urge you to keep corrections to an absolute minimum. The cost in time and trouble of second thoughts at proof stage can be very high indeed-and any of this cost in excess of a percentage of original composition costs is charged to authors.

Marketing and sales staff will begin to make plans for the book long before publication, and the Author's Publicity Form can provide them with much useful information. If you have not already received this form, you will shortly. On receipt, please fill it out as completely as possible and return it to us. One of our marketing staff will be in touch with you nearer the time of publication to outline our plans for the promotion of your book, and your comments and suggestions at that stage will be most useful. As soon as advance copies of the book are received we shall send you one and ask for suggestions for sending out review copies.