In general, these are guidelines that our copyeditors follow and that authors submitting to us should follow as well.

• Poetry should use punctuation unless there is a good reason for doing otherwise.
• Poetry should be left-justified unless there is a good reason for doing otherwise.
• Avoid comma splices.
• Include the Oxford comma (the comma before the conjunction in a series).
• Include other necessary commas, such as after introductory phrases, setting off parenthetical expressions, and before the conjunction that conjoins two independent clauses.
• Periods and commas go inside double quotation marks, not outside.
• Avoid unnecessary or incorrect punctuation, such as ellipses to indicate a pause.
• Spell out easily-written numbers like seven,  fourteen, and thirty, unless there is a good reason for doing otherwise.