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Guidelines for
Contributors
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Authors of essays accepted for publication should refer to the following
guidelines when preparing manuscripts. For
matters not mentioned below, refer to MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed. |
Formatting |
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Please submit essays
as Microsoft Word documents via email attachment.
Clear all
headers and footers, including page numbers, as well as section and page
breaks.
Set all margins to one inch.
Double-space all text, including Notes and Works
Cited, and use left justification.
Use endnotes rather than footnotes, and use them sparingly, if at all. Please enter notes and corresponding symbols manually, as automated notes do not migrate correctly into our design software. Notes should appear after the
text, preceding Works Cited. Endnote reference numbers occurring in
the text should be superscripted.
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Quotation
Marks and Italics |
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Use smart
(" ) quotation marks. Use em-dashes
()
for long dashes and en-dashes (-) for hyphens. Do not use
automated hyphenation.
Use
italics for book titles,
titles of plays, collections of short stories, and television shows.
Titles of novellas, if published singly, should be set in italics. If
the novella is one of several in a collection, or is in a collection of
short stories, use quotation marks.
Use
quotation marks for individual short story titles, titles of poems, and
individual episodes of ongoing TV shows.
Foreign
words not listed in Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary, 10th
edition, are italicized at first mention, but roman thereafter.
Punctuation following an italicized word, as in a book title, is roman (as
in Who wrote Absalom, Absalom!? or Who wrote The
Descendant?).
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Numbers |
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Spell out
all numbers less than one hundred. Spell out round multiples of numbers under
one hundred (fifteen thousand, three hundred) unless falling amid nonround
numbers over one hundred (17, 312) or if many round numbers over one
hundred occur in
the same paragraph.
Indicate
decades numerically, without an apostrophe (The 1920s witnessed a
renascence in southern writing). Do not abbreviate (the 1920s, rather
than the 20s).
Write out the names of
centuries, such as the nineteenth century, rather than the 19th century.
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Citations |
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Give all page number ranges, including those in Works Cited, in full
(132133, not 13233).
In text:
Cite only page numbers on which quoted material occurs in parentheses
following the closing quotation mark. Unless also using attribution,
provide name as well. Supporting text must clearly indicate where quoted
material originates. Do not use foot- or endnotes for citations. Do
not abbreviate shortened titles (Collected Stories 202, not CS
202).
Block:
Use indented blocks for quoted text longer than three lines, or for
lines of dialogue taken from a script or screenplay. Indent block
quotation by one tab, not two.
Notes:
Provide full bibliographic information in the note for sources not also
cited in the body of the essay. Do not repeat such sources in the Works
Cited list. For sources also cited in the body of the essay, provide
only a parenthetical name and page number reference, as in an in-text
citation.
Works
Cited: Only include sources actually cited in the body of the essay. Use
current MLA format. Use UP for University Press, but make no other
abbreviations (Louisiana State UP, not LSU Press), except in the
case of major presses (Random House, not Random House, Inc.).
Drop leading articles from most serial titles (Southern
Literary Journal, not The
Southern Literary Journal,
but The New Yorker, not New
Yorker).
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Style |
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Avoid
using abbreviations, particularly for titles (Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, not Huck Finn).
Always
observe distinction between that/which, where/in which, and then/than.
Use serial commas for three or more items in a list..
Use small
caps for a.m./p.m. and
signs, labels, mottos, or other text in all caps (The motto reads, In
God We Trust).
Do not
capitalize southern, northern, black, white,
and other terms used as distinguishing adjectives. Capitalize South, North, African American
(no hyphen), Civil War, and the other terms used as nouns. Capitalize god only
when referring to a specific monotheistic deity as such (After forty days, God spoke to Moses, but
The Israelites worshipped a transcendent god).
Use either ellipses (
) or three periods in succession to indicate
omissions. Do not separate with spaces (. . .). Do not use
ellipses at the beginning or ending of a quotation.
Use italics for emphasis only to point to a word or phrase as such and
elsewhere only to disambiguate syntax or clarify meaning; do not use
italics merely to stress a main point.
Use toward rather than towards.
Do not use contractions, slang, esoteric or technical jargon, or profane
language.
Use only one space, not two, between sentences. |