Instructions for Authors

ÁCOMA: STYLE SHEET/AUTHORS’ GUIDELINES

The essay must be sent to the editorial board in a .doc file containing the text, a brief biographical profile (100-150 words), and an abstract (200-250 words). Even though it will be translated into Italian, the English version must contain all necessary information about sources and references, and clearly highlight quotations. All bibliographical references go in the endnotes, without a final “Works Cited List” (NO IN-TEXT BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERECES).

EPIGRAPHS

If there are epigraphs, indicate author and title of the work.

QUOTATIONS

Short quotations (up to three-four lines) remain in the body text inside quotation marks and in Roman type. Appropriate grammar adjustments in square brackets are possible in contextualized quotations.

Long poetry or prose quotations are separated from the body text by a blank line above and below the quotation. Use left indent and no quotation marks.

All omissions in short or long, prose or poetry quotations, must be indicated by square brackets and three dots: […].

USE OF ITALICS

Use italics for:

- words in non-standard English (languages other than English or dialect)

- words and expressions you want to emphasize (please, use it as less as possible)

- graphemes, words, or phrases object of stylistic or linguistic analysis.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL GUIDELINES

(Please, be as detailed as possible in giving all the information regarding references. Also remember that Ácoma does not use a final “Works Cited List”, but only endnotes with complete bibliographical references).

PRINTED PUBLICATIONS

General norms

Italics are used for the titles of books (Remains of the Day; Venice Reconsidered), journals (American Literature, Studies in Bibliography) and newspapers (The New York Times), and in general, any container of any kind of texts (e.g.: The River [CD album]; Pulp Fiction). Titles follow the American standard with capital initial letters. Titles in languages other than English follow the norm of the language of the quotation. Title and subtitle must be reported, in their full length, from the frontispiece (not from the cover) and separated by a colon.

Use double quotation marks and Roman type for titles of essays, book chapters, poems, songs, TV series episodes, etc. (“Aurality in Print: Revisiting Roger Williams’ A Key into the Language of America”, “The Road Not Taken”, etc.).

Please remember to use italics if volume titles are inside quotation marks (“Aurality in Print: Revisiting Roger Williams’ A Key into the Language of America”).

Use comma to separate the elements of the bibliographical reference: Full Name, Title, Publisher, Place Date. End note with a full stop.

After the title, indicate Publisher and Place and Date of publication. Use the language of the volume to indicate the place of publication (Roma, Paris, London, Sevilla, Wien). In the case of US less known cities, please add the acronym of the state. If cities are more than one, use a dash.

One or Multiple authors

The Name of the author/s go before the title and require capital initial letters. If authors are two, use “and” to conjoin them; if they are three, use a comma and “and”. 

Example:

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey, Oxford University Press, New York-Oxford 1988, p. 112.

John Smith and John Doe, The World, Cutlet, London 2005.

Nick Couldry, Sonia Livingstone and Tim Marckam, eds., Media Consumption and Public Engagement, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2007.

Edited Books

In the case of edited books, the name of the editor/s go before the title and is followed by “ed.” or “eds.”, in Roman type.

Example:

William Andrews, ed., Critical Essays on Frederick Douglass, G. K. Hall, Boston 1991.

John Smith and John Doe, eds., The New World, Cutlet, London 2006.

If the book has different author/s and editor/s, the name of the editor/s go after the title, as in:

Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Selected Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Joel Myerson, Columbia University Press, New York 1997.

Chapters and essays in books

Chapters or essays in books are indicated as follows: Name of the author, “Title”, comma, the word “in”, the name of the author (only if different from the author of the chapter/essay), the Title of the work, followed a comma and by the remaining bibliographical details and the pages of the chapter/essay. 

Examples:

Same author:

Juan Florea, “Refiguring La Charca”, in Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity, Arte Publico Press, Houston 1993, pp. 71-85.

Different author:

Louise DeSalvo, “A Portrait of the Puttana as a Middle-Aged Woolf Scholar”, in Helen Barolini, ed., The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women, Schocken Books, New York 1985, pp. 93-100.

Essays and articles in journals

In the case of essays and articles published in a journal, indicate the name of the author, “Title”, comma, name of the Journal in italics, volume in Roman numerals (if the journal is organized in such way), issue in Arabic numerals, date of publication in brackets, pages of the essay/article. All details are separated by a comma.

Example:

Luca Tomasi, “Hard Bitter Style of Words: Wilson Harris’s Far Journey into Italian”, Caribana 1 (1990), pp. 63-70.

Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860”, American Quarterly, XVIII, 2 (1966), pp. 151-74.

Interviews

Interviews must be mentioned using the name of the interviewee, followed by: title of the interview inside quotation marks, name of the interviewer, name (in italics) of the book/film/program/journal/website containing it, with all the necessary bibliographical information. If the interview has no title, after the name of the interviewee use the expression “interview with” and the name of the interviewer. If the interview is online, after the reference indicate the URL and the date of your last visit (see “Online Pages and Texts”).

Example:

Chris Abani, “Straight Questions for Chris Abani”, Dwight Gardner, The New York Times, 22 June 2007, https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/stray-questions-for-chris-abani/?_r=0, last visit 5/16/2018.

Paul Auster, interview with John Freeman di Granta, YouTube, 5/20/2009, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuEpBEPTxUU, last visit 8/20/2016.

Previously quoted books or authors

In the case of already mentioned references (books, articles, etc.), use a shortened note: repeat only the last name of the author and the abbreviated Title, followed by a comma, the expression “cit.”, and the page number. If the following endnote requires to indicate the same work and page/s, use the expression Ibidem. If the work is the same but not the page number, use the word Ivi, comma, and the new page number.

Examples:

Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1979.

Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style, cit., p. 14.

Works quoted in the previous endnote:

Lawrence Buell, “American Literary Emergence as a Postcolonial Phenomenon”, American Literary History, 4 (1992), p. 411.

Ibidem.

John Carlos Rowe, Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism, Oxford University Press, New York 2000, p. 53.

Ivi, p. 134.

WEB OR DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS

Online pages and texts

Indicate a page’s or text’s URL in the case of exclusively online sources and/or when the reader needs it to find the source. After the URL and a comma, use the expression “last visited” and add the date of your last access to the site. The URL must be reported in its full length.

Ideally, the web publication follows the same rules of the printed publications and the same details should be retrievable, and retrieved, from the website: full name of the author (if there is one), title of the mentioned text. If the web text is an article or essay, it must be followed by the preposition “in” and the name of its ‘container’ in italics, be it a website, a digital project, a web archive, etc. It may be followed by the title of a second ‘container’ in italics (broader project, collection, etc.); finally, indicate the name of the organization publishing the site, place and date of publication, if possible. Always indicate the date of your last access.

Example:

Robert Harris, “Evaluating Internet Research Sources”, VirtualSalt, 8/26/2014, last visited 4/26/2016.

Paul Auster, interview with John Freeman of “Granta”, YouTube, 5/20/2009, last visited 9/12/2016.

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue University, 2008, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl, last visit 4/23/2008.

Huseby, Karen Lynn, A Theology of Imagination & Creativity (2013), Theses and Dissertations, paper 37, Digital Commons at Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, Loyola University, last visit 9/13/2016.

Opensource books

Follow the same instructions for printed texts (books, edited volumes, essays, etc.). Add the name of the ‘container’, if it exists, in italics, the name of the institution publishing or sponsoring the book, and the date of your last visit. If the website does not provide page numbers, give all possible additional information to trace the quoted passage: part, chapter, paragraph, etc.

E-readers

If you use an e-reader (Amazon kindle, pocketbook, Kobo, Sony e-readers, etc.), follow the guidelines for printed texts, indicating (after a comma) which device you have used. If the e-reader does not provide page numbers, give all possible information to trace the mentioned passage: part, chapter, paragraph, etc. If the reader gives a location, indicate it.

Example:

Caroline McCracken-Flesher, editor, Approaches to Teaching the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, The Modern Language Association of America, New York 2013, Kindle, 396.

Articles in online journals 

Follow the guidelines for printed journals. If the journal is published exclusively online and does not provide page numbers, use the expression “n.p.” followed by the date of your last visit.

Example:

Daniel Allington, Sarah Brouillette, and David Golumbia, “Neoliberal Tools (and Archives): A Political History of Digital Humanities”, Los Angeles Review of Books. Digital, 5/11/2016, n.p., last visit 5/16/2016.

Patrizia Giampieri, “(Mis)representations of Motherf*** in Italian Film Dubbing”, Altre Modernità/OtrasModernitates/AutresModernités/OtherModernities 19 (2018), pp. 175-90, last visit 8/21/2018.

Journals with both online and print version:

If you access a print journal via its digital version, add comma and “web” at the end of your reference.

Example:

Sarah Wilson, “Black Folk by the Numbers: Quantification in DuBois”, American Literary History, XXVIII, 1 (Spring 2016), pp. 27-45, web.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

General guidelines

For visual and audiovisual sources, follow the guidelines for printed and digital texts. The reference must indicate what media has been used – broadcast, recordings, show, etc. The following guidelines may be incomplete; if so, please comply with the General Norms as much as possible.  

Music

For music recorded on CD or vinyl, indicate name of the artist, title of the track inside quotation marks, title of the album in italics and preceded by “in” (as for essays in a volume), name of the performer/s (if needed), production company and year (these two pieces of information are not separated by a comma), device (CD or vinyl). If it is a live recording/performance, specify it and indicate the place and date of the recording.

Example:

CD:

Wynton Marsalis, Blood on the Fields, Columbia Records 1995, CD.

Bruce Springsteen, The Ghost of Tom Joad, Columbia Records 1995, CD.

Live:

Wynton Marsalis, Blood on the Fields, live concert, Lincoln Center, New York 1/4/1994.

If the track is online, follow the same rules and add URL and the date of your last visit.

Example:

Bruce Springsteen, “The River”, in The River, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi0kWe2ixzUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi0kWe2ixzU, last visit 6/14/2010.

If you refer to a live but unpublished recording, indicate the name of the author, the title, the name of the person recording and date.

Unpublished recordings of public events and interviews

For the recordings of public events (conferences, live performances, etc.), follow the same guidelines provided for music, adding, if possible, the name of the archive preserving them.

For recorded but unpublished interviews, indicate the name of the interviewee, “interview with”, the name of the person interviewing, the place and the date. If possible, add the name of the archive preceded by a comma.

Example:

Paolo Palazzesi, interview by Alessandro Portelli, Terni, 17/9/2000, “Franco Coggiola” archive, Circolo Gianni Bosio, Roma.

Films

Films are referred to as follows: title in the original language in italics (if necessary, English title in brackets), name of the director, name of the production and distributing company (do not repeat if they coincide) and year (not preceded by a comma).

Example:

The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann, Morgan Creek Production, 20th Century Fox-Warner 1992.

Stagecoach, John Ford, United Artists 1939.

Star Wars IV: A New Hope, George Lucas, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, 1977.

Recorded TV series

TV series or episodes recorded on DVD or other devices (Blue-ray, VHS) must be referred to as follows: title of the episode inside quotation marks, name of the series in italics (use the title of the recorded series if this does not coincide with the title of the broadcast series), number of the episode (if necessary), name of the creator, name of the distributor company, date (not preceded by a comma). Any further useful information must be placed at the end of the entry.  

Example:

Breaking Bad: The Complete Series, Vince Gillian, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 2014, DVD.

Downton Abbey: Series 6, Julian Fellows, Carnival 2016, Blu-ray.

“The Fuzzy Boots Corollary”, The Big Bang Theory: The Complete First Season, episode 3, Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, Warner Home Video 2008, DVD.

Broadcast TV series

In the case of broadcast series, indicate the title of the episode inside quotation marks, the title of the series in italics, the number of the series and of the episode, the name of the channel and year. If you refer to the entire series, start your reference entry with the name of the creator/s. Add any further necessary information at the end of the entry.

Example:

Vince Gillian, Breaking Bad, season 1, AMC 2008.

“The Luminous Fish Effect”, The Big Bang Theory, season 1, episode 4, CBS 2007. 

If the series is broadcast on Netflix, Hulu, Google Play, please follow the indication of series and episode with the information about the site and the date when the episode has been posted. If necessary, indicate URL and, after a comma, the date of your last visit.

Images and visual art

The name of the artist is followed by the name of the work in italics, date of composition, material, name and place of the hosting institution. If you have accessed the work online, indicate the date of your last visit.

Example:

Joshua Reynolds, William Hamilton, 1777, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery.

If the work is only online, indicate all possible information about the site and the date when the work has been posted. If necessary, indicate URL and, after a comma, the date of your last visit.

Robert Cleveley, Battle of Cape St. Vincent, 1797, oil on canvas, unknown current location, wikimediacommons, last visit 9/8/2016. 

Clifton R. Adams, People relax beside a swimming pool at a country estate near Phoenix, Arizona, 1928, National Geographic Creative, 2/6/2016 http://natgeofound,tukblr.com, last visit 5/19/2016.

For photos and photographical reproductions of works of art, indicate the book or website containing them following the guidelines for online or printed texts (see sections above) and the page number of the image.

Example:

John E. Fletcher and Anthony B. Stewart, “Hillside Houses Overlook Smoke-Belching Steel Mills in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1949”, A Curated Collection of Photography from the National Geographic Archives 2016(?), National Geographic Creative, https://www.reddit.com/domain/natgeofound.tumblr.com/, last visit 8/13/2016.

The “Digital Publications” and “Other publications” sections of these guidelines make reference to the 8th edition of the MLA manual, edited by Tony Russell, Allen Brizee, Elizabeth Angeli, Russell Keck, Joshua M. Paiz, Michelle Campbell, Rodrigo Rodríguez-Fuentes, Daniel P. Kenzie, Susan Wegener, MaryamGhafoor, and the Purdue OWL Staff. https://owl.english.purdue.edu.owl.resource/747/08/, 24/8/2016, last visit 9/11/2016.