Guide to authors
The Style Sheet guidelines are intended to help authors with formatting and other editing tasks prior to submission to "Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna: Collana e Laboratorio".
By following these general rules of thumb, each work will be published more rapidly.
Questions may be directed to the secretary of the BSFM Editorial Board at arianna.antonielli@unifi.it.
Submissions
- Authors are invited to submit their articles via email () in an attached file.
- The final version of any article should be in .doc format (Word for Macintosh or for Windows).
- Recommended length for articles: 5,000-7,000 words (10-12 single-spaced pages including notes and bibliography).
- Each submission should include:
a) Title of the contribution
b) Author's name and surname
c) Institutional affiliation
d) Email address
e) A short abstract detailing the crux of the research (100-200 words), a list of four-five keywords, a short title to be used as head of the page (if the title is longer than 20 characters), and an Index with all the titles required.
Style
- Article title: Garamond 18 point, normal, centered.
- Authors' Names: Garamond 11 point, normal, centered.
- Headings: Garamond 11, italics, left justification. Headings must be preceded by a roman numeral in progressive order. One blank line is required before and after Level 1 and 2 headings
- Body Text: Garamond 11 point, normal, fully justified. The first line of each paragraph should be in indented 1 cm. No gap between paragraphs. The text should not be hyphenated.
- Line spacing: Single space.
- Word Spacing: Single space between words and sentences. A single space after the punctuation marks, but no white space before the punctuation marks, except from dashes and brackets. Do not use white spaces within brackets or quotation marks, e.g.:
Yes No Yes No
(text) ( text ) «text» « text »
- Do not use tabs and spaces to align the text. Use the word processing program's indent features.
- Do not embed hyperlinks (links to websites) in the text.
Figures, Tables, and Graphs
- Images must be 300 dpi (this is a resolution setting) at 100% of its physical size and not copyrighted.
- Figures lifted from websites are not suitable for publication because the resolution is too low for high-quality printing, as in a book. If you find a graphic or photograph on a website you must contact the administrators of the site and obtain the original or a high-resolution version of the graphic or photograph for submission.
- Figures should be saved in .tif, .eps, .jpg or .pdf.
- Tables in Word or Excel format.
- Graphs in .eps or Excel format.
- Use the Garamond font for any words, letters, or numbers in your figures.
- All figures and tables must be numbered in the correct order and saved as separate files in an attached file submitted to BSFM with your final report.
- File names should read as follows:
e.g. Figure1_AuthorLastName.jpg
e.g. Table3_AuthorLastName.xls
- Please include your figure and table titles in the text, not in the table or figure file itself.
- There is no period at the end of the table or figure title. Neither tables nor figures have captions.
Quotations
- Quotations longer than three typed lines are left indented 1 cm, without quotation marks, Gar. 10 point, normal, fully justified. Block quotes should be preceded and followed by one blank line (Gar. 11).
e.g. I delighted in every age where poets and artists confined themselves gladly to some inherited subject-matter known to the whole people, for I thought that in man and race alike there is something called «Unity of Being», using that term as Dante used it when he compared beauty in the Convito to a perfectly proportioned human body.
- References, if recurrent, can be made within the text and placed within parentheses containing the author's surname followed by the date of publication with no comma between them, and the page(s) from which the quotation is taken with a comma and a space between the year of publication and the page number(s).
e.g. (Barton 2004, 130-147).
- If the text includes the author's name or the date of publication, that information must not be repeated in the parentheses. When several authors are cited in parenthetical documentation, references should be arranged chronologically and separated by a semicolon:
e.g. (McLoone 2000; Pettitt 2000; Barton and Harvey 2004).
- Write quotations and direct speech up to two hundred spaces (approx. two lines) - including blank ones - in quotation marks.
e.g. In The Trembling of the Veil (1922-1923), Yeats claimed: «I delighted in every age where poets and artists confined themselves gladly to some inherited subject-matter known to the whole people».
- Omissions within quoted text are indicated by an ellipsis mark, i.e. three consecutive periods in square brackets: [...].
e.g. In The Trembling of the Veil (1922-1923), Yeats claimed: «I delighted in every age where poets and artists confined themselves gladly to some inherited subject-matter [...]».
- If you need to insert something within a quotation, use square brackets to enclose the addition.
e.g. [...] if I were not four-and-fifty, with no settled habit but the writing of verse, rheumatic, indolent, discouraged, and about to move to the Far East, I would begin another epoch by recommending to the Nation [Ireland] a new doctrine, that of unity of being (E, p. 280).
- Use double inverted commas or quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation:
e.g. «There is some evidence, certainly, that the role of humanitarian reformer that Clym was called upon to play was not an altogether natural extension of his personality. "The humblest walk of life would satisfy him," Hardy was to report».
- When referencing classic verse plays and poems, use a slash with a space on each side to show where a new verse begins. Verse quotations longer than three lines should be left indented 1 cm, without quotation marks and written in subsequent lines (Gar, 10 point, normal).
e.g.
There, through bewildered branches, go
Winged Loves borne on in gentle strife
Tossing and tossing to and fro
The flaming circle of our life.
- Use single quotation marks to highlight single words.
e.g. This movie director is a 'dog'.
But: e.g. «Dog» is a three-letter word.
- Commas and periods must be placed after the quotation marks, but the symbols for interrogation or exclamation intrinsic to the quote's meaning should be kept within the quotation marks.
Endnotes
- Footnotes are not allowed.
- Insert notes at the end of each chapter or essay.
- Write notes using Garamond, 9 point, normal, fully justified. First lines should not be left indented.
- Number consecutively in Arabic numerals without parenthesis.
e.g. 1 W. B. Yeats, A Vision, Werner Laurie, London 1925, p. xi.
- Quote a text as follows, separating each entry with a comma:
Author's first Name (Initials)
Author's surname comma
Title of work in italics comma
Publisher comma
Place and Year of Publication (without comma).
e.g. 2 A. Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899), Dutton, New York 1956.
- Titles in languages other than Italian, English, French, German and Spanish should be followed by the English translation within square brackets. Do not use italics.ù
- If the work is not a single-volume publication, write the number of the volume followed by page reference. If the different volumes are not published in the same year, the number of the volume should be followed by its publisher, place and year of publication.
- Do not use lists in notes.
Text Types
- Use italics:
a) To emphasize words or short sentences.
e.g. These rules do not apply to newspaper writing.
b) In case of foreign words.
e.g. His original Weltanschauung proved to be [...].
c) Titles of books and other works.
d) Short stories, poems, songs.
e) Names of sections within the same volume.
e.g. Preface, Introduction, etc.
- Write foreign words of common usage in English, in Roman type, as well as names of associations, institutions etc. with no English equivalent.
e.g. École Pratique des Hautes Études.
- Do not use underlining or bold within the text.
- Capitalization and upper case are to be used only if necessary.
Apex and Dash
- Write numbers related to endnotes in apex before the punctuation mark, except from question or exclamation marks.
- Use dashes to indicate the space between numbers or to separate compound words.
- Use em-dash for asides.
Pages Numbering
- Numbers are to be inserted at the foot of the page, on the right side and written in increasing order.
Paragraphs
- Number paragraphs as follows:
e.g. 1., 2., ...;
e.g. 1.1, 1.2, ...;
e.g. 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ... ;
- List arranging as follows:
e.g. - dog
e.g. - cat
e.g. 1. dog
e.g. 2. cat
Formulae
- Use same format as text (character, body, spacing).
- Do not change spacing when writing formulae. Write complex formulae on alternate lines.
Bibliography
- A list of works cited must be provided at the end of articles.
- References should be arranged in alphabetical order, Garamond 11 point, fully justified.
- Each entry in the bibliography should observe the following format:
Author's Surname
Author's first Name comma
Title (and Subtitle, if any) of work in italics comma
Publisher comma
Place and Year of publication (not separated by a comma).
Pages (if necessary)
e.g. Symons Arthur, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899), Dutton, New York 1956.
- Where reference is made to an edition other than the first, this should be shown using an exponential number after the date of the edition. The reprint of a work should be recorded after full details of the original edition. NB: The presence of a title within another title in italics should be given in normal type.
- The titles of Articles contained in Miscellaneous Collections should be indicated in italics, followed by "in", and the name (initials) and surname of the editor or editors (followed by "ed." or "eds."), the title of the Miscellaneous Collection in italics, the Publisher, the Place and Year of publication (not separated by a comma), and the page reference.
e.g. Saggini Francesca, Between Creation and Reception: Stage Appropriation as a Textual Practice, in C. Corti, V. Cavone, M. Trulli (eds.), Forms of Migration. Migration of Forms, Progedit, Bari 2009, pp. 35-47.
- The titles of Articles contained in Journals should be indicated in italics, followed by the name of the Journal between double quotation marks, the part in Arabic numerals, the year, and the page reference.
e.g. Clegg Jeanne, Popular Law Enforcement in Moll Flanders, «Textus», 3, 2008, pp. 523-546.
- Internet resources should be quoted giving the full address (URL) of the website, preceded by a comma, not underlined (e.g.: ). If possible, also indicate the date of consultation of the site (e.g. month/year).
- In the case of a number of titles by the same author, these should be ordered chronologically.
- The name of the publisher as well as the series to which the book belongs, should be given before the place of publication.
- The reference to the translation into English or into another language can be provided in round brackets after the details of the original edition and preceded by "Eng. Trans.", and by the initials and surname of the translator; when indicating the original of a translation, this should be preceded by "Or. Ed.".
- Use «ivi» when one author and his particular work are consecutively repeated in notes or bibliography but page numbers are different; use «ibidem» when the same author, work and page number/s are consecutively repeated in notes and bibliography.
Please note that:
- In the works cited list, surnames should not be written in block capitals and first names should be written in full.
- When an author has published more than one work in the same year, small letters (a, b, c) follow the date of publication.
- When the publication date of a first edition is given, it is placed in parentheses after the date of the edition used.
- Material found on the Internet: if an article has been viewed or downloaded from an on-line journal, the name of the journal is written in normal between double quotation marks, followed by its URL (no underlining or blue), and the date of access (month/year).
Symbols and Conventions
- Brackets: round brackets are normally used ( ). Square brackets are used in the case of : 1) brackets within a sentence already in brackets; 2) author's addition to a textual quotation.
- Abbreviations and Latin words: the most frequently used abbreviations are expressed as follows: p. (page), pp. (pages), no. (number), nos. (numbers), cf. (compare), vol. (volume), vols. (volumes).
- The Latin ibidem, passim, infra, sic, etc. should be written in italics.