Submissions

Author Guidelines

Style Sheet for AJVS

Papers submitted to AJVS should conform to the MLA citation and referencing style set out in the Seventh Edition (2009) of Gibaldi’s MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.  (Note: AJVS is not following the new MLA style for Works Cited as set out in the 8th edn of 2016). Spelling and hyphenation should follow Australian/NZ/British rather than U.S. usage: e.g. humour rather than humor, centre rather than center, analyse rather than analyze.  If in doubt, consult the Macquarie Concise Dictionary.  Once a paper has been accepted, the Journal editors will be happy to help with any points of difficulty, but submissions should be reasonably correctly formatted, with a comprehensive list of Works Cited, before being sent out for peer review.

Length and format

Please submit all papers via the OJS site, using MSWord or RTF, NOT PDF files or formats from other software such as Pages.  Authors are requested NOT to submit Works Cited lists generated by referencing software such as RefWorks or EndNote, as they may lose their formatting in the processes of layout and publishing; in such cases authors will be asked to correctly format the text at the copy-editing stage.

Papers should not exceed 7000 words in length, including endnotes and a list of Works Cited. 

Please use Times Roman (12pt) font, left-justified only, with 1.5 line spacing throughout, including endnotes and Works Cited. Indented long quotations should be the same size font as the main body of the text for submission and review; they will be formatted as single-spaced for publication by the Journal’s layout editor.

Paragraphs should be separated by a single blank line, with no indentation in the first line.  For indented long quotations, please use the ‘indent’ function in Word, NOT tabs.

Illustrations

Illustrations are welcome; they should be placed in the text, accompanied by captions, close to where they belong. Final formatting will be done by the Journal. Permission for reproduction of illustrations in this medium (i.e. in an online open-access scholarly journal) will need to be arranged by authors, with evidence provided.

Illustrations, such as photographs, maps, graphs and pictures, should be labelled as Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3 and so on, below the illustration. A title/ caption should be placed after the figure number, beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop (do not use all capital letters). The source of the illustration should be indicated either in the text or beneath the caption to enable the reader to locate the work from which the illustration is taken in the Works Cited.

Tables

Tables should be labelled Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, and so on, above the table with no full stop after the numeral. There should be a caption or title directly below the table heading, beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop (do not use all capital letters). If the source has not been given in the text, give it below the table. Notice that there is no full stop after the caption, but there is a full stop after the source.

Naming Conventions

Full names (first and last names) should be used on the first occasion and only the last name on subsequent occasions.  For authors, the name under which they publish should be used: George Eliot, Anais Nin, ee cummings.  For aristocracy, titles should be used appropriately. For instance, “Elizabeth, Lady Eastlake” is correct for the wife of a Knight (not “Lady Elizabeth Eastlake”).

For the main subject of an article, it is expected that the dates of birth and death will be provided in parenthesis the first time the person is mentioned in the main body of the text, for example:  “This paper explores the Bakhtinian poetics of Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-61), whose verse-novels and occasional verse are characterised by dialogism and polyphony.”

Numbers

Words should be used for numbers one to ten; numerals for numbers 11 and beyond. When stating a range of numbers between zero and 99, the numbers should be stated in full (36-89, 1-23). When stating a range of numbers beyond 99, only the last two digits of the final number should be given unless more are necessary for comprehension (256-58, 1004-56, 348-1009).

Dates

Day, month, year should be used without punctuation: 28 June 2001. Lower case should be used for centuries and decades: seventeenth century, the fifties and sixties. Numerals are permitted but with NO apostrophe: 1890s, 1950s.

Footnotes / Endnotes

In-text parenthetical citations mean that there is rarely a need to use footnotes or endnotes for bibliographic references. Endnotes should only be used to expand on some point made in the text or to add information that doesn’t “fit” in the text. There should be very few bibliographic endnotes and few, if any, expansion/extra information endnotes.

Number notes consecutively, starting from 1. Use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3), not Roman numerals or any other symbols. Format note numbers as raised slightly above the line, and do not follow the numbers with full stops or any other punctuation marks. The numbers must be placed after the punctuation marks in a sentence, except for dashes. Often it is best to position note numbers at the end of a sentence, so as not to disrupt the flow of the sentence.   If using Word, please use the ‘insert endnote’ function rather than typing the superscript numbers and notes separately.

What follows is an overview of key elements of MLA style, and examples of some of the trickier types of citation that AJVS authors are likely to encounter (eg for archival sources, correspondence, works of art).

Parenthetical Citations

Citations for sources of ideas, quotations and indirect quotations must be indicated in parentheses in the body of the text; for example: (Wilson 73). Information that is clear from the body of the text is omitted from the parenthetical citation; for example: “Wilson claims . . . ” (73). If your list of Works Cited includes more than one work by the same author, a comma should be placed after the author’s name followed by a short title—usually the first substantive word of the full title—in similar format to its appearance in the list of Works Cited (italics or in inverted commas); for example, (Miller, Poetics 45). If your citations are from a number of separate items in a single volume, such as a collection of critical essays, an anthology, or a published volume of letters, you should list each item separately in the Works Cited by author and name or title of the item, with date if appropriate, followed by “X page numbers” where X is the name of the editor or author (Sheldon, in the example given below).

For example, a letter by Elizabeth Eastlake would have a brief in-text citation (Letter to Rawdon Brown 175), and lead the reader to the following entries in the Works Cited list. 

Eastlake, Elizabeth. Letter to Rawdon Brown. 23 Nov. 1855. Sheldon 174-75.

Sheldon, Julie, ed. The Letters of Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake. Liverpool: Liverpool U P, 2009.

Please note that where an item is being described rather than named, as is often the case with archival or newspaper material (letters, birth certificates, Inquest records etc), quotation marks are not required for the name of the item.  Entries for correspondence should include the name of the writer, the person to whom the letter is addressed, and the date.

For authored works within collections, such as articles, poems, or critical essays, the usual conventions of formatting titles apply.

Works Cited

The bibliography should be restricted to a list of Works Cited—a documentation of only those works that are referred to in the body of the essay. The Works Cited should begin a new page, and list alphabetically all the sources cited in the essay.

Titles of works cited – general principles.

The full title of any work published separately should be italicised: books, plays, long poems, periodicals, newspapers, films, paintings, TV series, recordings. The title of any work published as part of another work should be enclosed in double quotation marks: poems, short stories, essays, articles, book chapters, TV or radio episodes. Titles of sacred works (New Testament), publishing series (Portable Australian Authors), editions series (Signet Classics), courses (Cultures, Identities, Texts) should not be italicised or placed in quotation marks.

Examples of Works Cited entries in MLA style are given below.  Please note that MLA style includes punctuation, as well as the inclusion of citation information in the order and formats shown below.

Books

Author’s last name, author’s first name. “Section of work title.” Title of Work. Ed. Editor’s first, then last name. Place of publication: publishing house, year of publication. Page numbers.

Journal article

Author’s last name, author’s first name. “Title of article.” Title of Journal Volume number.Issue number (year): page numbers.

Journal article sourced from an electronic database

Author’s last name, author’s first name. “Title of article.” Title of Journal Volume number.Issue number (year): page numbers. Name of database. Date accessed.

A Film or Video Recording

Title of film/recording. Dir. Director’s first, then last name. Distributor. Year of release. [You may include additional information after the name of the Director—e.g., the author of the screenplay (Screenplay by…) or the performers (Perf.).]

Television or Radio Program

Title of episode or segment, if appropriate (in quotation marks). Title of program (in italics). Title of series, if any (neither quotation marks nor italics). Name of network. Call letter of local station, if any). Broadcast date.

Internet Source

Author’s last name, author’s first name. “Title of article.” Type of document, date posted. Date accessed .

General Principles for Entries in the Works Cited List.

The following list gives the order in which information should appear in the entry in your Works Cited; if any item of information is not relevant, proceed to the next item.

1. Author’s name as it appears on the title page of the work—last name first, followed by a comma, the full first name, then a full stop. For example: Brett, Lilly. If there is more than one author, list subsequent authors with their first names first, placing a comma after each author’s name and a full stop after the last one (see example list).  If the author’s name is unknown, do not use ‘Anon.’ – simply leave unspecified and start the entry with the title or name of the item.

2. Title of a non-separately-published work (section of a book, article in a journal, episode in a television series, and so on) are placed in quotation marks, followed by a full stop inside the closing quotation marks. For example: “The Wasteland.” or “Masculinity and Femininity.” Use Title Case for all titles.

3. Title of the book or journal, in italics (not underlined). For example: Westerly or Selected Poems. Book titles are followed by a full stop; journal titles are not followed by a full stop. Use Title Case.

4. For articles in journals, place the volume number, a full stop, then the issue number of the journal after the title of the journal (if the journal does not paginate each issue separately, the volume number alone will suffice). Notice that there is no full stop after the title of a journal before the volume/issue number/s. For example: Ornicar 5.8.

For journals or magazines that do not use issue numbers but are only identified by their date of issue, use this date in place of the volume number. For example: Landscope Sept. 2002.

5. For journals, after the volume and issue numbers leave a space and then put the year of publication in parentheses, followed by a colon, a space and the page number/s, followed by a full stop. For example: 3.2 (1989): 34-98. There is no need to repeat the year if the issue is identified by its date.

6. For books, name (first name then last name) of editor or translator preceded by the abbreviation “Ed.” or “Trans.” For example: Ed. Carole Ferrier or Trans. Alan Sheridan. There is one space between the full stop after the abbreviation and the first name of the editor/translator.

7. For books, you may cite the edition used, followed by a full stop. For example: 2nd ed.

8. For books, you may cite the number of volumes or Volume number. For example: 3 Vols. (three volumes in the series) or Vol. 3. (the third volume in the series).

9. Name of the series (optional), followed by a full stop. For example: Penguin Classics.

10. For books, cite the place of publication, a colon, one space, the name of the publisher. For example: London: Oxford U P (always use U for University and P for Press). In MLA style, there is no full stop (period) after the U or the P, although there is for initials in names, where a space is also left between the initials.

11. For books, after the publisher add a comma, a space and the year of publication, followed by a full stop. For example: London: Oxford U P, 1999.

12. For a chapter of a book leave two spaces after the full stop and put the page number/s, followed by a full stop. For example: London: Oxford U P, 1999. 23-36.

13. For sources accessed through electronic databases, you may follow the usual bibliographical information with the title of the database in italics, followed by a full stop. For example: Proquest.

14. For other electronic sources, follow the title with the type of work, one space, and the date posted followed by a full stop. For example: Working Paper June 2002.

15. For all electronic sources, leave two spaces after the full stop and follow this by the date you accessed the work. For example: Working Paper June 2002. 13 Jan. 2003. [URL no longer required in MLA style].

Example of List of Works Cited.  Format: centred title in bold, and hanging indent on entries.

Works Cited

Allende, Isabel. “Toad’s Mouth.” Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. A Hammock Beneath Mangoes: Stories from Latin America. Ed. Thomas Colchie. New York: Plume, 1992. 38-88.

American Beauty. Dir. Sam Mendes. Perf. Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birth, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvan. Dream Works, 1999.

The Buccaneers. By Edith Wharton. Adapt. Maggie Wadey. Perf. Mira Sovino, Alison Elliott, and Carla Gugino. 3 episodes. Masterpiece Theatre. Introd. Russell Baker. PBS. WGBH, Boston. 27 Apr. – 11 May 1997.

Cotter, Maria, Bill Boyd, and Jane Gardiner, eds. Heritage Landscapes: Understanding Place and Communities. Lismore: Southern Cross U P, 2001.

Cramer, J., L. Rado, and J. Walker. “Athletic Heroes and Heroines.” Journal of Sport Behaviour 4.4 (1981): 175-85.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin, 1991.

“Frankenstein: The Making of the Monster.” Great Books. Narr. Donald Sutherland. Writ. Eugenie Vink. Dir. Jonathan Ward. Learning Challenge. 8 Sept. 1993.

Judge, Joan. “Key Words in the Late Qing Reform Discourse: Classical and Contemporary Sources of Authority.” Working paper, 30 June 2002. 17 July 2003 .

Markwell, Kevin. “Mardi Gras Tourism and the Construction of Sydney as an International Gay and Lesbian City.” Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8.4 (2002): 81-99. Project Muse GLQ. 2 Feb. 2003.

Quotations

Quotations must follow the original text exactly. Square brackets should be used for interpellations (clarifications, emphases, signals of error in the original).

Whenever you wish to omit a word, a phrase, a sentence, or more from a quoted passage you should use ellipses. You should be guided by two principles: fairness to the author quoted and the grammatical integrity of your writing. A quotation should never be presented in a way that could cause a reader to misunderstand the sentence structure of the original source. 

Indicate such omissions by using three full stops, each preceded and followed by a space. End punctuation of a sentence or clause should precede the ellipses.

Example:

As Brennan wrote: “The colonial girl could ride a horse . . .  sew a skirt, boil a billy [she did this many times], . . . and give a wayward (emphasis added) husband good measure for his trouble” (34).

Short Quotations

Quotations less than four lines in length should not be indented, but included in your running text and enclosed within quotation marks.

Example:

Alex Sheppard describes Ken Slessor as “an experienced journalist who understood the limitations and responsibilities to a point which surprised [him]” (McCrae 255).

Long Quotations

Quotations of four lines or more should be indented and not enclosed in quotation marks. Indented quotations are normally introduced by a colon. Notice that there is no full stop after a long quotation’s parenthetical citation.

Example:

Writing to Norman Lindsay, McCrae said:

I had a visitor the other day in the person of young Slessor: a boy not yet twenty-one [actually he was by three days] who writes leading-articles for the Sun and is so well-paid that he was enabled to turn down the editorship of Art in Australia.

His presence is hardly a pleasing one, but . . . he writes like an angel. (McCrae 57)

Punctuation in Quotations

Smart quotes (‘text’ or “text”) should be used, not straight quotes. All quotes should be enclosed by double quotation marks except for quotes within quotes, which should be enclosed by single quotation marks.

Whether or not the quotation is set off from the body of the text, it is usually preceded by a colon if it is formally introduced and by a comma or no punctuation if it is an integral part of the text.

Commas and periods that directly follow quotations go inside the closing quotation marks, but if there is a parenthetical citation after the quotation, then end punctuation follows the parenthesis.

If a quotation ends with both single and double quotation marks, the comma or period precedes both: “Read ‘Upstairs, Downstairs,’” she told me.

Semicolons, colons, question marks and exclamation marks go outside a closing quotation mark, except when they are part of the quoted material.