Poli-femo
GRAPHIC AND EDITING
RULES AND GUIDELINES
for contributors and proofreaders
1. General guidelines
Contributions shall be sent in digital format (by e-mail to the following address:
[email protected]).
Contributors are requested to draw up their documents using a recent version of Word for Windows.
Contributions shall not exceed the following length:
- Essays: no more than 35,000 characters.
Should the work exceed said parameters, the Board shall evaluate specific needs and demands.
Each work shall show the author’s NAME and SURNAME and the Institution which they
represent.
2. Title of the work and type size for body of the text
Contributors shall use the following type sizes:
Author: Name and surname centred in roman characters (12 point).
Title: Centred in small capitals (13 point).
Between the author and the title: 10-point spacing after.
Between the title and the body of the text: 90-point spacing after.
The body of the text shall have the following characteristics:
Font: Times New Roman.
Size: 12 (body of text).
11 (citation outside body of text).
10 (note).
Line spacing: single, for text and notes. When citing quotations outside the body of the text insert
one space; insert one space between paragraphs; when dividing the text for paragraph titles insert a
20-point space before and a 10-point space after.
The margins of the body of the text and the notes must always be justified.
The titles of any paragraphs shall be preceded by two spaces/lines and followed by one space/line.
The first line of each new paragraph must have a 1 centimetre indent.
3. Citations in the text
Short quotations of less than five lines can be inserted directly into the text in inverted commas.
Longer quotations, however, must be distinct from the running text (using a smaller 11 point font
with a 1 centimetre indent from the margin on the right and on the left, and without inverted
commas). Omissions should always be indicated using three points of ellipsis in square brackets,
followed by punctuation where necessary: […].
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The citation of lines of poetry in the text require a slash (/) at the end of each line, and a double
slash (//) at the end of each verse.
When citing verses of more than 5 lines the same guidelines apply as for citations of narrative
passages.
4. Citations in the notes
Notes should be at the foot of the page and be numbered. Note indicators should be placed outside
brackets, inverted commas or parentheses, unless the note refers only to the last word in the
sentence.
Citations should respect the following criteria:
- Monographs:
Initial of the name – or the complete name in case of ambiguity – followed by a full stop and the
surname of the author (H. Bloom), Title of the book in italics, (The Anxiety of Influence: A
theory of Poetry), City (New York), Publisher, Year of publication, Volume and page cited
(abbreviated with a p. for a single page, and pp. for more than one page).
The various elements of the citation should be separated by commas.
E.g. c, New York, Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 15-19.
- Miscellaneous volumes:
Whenever possible, avoid referring to various authors, indicating instead the name and surname
of the editor or editors, followed by (ed.) or (eds.).
E.g. M. Borrof (ed.), Wallace Stevens: A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewood Cliff,
Prentice, 1963.
- Periodical articles
To cite an article contained in a magazine indicate the initial of the name and the complete
surname of the author, the title of the essay in inverted commas preceded by in, Title of the
Periodical, in italics, year, issue number, pages.
The various elements of the citation should be separated by commas.
E.g. M. Bowie, «Plutarch to Proust: Exemplary Lives», in New Comparison, 1998, no. 25, pp.
9-24.
- Essays from miscellanies
To cite an essay contained in a miscellany indicate the initial of the name and the complete
surname of the author, the title of the essay in inverted commas preceded by “in”, the initial of
the name and the complete surname of the editor(s), Title of the Miscellany, (in italics), City of
Publication, Publisher, Year of Publication, pages.
The various elements of the citation should be separated by commas.
E.g. F. Douay-Soublin, «La Rhéthorique en France au XX siècle: restauration, renaissance,
remise en cause», in M. Fumaroli (ed.),
,
1450–1950, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1999, pp. 1071–1214.
- Citations from the Web
Sources taken from the Internet should be cited as if they were a normal contribution from a
periodical or miscellany. Whenever possible, therefore, the initial of the name and the complete
surname of the author should be indicated, the title of the contribution in inverted commas, the
container (website, online periodical, portal), document date, URL, in angled brackets, and the
date of consultation, in round brackets.
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P. Bellver Saez, “Tijuana en los cuentos de Luis Humberto Crosthwaite: el reto a la utopía de
las culturas híbridas en la frontera”, in Ciberletras, Diciembre de 2008, no. 20,
<http://www.lehman.edu/ciberletras/> (2 February 2009)
In cases of repeated citations from a specific work, the work should be cited in full only the first
time. Subsequently only the initial of the name and the surname of the author should be cited,
followed by the title of the work, the formula cit. and the page references, should there be more than
one text by the same author:
E.g. H. Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A theory of Poetry, cit., pp. 105-109.
or
N. Surname of the author followed by the formula op. cit. in italics and the page references
E.g. H. Bloom, op. cit., pp. 105-109.
In cases of citations from the same work in adjacent notes, the citation in full or abbreviated may be
replaced with:
Ibid., obviously followed by the page number, if different from the previous one (Ibid. pp. 34, 35).
5. Further suggestions for proofreading.
- Use of the space key
Contributors should ensure proper use of the space key:
- one space only between one word and another;
- no space between a word and punctuation (comma, full stop, etc.);
- one space only after punctuation (comma, full stop, etc.);
- no space after opening inverted commas and brackets and before closing inverted commas and
brackets;
- no space for names with two initials separated by full stops.
Use of the “show/hide” button (¶) is recommended for checking the parameters described above.
- Abbreviations
The following is a list of the most commonly used abbreviations:
Before Christ
After Christ (Anno Domini)
Chapter
Quoted
Quotation
Compare
Column
Etcetera
Edition
Original Edition
Diagram
Figure
For Example
Manuscript, manuscripts
Author’s note
BC
AD
Chap.
qtd.
quot.
cf.
col.
etc.
ed.
OE
diag.
fig.
e.g.
ms., mss.
AN
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Editor’s note
Translator’s note
Number,
Page, pages
Paragraph
And the following
Section
Series
Table
That is
Translation
English translation
Line, lines
Volume
EN
TN
No
p., pp.
par.
et. seq.
Sect.
ser.
Tab.
i.e.
tr.
en. tr.
l., ll.
Vol.
- Italics
The use of italics should be kept limited to foreign terms, including Latin (pro tempore, in primis,
ad hoc), with the exception of those in current use in English (élite, cabriolet, beige, tofu, etc.)
which remain in roman characters, headings of tables and titles of monographs and miscellanies.
The use of quotation marks (“ ”) are required for:
- titles of articles and essays, poems, songs, novels, paintings and sculptures, films, videogames,
computer programmes, comic strips, etc.
- citations of passages of prose and poetry
When a title contains titles or words which would normally be written in italics, the latter remain in
roman characters (e.g.: C. Segal, Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides Bacchae). When a title contains
titles of periodicals, miscellanies or monographs, they remain in roman characters (e.g.: S. Ramat,
Negli anni della Voce).
The names of associations, institutions, etc., even if they are foreign institutions, are written in
roman characters both in the text and the notes (for example, Institute for Social Research).
Acronyms, even foreign ones, should not be written in italics.
- Acronyms
Acronyms should be written in capital letters and not be separated by full stops. For example: EU,
BBC, USA, UK, ACE, PhD.
- Capitals
In general all proper nouns start with a capital letter.
- pseudonyms and nicknames: the Sun King, Queen Victoria;
- common epithets: the Old World, the Great War;
- geographical names made up of two nouns or a noun and an adjective functioning as a proper
noun: the Lake District, Western Australia, Mont Blanc;
- centuries, eras, historical periods: the Twentieth Century, the Enlightenment, the Golden Age, the
Counter-Reformation, the Middle Ages;
- political parties: the Italian Communist Party, the Labour Party;
- names of geological and prehistoric periods: the Jurassic, the Paleolithic Age;
- titles and positions when they have become part of the name (King Arthur), or when they have a
particular connotation (religious or of authority, for example: the High Priest);
- foreign titles: Herr, Frau, Fräulein, Madame, Monsieur, Mademoiselle, Sig.;
- names of buildings and monuments: the White House, Palazzo Chigi;
- certain nouns, in order to distinguish them from their homographs: the State, the Treasury, the
Foreign Office, Arts and Science (university faculties); Church, the House (of Commons), the
Cabinet etc.
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Quotation marks
- Use double quotation marks (“ ”) for direct quotation. Do not open a quotation and fail to close it
at the end of the quoted material. Capitalize the first letter of a direct quote when the quoted
material is a complete sentence. Do not use a capital letter when the quoted material is a fragment
or only a piece of the original material's complete sentence.
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