Instructions for Authors - NJCU :: Transformations

Manuscript Preparation:

All manuscripts are to be prepared in MLA style with parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page using the 6th Edition of the MLA Handbook. Manuscripts are to be created and saved as Microsoft Word Documents. The font should be Times New Roman, size 12; the document should be double-spaced with one-inch margins around each page. Author self-references must be removed.

Please attach a SEPARATE document with the full submission title and complete address, telephone, fax, and email information included. Please also include a 250-word abstract and an author biography of 100 words or less.

If a submission includes specific references to student work or quotations, the author must provide written permission from the student(s) to use said information prior to publication.

For those submissions which include visual components (i.e. photos, illustrations, etc.):

Provide picture files in either of the two most popular digital picture file formats: JPG or TIFF. Please submit these files on CD. These images should be sent with the contact information of the creator of the images, in the event a second image is needed. Images should not be resized or resolution reduced.

Format:

• Author name and title of essay must be in capitalized letters for final submissions
• Do not indent at the beginning of the first paragraph of the essay or the first paragraph of new sections.
• Leave a one-line space before the beginning of a section. Do not leave a line space after the subheading of any new section.
• Use title case, bold, and italics for subheadings.
• Use numbered footnotes if necessary, not endnotes.
• Single space footnotes.
• Include full bibliographical information in MLA style.
• List any other sources in the Works Cited page.
• Reviewers should list works under review at the beginning of the review essay.
• Acknowledgements, in italicization, should be placed before Works Cited.

Sample MLA Citations:

o Citing a book:

Berlage, Gai Ingham. Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport: Greenwood, 1994.

o Citing a journal article:

Trumpener, Katie. “Memories Carved in Granite: Great War Memorials and Everyday Life.” PMLA 115 (2000): 1096-103.

o Citing multiple works by the same author:

Doctorow, E. L. Introduction. Sister Carrie. By Theodore Dreiser. New York: Bantam, 1982. v-xi.
---. Welcome to Hard Times. 1960. New York: Vintage-Random, 1988.

o Citing a webpage:

Ross, Don. “Game Theory.” 11 Sept. 2001. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Fall 2002 ed. Center for the Study of Lang. and Information, Stanford U. 1 Oct. 2002 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/game-theory/>.

Style:

• Abbreviations:
o Use initials without periods for abbreviations when used as adjectives (i.e. US foreign policy, UK culture, UN declarations).
o Use complete words, not abbreviations, for “okay” and “versus.”

• Capitalization:
o Use upper case for essay title and the author’s name.
o Capitalize initials of subheadings.
o Do not capitalize the first letter after a colon unless necessary (i.e. proper noun).
o Use lower case for “internet” and “website.”
o Capitalize words for regions when used as nouns (i.e. Middle East).
o Use lower case for “black” and “white” (i.e. black woman, white woman), unless a rationalization for capitalizing one or both terms is included in the essay.
o Use lower case for academic disciplines, but not when referring to an academic department (i.e. women’s studies, Department of Mathematics).

• Punctuation:
o In parenthetical citations, do not place a comma between author name and page number.
o Do not insert a space before or after a dash (i.e. when—in 1763—they invaded).
o Use a comma between all items in series of three or more (i.e. salad, meat, and potatoes).
o Periods and commas go inside quotation marks; semi-colons and colons go outside. Question marks and exclamation points go inside quotation marks unless they apply to the sentence as a whole.
o Use quotation marks around titles of courses (i.e. “Introduction to Physics”).

• Other:
o In both the essay and Works Cited, italicize titles of books, journals, films, etc.; do not underline them. Use quotation marks for shorter works such as television shows, poems, and articles.
o Do not use complete website addresses for in-text citations. Use a signal phrase or a short form of the title in parentheses after the quotation. Use complete web address in the Works Cited page.
o Write “website” as one word.
o Use “dialogue” instead of “dialog” and “catalogue” instead of “catalog.”
o Spell out numbers that only need one or two words (i.e. fourteen, fifty-six, twentieth century); use numerals for numbers that need more than two words (i.e. 367).
o Use only one space after all punctuation marks, not two.

Send one hard copy to: Jacqueline Ellis and Edvige Giunta, Editors, Trans formations, New Jersey City University, Academic Affairs 309, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07305.