SOME FINE POINTS OF WiG YEARBOOK STYLE (Updated as of July 2007)

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Most of these have been arrived at in a process of discovering inconsistencies that show up from article to article. Some could be amended by editorial decision, but the basic expectation at Nebraska is that we adhere to MLA style where applicable.

ALL-IN-ENGLISH POLICY

In the text

All words, titles, and quotations, except poetry, should be in English, citing from a published translation where available; otherwise the author's own translation is needed, duly noted in a headnote in the "Notes" section, parenthetically if it is only one occurrence, or in the appropriate endnote.

If the author of the article includes his/her own translation into English of a quotation longer than a word or short phrase, please place the German original text in an endnote. Otherwise the German original can precede or follow within the sentence.

German words included in parentheses or brackets are in italics; German phrases, in quotation marks, are treated like quotations: no italics.

Poetry is quoted in the original, in verse form, with a translation using slashes in an endnote. There should be a space before and after each slash; double slashes for verse breaks.

Citing titles

Where a published English translation of a work exists, that title is cited first -- in italics or quotation marks, as the case may be -- with the German original, again in italics or quotation marks, following in parentheses. Further citations of this title should be in English.

Where there is no published translation, the German title is given -- in italics or quotation marks, as the case may be -- and an English translation, sans italics or quotation marks, follows in parentheses. Further citations are of the German title.

We go to great lengths to avoid "parentheses salad": the use of multiple pairs of parentheses adjacent to one another: Christa Wolf's novel Divided Heaven (Der geteilte Himmel) (1963), which looks awful in print. The usual solution is just to put the second title and the date, separated by a comma, within the same parentheses. But this can be misleading, so it is often best to work the date in as a modifier: Wolf's 1963 novel... Another example: Cassandra (85) (see also Jones 72) becomes: Cassandra (85; see also Jones 72).

MLA style rejects the use of non-standard forms for journal titles, such as all lower case (differences, for example)

In parenthetical citations and in the endnotes, separate authors of separate works with a semicolon: Jones; Michaels; Gilbert and Gubar (not Gilbert/Gubar); Braun.

QUOTATIONS

Never begin with an ellipsis

Parenthetical citation occurs before the period at the end.

Any material added to quoted material by the editor or author of the article should be in square brackets.

Try to avoid three or four parenthetical citations of the same page or pages within a few lines of one another. If there are snippets of quoted text being pieced together with the author's prose, it is often possible to give just one "collective citation" at the end of the passage. So instead of ....."..."(7)...."..."(7)...."..."(7)....."..."(8), one can go with ..."..."....."..."....."..." (7-8)

ENDNOTES   

Full citations should not be given in the endnotes. Same brief, parenthetical style as in the text proper, with the full citation in Works Cited.

German quotations appearing in the endnotes also need to be translated.

Use "see" and "for example," never "cf." and "e.g." In general, no Latin abbreviations (ibid., op. cit.)

WORKS CITED

This list should include all works cited in the text and the endnotes. A slight, passing reference to something like The Odyssey need not be documented.

Women in German Yearbook (never WiG Yearbook) is treated as a book. The volume number is thus in italics and it is listed with editors and press.

Citations of more than two articles from one volume/anthology should be done by giving the full citation once and then only an abbreviated citation for each individual article.

Comma before et al. and a period: Schuster, et al. For volumes with multiple editors, I have tended to go with "et al." once there were more than two, unfair as this may seem to editors at the end of the alphabet.

Publisher data: The German names of cities are always used: München, Frankfurt a.M. (Not Fft/M.), Köln

•             The names of states (two-letter zip code format) are used with US cities only in the case of an obscure press in an obscure city or where there is strong possibility of confusion with a major city elsewhere: Cambridge, MA; Rochester, NY. Never with university presses: Ithaca: Cornell UP. We have never reached consistency on State University of New York Press. I would prefer SUNY Press, which is what everyone calls it, but State U of New York P still shows up.

•             Only the actual place of publication is given. Not: London, New York: Routledge or the whole string for Peter Lang, but the single city from which it was issued

•             The names of familiar publishing houses are shortened where possible: Berghahn, Suhrkamp, but sometimes this is grammatically impossible: Basic Books, Westdeutscher Verlag -- or the press is so unfamiliar that the reader would not know the full name: Munger (Verlag, Publishers, Press, Books?) Multiple-named publishers are written out in full: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

For early works published in a later edition, the original date of publication should follow the title. Example: Said, Edward. "Orientalizing the Oriental." 1978. Contemporary Critical Theory. Ed. Dan Latimer. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1989. 254-77.

Multi-volume works should be cited as Vol. 3. 66-91, not 3: 66-91 -- which is used, however, in parenthetical citations in the text. Always Arabic, not Roman numerals, except for lower-case Roman numerals for preface citations.

The names of months in citations of journals are abbreviated according to the MLA system and written thus: 14 Feb. 1978 Not, for example: Die Studentin (9) March 1, 1927: 131-33, but: Die Studentin 9 (1 Mar. 1927): 131-33. (Note: in the text proper the date also appears before the month ≠ which, however, is written out in full: In her letter of 14 February 1978, Christa Wolf…)

Scholarship in the earlier periods has its own conventions in citation and, to the extent possible, we have tried to respect these.

CONTRIBUTORS

Here, as elsewhere in the volume, we follow MLA rules on abbreviations for academic degrees: no periods in PhD, MA, BA. Likewise, if it must be abbreviated, US appears without periods.

Generally, we have tended to eliminate full bibliographic citations of a scholar’s work in the bioblurbs: Title and date are usually sufficient.

THE LAST WORD

MLA rules! As does Webster...