Instructions for Authors
MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION AND STYLE SHEET
(Revised September 2012)
1. MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Manuscripts that do not conform to the following guidelines will be returned to authors for revisions before being sent to referees for evaluation. RQ does not publish contributions that have been published elsewhere in whole or in part; submission of a manuscript to RQ implies that the author has no outstanding agreements or proposals to publish the material elsewhere. Please note that the evaluation process typically takes between three and six months.
Please submit articles using our online peer review system Editorial Manager. Renaissance Quarterly welcomes papers that are ca. 25–40 pages of body text (that is, exclusive of notes, bibliography, and any appendices) when formatted in 12-point Times New Roman with one-inch margins. The electronic submission process accepts submissions in MS Word only (converts to PDF). You are required to submit a 150-word abstract with your submission. Do not embed digital images within the manuscript; submit them as separate figure files. Digital images must be low-resolution for ease in uploading. Follow this format for naming digital image files (using a short title of the article): ShortTitle_Image001, ShortTitle_Image002, and so on. Please make sure that image numbers correspond to the figure numbers and caption numbers in the manuscript. Aside from the abstract and figures, all remaining components of the manuscript must be submitted as a single document: body text, followed by any appendices and captions (where appropriate), then the bibliography and endnotes. The entire manuscript — body text, quotations, captions, appendices, bibliography, and notes — must be double-spaced. Do not include a cover letter within the manuscript: the author’s name must not appear on the title page or elsewhere in the manuscript in order to ensure blind readings from referees; please also remove any acknowledgments from the article. An independent cover letter, which will not be seen by referees, may be uploaded separately.
2. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTS
The articles editor will contact authors about revisions; these may include revisions for content, format, and style. When the final, revised manuscript has been accepted by the editor, the author must email to rsa@rsa.org an electronic copy of the final version to serve as the basis for copyediting. The RSA office uses MS Word and cannot accept papers in other word-processing formats. The manuscript must be submitted as a single document that contains all components: abstract, text, appendixes, captions, bibliography, and endnotes. All of these components must be double-spaced. Do not insert extra blank lines between paragraphs or between bibliography entries. Manuscripts that do not conform to the RQ style sheet will be returned for further revisions before copyediting can begin, which may result in a delay in publication.
RQ will not accept bibliographies that have been created using bibliographic management programs, such as RefWorks and Endnote. Field codes and all other formatting from such programs must be removed from the manuscript before it is submitted.
On the final, revised manuscript, type the author’s name on a separate line under the title. The author’s name is directly followed by the abstract on the next line. The body text should be divided into titled, numbered sections, the first of which is the introduction (e.g., “1. Introduction”; “2. Shakespeare’s Women”). The author’s institutional affiliation is listed at the end of the text. The text must be followed by a bibliography, and by a list of captions if the article includes illustrations. Captions must include all relevant copyright and permissions information as specified in permissions agreements (e.g., “Courtesy of the British Library”). See below for caption formats.
It is the author’s responsibility to obtain print- and online-quality images as well as all necessary publishing permissions. If you have questions about what permissions are required, please see The University of Chicago’s Permission Guidelines. We strongly recommend initiating the process of obtaining permissions as soon as an article is accepted so that publication of the article is not delayed.
Illustrations must be submitted either as digital files in tiff format or as unmounted glossy prints. Please submit color images whenever possible: images will appear in black and white in the print version of RQ and in color in the online version. The minimum resolution for digital images is 300 dpi. Because of the large file sizes of high-resolution images, we cannot accept digital images for accepted articles via email. We require two sets of digital images. Please mail two identical sets of images on CDs to the RSA office in New York (see address above). Please mail all images together. Follow this format for naming digital image files (using the author’s last name): Author_Image001, Author_Image002, and so on. RQ reserves the right to reject photographs that do not meet requirements of quality and legibility; in such a case, replacement photographs are the responsibility of the author.
3. COPYEDITING
Copyediting will begin after the revised version of an accepted article — including text and endnotes, bibliography, appendixes, images, and captions — is received by the RSA editorial staff. Major revisions by the author must be made before the article is submitted for copyediting: constraints of time and cost prohibit substantive editing by the author during the copyediting phase. The length of time between the submission of the accepted article to the RSA office and the return of the copyedited article to the author varies according to our production schedule. Before copyediting can begin, the author must agree to the copyright assignment, rights, and requirements for publication as stipulated in the RQ Publication Agreement. In addition, all RQ authors must be current RSA members.
During the copyediting phase authors have multiple opportunities to review the edits that have been made to the article, to answer editorial queries, and to correct any mistakes in the text. Please note that the RQ editorial staff does not track changes: edits that make the article conform to RQ usage and style are made silently. The RQ editorial staff does copyediting (punctuation, spelling, grammar), line editing (style, usage, clarity) and sometimes more substantive content editing. Substantive editing will not be made silently: authors will receive a series of query letters in which general and specific questions are addressed. The role of the editorial staff is to help produce the best possible version of each article, and it is expected that authors will answer all queries. Authors should avoid lengthy notes and notes that contain supplementary material; the editorial staff reserves the right to excise material from overlong notes. When appropriate, long notes can be converted to appendixes.
4. STYLE
RQ uses the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) with some modifications. (When CMS and the RQ style sheet conflict, the RQ style sheet takes precedence.)
RQ uses American English punctuation, spelling, idioms, syntax, and vocabulary.
As an aid to reader comprehension, provide life dates for historical figures and publication dates for works discussed. These appear in parentheses immediately after the first mention of the figure or work: e.g., the Essais (1580) of Michel de Montaigne (1533–92).
RQ does not allow open questions, e.g., “If one considers the poem as a figure of the author’s politics, what happens to the imagery of death?” and “Why haven’t scholars recognized this aspect of the manuscript?” and “Why doesn’t the narrator act the way one expects him to?” All such questions should be rephrased as declarative statements.
RQ avoids the use of first-person exposition. Please avoid I, our, we, etc. All instances should be rendered in the third-person.
A. Numbers and dates
The numbers one through ninety-nine are spelled out in the text, except in dates, page numbers, and parts of books: “one chapter deals with” and “chapter 1 deals with.” (Please note that the words chapter and part are not capitalized.) Use arabic numerals instead of roman, except for introductory materials, legal citations, personal titles, or original page numbers. Inclusive page numbers are written as follows: 66–67; 100–09; 115–508. RQ follows the European style for dates: 1 January 1400. Numbers that identify centuries are spelled out: fifteenth century. A century name is hyphenated when used as an adjective: sixteenth-century art. Italian century names are capitalized: Quattrocento. Inclusive dates are written as follows: 1560–74; 1598–1625. Use BCE and CE instead of BC and AD.
B. Italics
Use italics for foreign words and phrases that are not directly quoted and for English words when they are discussed as words. A word or short phrase must be immediately followed by a translation in parentheses the first time it appears; for example, coram papa (in the presence of the pope). Do not italicize or place quotation marks around the translation. Well-known foreign-language phrases do not need to be translated (e.g., querelle des femmes). Italics are not used for foreign place-names (Mont St. Michel), foreign proper names (François), or direct quotations from foreign languages.
C. Quotations in general
Long quotations: more than ten typed lines of prose or three lines of verse are set off in a block and double-spaced. Short quotations are placed between quotation marks in the text.
Lines of poetry should be separated by a virgule (/) between lines, and stanzas should be separated by two virgules (//). Ellipsis points should be used within the body of a quote to indicate omission (. . . or . . . . if the omission includes a period). Avoid beginning and closing ellipses.
RQ does not allow the use of quotation marks for emphasis, irony, or distance, known as scare quotes (e.g., Historians have emphasized the growing distinction of “public” and “private” spheres.). In most cases scare quotes can be removed without loss of meaning, or a different word can be substituted. Quotation marks are reserved for actual quotations.
The use of the word sic must be restricted to usage or spelling errors in quotations from modern works. The word always appears in italics and between brackets: [sic]. It is not used for variant spellings and errors in manuscripts or early printed works, in which orthographic variety is expected. If the author decides an explanation of a particular misspelled or incorrectly used word is necessary for the comprehension of the quoted passage, this should be done in a note. RQ trusts that its readers will recognize nonstandard spelling and punctuation in older texts as orthographic variety and not as errors on the part of either the article’s author or the journal’s editors.
D. Foreign-language quotations
All foreign-language quotations in the body of the paper must be translated to English (either as paraphrases or word-for-word translations). The original quotations may be given in the notes if relevant to the argument. Original quotations should always be given for archival, unpublished, or rare sources. (When quoting from a standard translation of a well-known or familiar work, there is no need to also give the original in the notes.) Quotations that appear only in the notes (and not in the body text) must be translated to English. Except in cases where no acceptable translation exists, please use standard, published translations. Authors providing their own translations should note “All translations are the author’s except where otherwise noted” in the acknowledgments.
If the passage is paraphrased rather than quoted in the text, a translation — and not the original — may appear in the notes. In the notes, quotations in non-Roman alphabets should not be transliterated. Latin abbreviations and contractions should be spelled out. Use modern punctuation and capitalize proper names.
E. Citations
Acknowledgments are indicated by an asterisk after the article’s title. Double-spaced numbered endnotes begin in the text proper, after the abstract. Do not use footnotes and parenthetical citations in the text. Do not use cross-references to other notes in (i.e., do not use “see n51 below” or “see n2 above”).
Examples of endnotes:
1. King, 98–144.
2. Ibid., 79. (same publication cited immediately above, different page)
3. R. L. Stevenson, 81. (more than one Stevenson in the bibliography)
4. Kristeller, 2:73. (a multivolume work)
5. Davis, 51n3. (citing a note: here, the third numbered footnote on page 51)
6. Kristeller, 1952, 37. (more than one work by Kristeller cited in the article)
7. Monfasani, 1980a, 51. (more than one work published the same year: use a, b, c, and so on)
For works divided into sections, separate the elements by periods: for example, use 3.3.12–24 for act 3, scene 3, lines 12–24; or for book 3, canto 3, lines 12–24. The divisions must be explained the first time the work is cited, but only if the divisions are not obvious.
Indicate a multivolume work with a colon; for example, use 2:101–92 to indicate volume 2, pages 101–92. Note that no space follows the colon.
Both verso and recto are used when printed works and manuscripts are so numbered; for example: 18v; 18r–v; 18r–19v. Please note that r and v are superscripted.
Note that RQ requires citations to page numbers in modern editions of classic works. The specific work, and, where appropriate, its internal divisions appear in parentheses following the citation to the modern edition. For example:
Virgil, 1960, 1:150–51 (Georgics, 2.490).
This indicates p. 150–51 in the first volume of a multivolume 1960 edition. The name of the work (Georgics) and its conventional, internal divisions separated by periods (book 2, line 490) appear in parentheses.
Archival or manuscript sources should be cited with the full name of the archive at the first citation; subsequent citations may use an abbreviation, such as ASV or BNF. See below for how to list archival sources in your bibliography.
Abbreviate as follows: vol. or vols. for volume(s); n. or nn., for note(s); fol., fols., for folio, folios; col., cols., for column, columns; ms., mss., for manuscript, manuscripts; o.s., for old series; n.s., for new series. Do not use: idem, op. cit., loc. cit., f. and ff., passim; instead, supply pages or other information as needed.
Note that RQ requires citations to page numbers for all paginated works:
Do not use: See Frederick, chap. 6.
Use: See Frederick, 36–62.
Do not use: Adams, vol. 2, appendix 2.
Use: Adams, 2:455–59.
RQ does not allow citations to forthcoming works. Exceptions can be made if the forthcoming work will be available in paginated proofs by the time the RQ article in question goes to press.
F. Captions
Examples of caption format:
FIGURE 1. Facade of convent church of Santa Maria delle Vergini in Venice. Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, cod. Correr 317, fol. 10r.
FIGURE 2. Title page of first edition of Pietro Pomponazzi, Tractatus de immortalitate animae. Bologna, 1516. Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania.
FIGURE 3. Girolami Tower, Florence, twelfth century. Alinari/Art Resource, New York.
FIGURE 4. Sandro Botticelli. Mystic Nativity, 1501. London, The National Gallery.
Note: a credit line usually appears at the end of a caption. Some permission grantors request specific language in the credit line: authors must check permissions agreements to make sure any specific language is included in the caption credit line. The RQ editorial staff may in some cases rephrase credit-line language for consistency across captions.
G. Illustration call-outs
Illustrations must be called out in the text as reasonably close as possible to discussion of the illustration. Call-outs are placed between parentheses and numbered sequentially beginning with the number 1: (fig. 1). Note the abbreviated form of figure as “fig.” with a lowercase f.
Do not subdivide illustration call-outs into a, b, etc.:
Do not use: The recto (fig. 10a) and the verso (fig. 10b).
Use: The recto (fig. 10) and the verso (fig. 11).
In other words, the number of call-outs, captions, and illustrations must always be equal to each other.
Do not place any other information, such as a date, inside the parentheses with the call-out. Dates and other information must be included in the caption and incorporated into the text when appropriate:
Do not use: (fig. 4, ca. 1554)
Use: Titian’s Danae (fig. 4) was commissioned by Philip II of Spain in 1554. (Or include the date in the caption only.)
Do not use: (fig. 2, Paris, Louvre)
Use: The Louvre Nativity (fig. 2) is normally identified as one of the painter’s last works. (Or include the collection information in the caption only.)
H. Bibliography
The bibliography is a single alphabetical list that includes all primary and secondary sources that are cited in the notes, including printed works, electronic sources, and manuscripts. Only those works that are cited in the notes should be listed in the bibliography. Authors making substantial use of manuscripts or archives may list them separately; see, for example, Simons and Kornell, RQ 61.4 (2008): 1069–97.
In addition to the examples below, authors should consult CMS 16, chap. 14. RQ differs from CMS in omitting the names of publishers. List multiple works by an author chronologically. The second and subsequent works begin with an underscore five spaces long followed by a period. Clarify identical American place names by using US postal style for states: Durham, NC or NH. Clarify identical European/American place names only where ambiguity is likely: list Cambridge, England as Cambridge, but use Cambridge, MA, for the U.S. city. Give foreign place-names in modern English: Venice, not Venezia. List only the primary place of publication: New Haven, not New Haven and London.
For electronic sources: the full facts of publication should be included along with either a URL or a DOI for all electronic sources. Please use DOIs (digital object identifiers) in place of URLs wherever possible. Most journal articles and online encyclopedias will have DOIs available. For additional guidance, please see Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., 14.4–7. Renaissance Quarterly no longer publishes access dates for online sources.
Examples of bibliographic entries:
Basic author entry; note that the second author’s name is not inverted:
McMillin, Scott, and Sally-Beth Maclean. The Queen’s Men and Their Plays. Cambridge, 1998.
Basic editor entry:
J. R. Dasent, ed. Acts of the Privy Council. 32 vols. London, 1890–1907.
An edition or translation (note that Ed. or Trans. or Comp. follows a period, begins with a capital):
Marguerite de Navarre. Chrétiens et mondains, poèmes épars. Ed. Richard Cooper. Paris: Honoré Champion Éditeur, 2007.
Multi-author work with editor, often a collection of related articles:
Ruderman, David B., ed. Preachers of the Italian Ghetto. Berkeley, 1992.
A single selection from an edited book:
Owens, Jesse Ann. “Was there a Renaissance in Music?” In Language and Images of Renaissance Italy, ed. Alison Brown, 111–26. Oxford, 1995.
Two or more selections from an edited book. The edited book gets its own entry; each selection’s author, title, and pagination is given in full, but the monographic information is brief. The entries are presented alphabetically:
Davis, Robert C. “The Geography of Gender in the Renaissance.” In Gender and Society (1998), 19–38.
Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy. Ed. Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis. London, 1998.
Kuehn, Thomas. “Person and Gender in the Laws.” In Gender and Society (1998), 87–106.
Edition/series. Include series information only when it is essential for identifying the work:
Shakespeare, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Ed. Giorgio Melchiori. The Arden Shakespeare, 3rd ser. Walton-on-Thames, 2000.
Reprint/facsimile:
Tomasini, Jacopo Filippo. Gymnasium Patavinum. 1654. Reprint, Sala Bolognese, 1986.
Multivolume work. NB: Provide the total number of volumes, even if not all volumes were consulted. In the notes, indicate volume number as follows: Brecht, 2:102.
Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. Trans. James L. Schaaf. 3 vols. Philadelphia (vol. 1) and Minneapolis (vols. 2, 3), 1985–93.
Journal article:
Steinberg, Leo. “Leonardo’s Last Supper.” Art Quarterly 36.4 (1973): 297–410.
Garin, Eugenio. “Dante nel Rinascimento.” Rinascimento n.s., 7 (1967): 3–28.
Book review:
Hayton, Darin. Rev. of Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire by Tara Nummedal. Renaissance Quarterly 61.4 (2008): 1343–44.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Review essays are commissioned by the journal editors, and are not accepted as unsolicited submissions. Please use the following guidelines for review essays:
Unless otherwise specified by the commissioning editor, review essays should be ca. 10–12 pages of body text (exclusive of bibliography) when formatted in 12-point Times New Roman with one-inch margins.
Review essays do not use parenthetical citations. The essay must have a bibliography that includes all works mentioned in the body text. Likewise, do not include works in the bibliography that are not mentioned in the text. Please follow RQ style for the bibliography as given above in this style guide (section G).
Please use short titles of works in the body text (i.e., England’s Culture Wars instead of England’s Culture Wars: Puritan Reformation and its Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649–1660) because full details will be available in the bibliography.
Endnotes should only be used for citing quotations. The basic format for citing quotations is: Anderson, 90. Include the publication year in the citation only if there are multiple works by the author in the bibliography: Anderson, 2007, 90. (See section E above on citations.)
BOOK REVIEWS
Reviewers are to consult the guidelines for review provided by the RSA office (guidelines will be included with the book when it is mailed to the reviewer). In general, reviewers must follow the style guide for articles, with the following modifications:
Renaissance Quarterly does not print footnotes to reviews. Quotations within the text from the book under review are followed by a page number in parentheses: “the history of the text” (132). Please avoid excess quotation. For quotations in languages other than English, please either paraphrase in English or provide English translations of quotations. Use double quotation marks for the primary quotation, and single quotation marks for quotations within the quoted material. For example:
In his introduction Jones notes that “this style is described by Vasari as ‘the imitation of the Greek manner,’ a claim whose full impact historians have only begun to consider.”
Please limit references to other works; these are cited parenthetically as follows:
“The history of the text” (Thomas Writer, The Book Cited [2009], 132).
“The history of the text” (Thomas Writer, “The Article Cited,” The Journal 62.1 [2009]: 132).
“The history of the text” (Thomas Writer, “The Article Cited,” in Collection of Essays, ed. Tricia Writer [2009]: 132).
Note that parenthetical citations to books in reviews do not include the name of the publisher or the place of publication.
Use italics for short phrases in foreign languages (e.g., ut pictura poesis). If well-known to an anglophone audience, there is no need to translate them. Otherwise, an English translation must be provided in parentheses immediately following the phrase. Do not italicize or place quotation marks around the translation.
Please do not use italics or quotation marks for emphasis (see section 4.C above). Quotation marks are reserved for actual quotations.
Use arabic numerals for chapter and section numbers (if roman numerals are given in the book, please convert them to arabic, e.g., convert “part III” to “part 3”).
Do not capitalize the words chapter and part. The titles of chapters and parts should be given in quotation marks. For example:
Smith’s primary argument is developed in part 2, “Memory.” Of particular importance is chapter 5, “Repetition and Remembrance,” in which Smith introduces his ideas about repetition.
Series names are neither italicized nor placed between quotation marks. For example:
This book, part of the University of Chicago series The Other Voice, is beautifully designed.
At the top of the review, type the name of the author(s), editor(s), and/or translator(s), the title of the book, and the publication date. The RSA editorial staff will add other bibliographical details to this header information.
At the end of the review, give your name and institution as follows:
JOAN Y. DOE
Hunter College, The City University of New York
Please submit your review online at http://rq.edmgr.com. You will need to login with the username and password emailed to you when you accepted to write the review. Please follow these steps to submit your review:
1. You must log in as an Author (not as a Reviewer). Once logged in, go to My Accepted Invitations. Hover over Action Links, and select Submit Invited Manuscript.
2. You will be asked to submit a title. Please title your review using the book and your own last name, e.g., Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, review by Fitzpatrick.
3. On the next page, your name will appear as the author of the review; click “next” to go directly to the following page where you will enter the word count of your review in the comments field.
4. On the next page, upload your review as a Word file, and click next. On the next page, click Build PDF. Then click the link for Submissions Waiting for Author’s Approval page.
5. Hover over Action Links, where you must first view and then approve your submission.
Reviews may be edited for clarity and length. Reviewers will receive via email a formatted, copyedited version of the review for approval. The RSA editorial staff asks that reviewers read the review carefully and check the bibliographical header information for accuracy.