Author style guide

The following general points are intended to serve as general guidelines for authors. They specifically address issues and problems arising from translation and copyediting and are designed to expedite a swifter and smoother transition from manuscript to finished book.

Author guidelines

Length

The length of manuscripts should be regulated from the outset according to the following guidelines:

  • Occasional Papers Series and Conference Papers Series: 1,120,000 maximum characters (with spaces) per manuscript
  • The Basque Diaspora and Migration Studies Series: 960,000 maximum characters (with spaces) per manuscript
  • Basque Classics series: 768,000 maximum characters (with spaces) per manuscript
  • Basque literature series: 576,000 maximum characters (with spaces) per manuscript

General

  • For questions of style not referred to in these guidelines, the Center for Basque Studies Press follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. for style and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary and its chief abridgment, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, for spelling and usage.
  • As a basic rule, the Press follows the norms established by Euskaltzaindia (The Academy of the Basque Language) for place names. On first citation, relevant equivalents are given in French or Spanish.
  • For Basque/English questions, please contact the coordinator of the CBS Press.
  • Any and all questions can be made to the Center (and are encouraged), (775) 784-4854 or by emailing the CBS Press.

Blind peer review process

All manuscripts submitted to the CBS Press are first assessed for quality by members of the Press’ editorial board. Once the manuscript is accepted by the CBS Press editorial board for prospective publication, every manuscript undergoes a blind peer review process.

Copy editing

The CBS Press provides professional copy-editing to ensure quality writing. No major amendments to the original manuscript will be accepted once the manuscript has been copy-edited.

Style

The Center for Basque Studies Press uses American English and American punctuation in almost all instances. This includes the spelling of many words and punctuation variants such as the comma before quotation marks. If you have any doubts please contact the coordinator of the Press.

Authors should be aware that when questions arise regarding style, the Press generally follows the guidelines established by The Chicago Manual of Style. We endeavor to maintain consistency with established norms followed by editors, translators, and copyeditors. For questions that are not covered by the Chicago Manual of Style or in reference to subject matters and specializations on which it defers to other norms, the Press will follow best academic practice.

As a general rule:

  • All quotations originally in English or with an accepted and general English translation should be provided in English, even if they were taken from a Spanish translation or original of the same text.
  • Except in certain cases (Shakespeare, Cervantes, Gandhi, etc.), all references to people (whether authors cited or names invoked in the narrative) should include full names and surnames at their first mention.
  • Authors should remember that English-speaking readers might not be entirely familiar with certain terms or places cited. All places, outside the Basque Country, should be located in a province or region, for example.
  • Avoid the use of "etc.," "e.g." and the like. Try and be precise when making lists.

Basque place names

It is our style to use modern standardized Basque place names whenever possible. A valuable resource for the checking of modern Basque place names is Euskaltzaindia’s Toponym Locator.

At the first mention of any place, its Spanish or French equivalent, if applicable, should be given in parenthesis. Following this, only the Basque place name should be used. Example: The bombing of Gernika (Guernica) and Durango had wide repercussions for the entire Basque Country.

Capitals: We use Iruñea-Pamplona, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Donostia-San Sebastián and Bilbao-Bilbo.

Provinces: We use: Araba (Álava in parenthesis at first mention), Bizkaia (Vizcaya in parenthesis at first mention), Gipuzkoa (Guipúzcoa in parenthesis at first mention), Lapurdi (Labourd in parenthesis at first mention), Lower Navarre (Nafarroa Beherea in Basque, Basse-Navarre in French in parenthesis at first mention), Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque, Navarra in Spanish in parenthesis at first mention) and Zuberoa (Soule in parenthesis at first mention).

Hegoalde and Iparralde: If authors wish to use the common terms Hegoalde and Iparralde to refer to the Southern and Northern Basque Country, it is perfectly acceptable. In general, at first use, we prefer a footnote be inserted to this effect:

  • Example: 6 Hegoalde, or the Southern Basque Country, is that part of the Basque Country to the south of the international frontier between Spain and France.
  • Example: 7 Iparralde, or the Northern Basque Country, is that part of the Basque Country to the north of the international frontier between Spain and France.

Exceptions to this style: Any other use of words would go against this style. Please simply contact the coordinator of the Press if you are unsure about any exceptions.

Citation

Your work must include a full bibliography with all relevant page numbers cited.

Providing accurate information relating to ideas taken from other works is essential to facilitating a smooth transition in both the translation and copyediting phases. As a general rule, if in doubt, cite everything.

If the idea borrowed from another author is very general, it is enough to cite the book or article in question. For example, if you want to mention that there is an idea of “imagined communities,” it suffices to cite, for example, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities.

However, if the idea invoked forms just part of another work (which is almost always the case) then one should be more specific. For example, if an author wants to say that, according to Anderson, nations could only be imagined once the power of the church declined, then a chapter or page number must be cited.

Author

The full name of all authors must be cited, together with (if applicable and if possible) those of translators, editors, etc. of a cited work, when this work is first mentioned within the text (in a footnote or endnote).

Title

The title of a book or article must be cited in full (main heading plus subheading if applicable) when this work is first mentioned within the text (in a footnote or endnote). The same rule applies to journals, magazines, newspapers, and other types of publications.

Web sources

There are two kinds of web sources:

  • Articles on the web with an accepted publisher and date of publication (these often are, for example, pdf copies of journal articles). In this case, they should be cited as any other publication, but with the URL provided.
  • General web sources (a blog entry, Wikipedia, product or other websites with no fixed publication date) should provide preferably the last time the website was modified, which allows the reader to be able to judge at least partially the timeframe of a document’s creation. Failing this, the author may provide the day that he or she accessed the website, which is of limited use to the reader.

Citation within the text

Following the most recent Chicago Manual of Style guidelines, the Center for Basque Studies Press now encourages shortened citations of a relevant journal, book and other scholarly material in all cases with a full bibliography. The relevant language is from Chicago Manual of Style 14.14 and reads: “If the bibliography includes all works cited in the notes, the notes need not duplicate the source information in full because readers can consult the bibliography for publication details and other information.”

However, the most important thing in your citation is its accuracy, with the general facts of publication provided. Please work with the forms below, but the exact form is less important than accurate and complete information. In the bibliography: author, title, date, place of publication and page numbers. In the notes: author’s last name and other identifier if last name is repeated, shortened title citation, page number or other text locator.

Citations should be done with numbered footnotes and a full bibliography at the end of the book or chapter. These are absolutely essential. Bibliographic errors are the most common reason for delay of publication.

Footnote examples

A first footnote citation might be as follows:

  • 37. Schama, Dead Certainties, 56.
    • Some variations on this include:
      • 12. Parsons, “Fiesta Culture in Madrid Posters,” 181.
      • 14. Aretxaga, “Terror as Thrill,” 145.
      • 4. Michael McDonald, “Traffic Chaos Predicted,” The Province (Vancouver), September 23, 1991*

*Topical references such as passing mention of newspaper articles and articles in the popular press continue to need full citation and need not be included in the bibliography. However, please err on the side of caution and consider how a reader will likely want to engage with your information.

Other full citations: websites and nonspecifically citable web articles, interviews (if not included in the bibliography), audio and visual materials, and the like.

Bibliography

All cited work should be included in the bibliography. It is the author’s responsibility to check this. For articles in journals, the page span of the entire article should be mentioned.

Bibliography examples

  • Aretxaga, Begoña. “Terror as Thrill: First Thoughts on the ‘War on Terrorism’.” Anthropological Quarterly 75, no.1 (Winter 2002): 139–50.
  • Hobsbaw, Eric and Terence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  • Parsons, Deborah. “Fiesta Culture in Madrid Posters, 1934–1955.” In Constructing Identity in Contemporary Spain: Theoretical Debates and Cultural Practice, edited by Jo Labanyi, 178–205. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  • Schama, Simon. Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations. New York: Knopf, 1991.
  • Landscape and Memory. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Formatting and document management

Please submit a final and complete table of contents with your manuscript.

Your submitted manuscript should not include any special formatting. Please use Microsoft Word. For footnotes, please use the footnote function with numbered footnotes. Page size should be American (8.5 x 11) and margins should be one inch on all sides. All text should be double-spaced. Please use a regular typeface like Times New Roman, but it is more important that all text be 12-point font. Footnotes should be 10-point font.

Only add one space after sentences.

Capitalization

Nothing in your submitted manuscript should be completely in caps. All titles (including subheads) should be in headline style. Here is the general introduction from the Chicago Manual of Style.

8.157 Principles of headline-style capitalization

The conventions of headline style are governed mainly by emphasis and grammar. The following rules, though occasionally arbitrary, are intended primarily to facilitate the consistent styling of titles mentioned or cited in text and notes:

  1. Capitalize the first and last words in titles and subtitles (but see rule seven) and capitalize all other major words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and some conjunctions — but see rule four).
  2. Lowercase the articles the, a and an.
  3. Lowercase prepositions, regardless of length, except when they are used adverbially or adjectivally (up in "look Up," down in "turn Down," on in "The On button” etc.) or when they compose part of a Latin expression used adjectivally or adverbially (De Facto, In Vitro, etc.).
  4. Lowercase the conjunctions and, but, for, or and nor.
  5. Lowercase "to" not only as a preposition (rule three) but also as part of an infinitive (to run, to hide, etc.) and lowercase as in any grammatical function.
  6. Lowercase the part of a proper name that would be lowercased in text, such as "de" or "von."
  7. Lowercase the second part of a species name, such as "fulvescens" in Acipenser fulvescens, even if it is the last word in a title or subtitle.

Regarding titles that include breaks, the break should always be a full colon. (i.e., writers in between languages: minority literatures in the global scene).

Subheads

Subheads are titled breaks within a chapter of your book. They should never be numbered. A subhead should generally not begin a chapter, especially one that is titled “introduction” or some variation of that. A first level subhead will be in bold type. A second level subhead should be in italics. Third level subheads are best avoided, but if absolutely necessary to the organization of your text, it should be in regular type.

Subheads should be separated from preceding text by a single line and followed by the continuing text with no spaces and beginning with an un-indented paragraph. Following paragraphs are indented 0.5 inch. It is preferable not to use tabs but to use automatic indenting.

Tables and figures

Please include a list of tables and figures with your manuscript. If your manuscript relies heavily on tables and figures, please contact the coordinator before submission. All tables and figures must be submitted separately from your regular manuscript, in their original format. Tables and figures should be numbered according to this formula: "chapter number. chapter figure or table number." So the fourth table in chapter seven would be titled “table 7.4.” Figures and tables are numbered separately, so the second figure in chapter seven would be titled “figure 7.2.” Figures or any other illustration or graphic that is not a table, does not use “illustration,” “graphic,” or any other figure naming convention.

Chapters in multivolume works may only have a maximum of two figures and two tables. If you foresee the need for more tables or figures, please contact the coordinator.

Figures and tables should always be mentioned in the regular text with their number. Example:

  • "As is shown in figure 2.3, the iconography of Basque nationalism has had many forms."

All figures should have a caption or explanation. Example:

  • "Figure 2.3. The iconography of Basque nationalism."

All tables should have a title. Example:

  • "Table 4.1. Number of Basque children exiled during the Civil War, by country."