House Style

(All submissions must also adhere fully to our Guidelines)

Alphaville uses English according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

It follows MLA style (eighth edition), except for in a minority of instances (each listed in the Check List below).

It is the responsibility of the author to ensure that Oxford English spelling and the rules of MLA style—as well as those set by the Editorial Board—are adhered to meticulously throughout each piece that is submitted for consideration.

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Check List

Please pay attention to the following when preparing your article/review/report for submission:

Article/Review/Report
The title of the article/review/report should appear at the beginning of the page (left aligned), in font Times New Roman size 12 and in bold. It should not be in italics or underlined.

Margins
Set the margins of your document to 2.54 cm (or 1 inch) on all sides.

Paragraphs
Indent the first line of each paragraph by 1.25 cm (or half an inch). Use the Tab key in Word (not the Space key five times).

Font
Use Times New Roman, font size 12 throughout.

Spacing
All submissions should be double-spaced (including Notes, References, and all indented quotes).

Page Numbers
Include page numbers in all articles, reviews and reports. Use Times New Roman size 12, and place in the top right-hand corner of each page.

Spelling
Alphaville uses English according to the Oxford English Dictionary (except for one instance, as outlined below). Please set your document to either “English (Ireland)” or “English (UK)”, as opposed to American English. Differing from the Oxford English Dictionary, however, is our use of “ise” endings instead of “ize”: contextualise, organise, etc. But, authors should not change the spelling of any quoted material.

Notes
If needed, use endnotes (numbered 1, 2, 3, etc.). These notes should be used for additional information or necessary comments only. The Notes section should be titled so and appear after the body of the article: with the word “Notes” as a heading (left aligned), in font size 12 and in bold.
Please note: no manual notes should be added; use the automatic function in Word.

References
The References section should list all works cited (including films, TV, songs, literary and art works) within the article and appear after Notes on a separate page; with the word “References” as a heading (left aligned), in font size 12 and in bold.

Dashes
For text breaks, use em dashes (—) without a space on either side. When indicating page ranges or when making reference to a particular duration (1940–1942), use en dashes (–) without a space on either side.

Italics
Italicise the titles of books, journals, films, television shows, art works, plays, newspapers, etc. according to MLA style.
Foreign words not commonly used in the English language should also be italicised.
Other italicisation (such as emphasis) should be kept to a minimum.
In the case of italics within a quote, please state if the emphasis was added: by including the words “emphasis added” in brackets directly after the quote.

Quotations
Use double quotation marks throughout. The only exceptions to this rule are: quotes within quotes (instead, use single quotation marks); and quotes of more than four lines. Long quotes should be started on a new line; the entire quote should be indented from the left of the margin by 2.54 cm/1 inch; double-spacing should be maintained throughout; and parenthetical citation should appear after the closing punctuation mark.
We advise that authors limit the use of scare quotes to an absolute minimum.

Films Cited within an Article
All films cited within the text should appear as part of the References, and not as a separate “filmography”.

Primary Sources: First Mention
On the first mention of a primary audiovisual source (film, video, installation, etc.), please give the full name of the director(s)/creator(s)/artist(s) and the year of release/production in brackets.

Websites
Include the full URL for webpages. Date of the author’s access should also be given, unless a clear publication date is available from the cited webpage.

Translated Text
Texts that have been reproduced in the English language need not be given in their original form when quoting material from them: simply reference the translated source in the Works Cited, according to MLA style. If you are translating material from its original into English, please give the translated version of the text within the body of the article and include the words “author's translation” after the reference.