AAPT Studies in Pedagogy Style Guide

 

While the style and formatting notes offered here apply to preparing essays for publication, there is no expectation that essays will follow this guide at the stage of submission and review.

Please submit your essays in .docx, .rtf, or .pdf format.

 

 Note to Authors:

  • When sending revisions to the volume editor(s), please send the files in .docx or .rtf format.
  • AAPT Studies in Pedagogy uses Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition) as its guide for copyediting, word choice, and references. Format your essay according to CMoS, endnote style, with list of references at the end.
  • An abstract of 150 words is required before publication.
  • Our deviations from CMoS are rare and will be decided by the Editor(s)-in-Chief on a case-by-case basis, but we have adopted two significant deviations from CMoS according to which authors need to prepare their manuscripts:
  1. If multiple works by the same author are cited, the list of references should include the name for each entry, rather than being replaced by em-dashes in the second and subsequent entries. This facilitates the “bots” Google and other indexing services use and that benefits both authors and the publisher.
  2. If working with texts for which the literature often uses distinct references indicators (e.g., Stephanus or Bekker numbers) use those reference indicators in citations and include the information for the specific editions and translations you are using in the reference list.

That is to say, following standard conventions, citations should use standard numbering for texts which have them (i.e., Stephanus pagination, Bekker line numbers, German Academy editions, etc.)


General Style Notes (beyond CMoS or points at which CMoS is non-committal):

  • Use gender neutral, inclusive language throughout.
  • Use a comma to separate items in a series of three or more: for example, “red, yellow, and blue” rather than “red, yellow and blue.”
  • Avoid unnecessary or repetitive signposting. When signposting, avoid the future tense. Not, “in this essay, I will argue …” but “in this essay, I demonstrate …”
  • Refer to the work as an “essay” or an “article,” but not a “paper.”
  • In interests of concision, our preference is to avoid hesitant language (“I try to…” “I have attempted to…”).
  • When possible (i.e., except if sections are significantly cross referenced and discussed in other sections) do not use numbers to indicate sections and subsections. Instead, center and bold section headings; leave subsection headings at the left margin but italicize them.
  • In numbered lists, whether run-in or a vertical list, follow each number with a closing parenthesis. That is “1)…” not “1. …” and not “(1)…”.
  • The access date in reference entry for online sources is generally not helpful and should be included in the entry ONLY in the absence of other identifying information (e.g., blog post date; volume, issue, date for online publication; revised date for webpage).

 

Citations/Notes and the Reference List:

  • In the notes, items are separated by commas; in the reference list, they are separated by periods. Notes are shortened (author, page or author, title, page) rather than full.
  • Following CMoS34, the protocol is author, shortened title, page. If the next note is to the same work, it is author, page. The use of ibid. is discouraged.
  • For example, in an essay that makes use of two point or lines of Jumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words (the first from page 184, the second from page 73), the notes should look like this:

1. Lahiri,In Other Words, 184.

2. Lahri, 73.

and the entry in the reference list should look like this:

Lahiri, Jhumpa. In Other Words. Translated by Ann Goldstein. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.

  • The general format for a reference list entry is as follows (and the list entries use hanging indentation):

Lastname, Firstname. Book Title. Translated by TransName. Place: publisher, date.

The examples of notes and reference list entry are from CMoS’s online quick citation guide: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html. There are examples for other types of sources on that same webpage.

 

Other conventions:

  • Use 12pt font and 1” margins. The typeface is not crucial but Times New Roman is preferred.
  • No headers or footers.
  • Section headings: blank line before, centered, bold.
  • Sub-section headings: blank line before, left, italicized.
  • Sections and sub-sections are NOT numbered or lettered UNLESS cross-referenced within the essay.
    • If cross-referenced and discussed within the essay, (because it is the exception rather than the norm in our publication) the preference is to see if the cross-referencing can be eliminated so the numbering can be eliminated. In many cases, simply saying something like “As discussed above…” “I elaborate on this objection below…” is preferable to “As discussed in section 3.2.”
  • Titles, section headings, sub-section headings capitalized in “headline-style.” That is, the first and last words, as well as all other major words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some conjunctions) are capitalized. The conjunctions and, but, for, or, and nor are not capitalized. Lowercase prepositions, except when used adverbially or adjectivally. For other details on this, see CMoS159.
  • Abstract, first paragraph of paper, and first paragraph of section or subsection are NOT indented.
  • All other paragraphs, indented ½ inch.
  • Block quotations: the whole block (i.e., every line) should be indented from left ½ inch. Put blank lines before and after to make the block quotation more obvious to the typesetter.
  • With the possible exception of the essay title, everything should be 12pt font. Titles are fine in 12pt, but can be larger if you prefer.
  • Any conventions such as bold font, italics, and underlining should be included in the manuscript the way the author intends the final product. That is, anything that should be italicized in the final product should be italicized in the manuscript; the same goes for bold font.
  • Reference list entries should utilize a ½ inch hanging indent. That is, the first line of each entry should be on the left margin but subsequent lines should be indented.
  • The reference list can be either single- or double-spaced. If the reference list is single-spaced, leave a blank line between entries.
    • A reference list deviation from CMoS: if there are multiple entries from the same author, each should include the authors names (i.e., unlike prescribed by CMoS, do NOT use three em-dashes for second and subsequent entries).


Figures, Images, and Tables:

  • Use grayscale or black and white only (color images cannot be used as the basis of the published essay).
  • In addition to embedding the figure or image in the manuscript where it should be placed in the publication, send the figure or image in the highest resolution possible as a second file.
    • The high resolution is required for processing and preparing for publication but a lower resolution version may be used in the manuscript to keep file size manageable.
  • If producing a table or chart or with internal borders and cells of different heights, use the merge-cell function rather than eliminating or taking to 0px a border. The software used in preparing the essay for publication renders even those “hidden” borders so they must be eliminated by merging cells rather than made invisible in the word-processing program.
    • In this table, for example, the cells in the left column must be merged rather than turning the horizontal border between them off, hiding it, or changing its color to white.

 

Manuscript preparation:

Present the manuscript parts in this order:

Title, bold, Centered.

Author (1) name

Author (1) affiliation

Author (2) name

Author (2) affiliation

[No email addresses for authors.]

Abstract, with “Abstract” before it, bolded.

[NOTE: key words should be sent separately rather than included in the manuscript. The editor will compile them for the entire volume.]

Body of the essay

Appendix (if relevant)

References

Notes

[References and Notes can be in reverse order, and will be in reverse order in the final publication, but with most word processors this order is easier.]