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Instructions aux auteurs

Stylesheet for Variants

Spelling

Variants uses British-English spelling as defined in the Oxford Guide to Style, i.e., words ending in –our are spelled “honour”, “valour” (rather than American-English “honor”, “valor”), but the so-called “Oxford z” is used in words ending in –ize and –zation (“capitalize”, “organize”, “capitalization”, “organization”).

Double inverted commas (or quotation marks) are used with all in-text quotations and with words or phrases that are specially marked (for example a phrased marked in “scare quotes”). For quotations or words/phrases that are embedded in a quoted passage, single inverted commas are used (e.g., “The use of ‘scare quotes’ in academic writing is rapidly rising”).

All punctuation marks are placed outside of double inverted commas. A number of standard abbreviations, such as “e.g.” and “i.e.”, are followed by a comma.

Ellipses are indicated using three spaced dots closed by square brackets [. . .].

Numbers are written out for basic numbers (“three”, “forty-nine”, “six hundred”), but longer or more

Complex numbers are given in numerals (“the year 2000”, “1,570 variants”).

Use of dashes: for appositions use long m-dash preceded and followed by a single space. Number sequences are separated using an n-dash.

Quotations

Quotations must be functional for your argument and may not be used solely for the purposes of illustration. Only quotations longer than 5 lines of prose or 3 lines of verse must be set apart as block quotations, without inverted commas. All quotations must first be given in the original language (with citation) followed by a translation in English between round brackets and inverted commas (in text) or square brackets without inverted commas (block quotations). Where translations exist in a standard English edition, please use this translation followed by a citation.

Footnotes

The use of footnotes is permitted for excursus observations or exceptionally supplementary bibliographical information. However, please be aware that footnotes can be a distraction and so their use must remain functional. Absolutely no more than one footnote per sentence is permitted, with the footnote reference appearing at the end of the sentence.

Citations and bibliographical references

Variants uses a slightly modified version of the Harvard Style author-date citation system.

In-text citations

  • All citations are given in-text between round brackets, using the following format:

    • Single author: (Plachta 1997, 46)

    • Two authors: (Martens and Zeller 1971, 113–15)

    • Three or more authors: (Hamon et al. 2009, 35)

  • For multivolume works a volume number must be added: (Bietenholz and Deutscher 1987, 3:121)

  • In-text citations form part of your sentence; therefore, punctuation follows the citation.

  • Additional citations must generally also be given in-text: e.g., (Plachta 1997, 46; see also Martens and Zeller 1971, 113–15)

  • The abbreviation ibid. may be used only to avoid repeating the same citation in quick succession. All other abbreviations such as op. cit. or loc. cit. are not used.

  • Supplementary citations must also be given between parentheses preceded by “see also”. In cases where it is necessary to provide a large number of additional citations, a footnote may be used.

Bibliography

From Variants 17 onwards, authors of accepted essays are asked to provide their list of references in the BibTeX format. This allows the authors to stop worrying about correctly formatting their references, and the editors to automate a large part of an otherwise painstaking editing process.

Transforming your bibliography into the BibTeX format is a relatively straightforward procedure, for which there exist many user-friendly tools. More information on how to get started with this can be found on the relevant wiki page of our LaTeX template for authors: https://github.com/WoutDLN/varianTeX-for-authors/wiki/Formatting-Your-Citations.

In general, our template observes the following formatting rules, which we advise authors who prefer to submit the review version of their essay in Word or PDF as well:

  • Only works cited in the text may be included in the bibliography

  • Entries in the bibliography are alphabetized on authors surname or the title of anonymous works

  • Entries by the same author are arranged chronologically, adding a letter to the year to differentiate them from one another. The author’s name is replaced by a double m-dash.

  • Entries by the same author but with a co-author follow the single author references and are arranged alphabetically on the co-author (see sample bibliography).

  • Punctuation. Title and sub-title are separated by a colon. All main parts of the reference are separated by full stops.

  • All main words in titles are capitalized.

  • Normally the place of publication is given according to its form in the original language, e.g.,“München”, not Munich.

Single author

Do not abbreviate an author’s first name, unless when thus given in the source. If more than one work is listed by the same author, the entries are ordered chronologically by date; the author’s name is repeated in full.

Tanselle, G. Thomas. 1976. “The Editorial Problem of Final Authorial Intention”. Studies in Bibliography, 29, pp. 167-211.

Tanselle, G. Thomas.. 1987. Textual Criticism since Greg: A Chronicle, 1950-1985. Charlottesville, Va.: Published for the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia by the University Press of Virginia.

Two or three authors

Martens, Gunter and Hans Zeller, eds. 1971. Texte und Varianten: Probleme ihrer Edition und Interpretation. München: Beck.

More than three authors

Give the first author’s name and replace all subsequent names with et al. Hamon, Philippe, et al., eds. 2009. Le signe et la consigne: Essai sur la Genèse de l’Œuvre en Régime Naturaliste Zola. Genève: Droz.

Titles

  • Title of books and journal title are given in italics

  • Title of essays, articles or contributions in an anthology are given between double inverted commas.

  • With essays in a collection of essays, the title of the collection is preceded by the word “In”

  • Series titles are not italicized and are followed by the series number.

Fabry, Heinz-Jozef. 2008. “Der Text und seine Geschichte”. In E. Zenger (ed.), Einleitung in das Alte Testament. 3rd ed. Stuttgart and Berlin: Kohlhamme.

Schenker, Adrian. 2010. “Textgeschichtliches zum Samaritanischen Pentateuch und Samareitikon. Zur Textgeschichte des Pentateuchs im 2. Jh. v. Chr.” In Menahem Mor and Friedrich V. Reiterer (eds.), Samaritans: Past and Present – Current Studies. Studia Judaica: Forschungen zur Wissenschaft des Judentums 53. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, pp. 105-121.

Wesseling, Ari. 1994. “Dutch Proverbs and Ancient Sources in Erasmus’s Praise of Folly”. Renaissance Quarterly, 47, pp. 351-78.

Editor, translator

The abbreviations “Ed.”, “Eds.”, “Trans.” are used. Editions and translations of primary works are normally listed under the author’s name. In exceptional cases, the name of the editor(s) may be given first where there are clear, specific reasons.

Garrett, Almeida. 2004. O Arco de Sant’Ana: Crónica portuense. Ed. Maria Helena Santana.

Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda.

Martens, Gunter and Hans Zeller, eds. 1971. Texte und Varianten: Probleme ihrer Edition und Interpretation. München: Beck.

Ricoeur, Paul. 1981. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Trans. John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Editions and reprints

Reprints when they are identical to the original issue are not noted. Subsequent and revised editions are noted according to their use on the title page or colophon, abbreviated as follows: 2nd ed.; rev. ed.

Donne, John. 1978. The Divine Poems. Ed. Helen Gardner. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Multi-volume works

  • A full year range must be given for works that appeared over multiple years; give a start year and m-dash for on-going works

  • When citing a single volume of a multi-volume work, both the title of the individual volume and the general title must be given.

  • The editor(s) are given after the series title. When editor(s) of individual volumes differ from the series editor(s), both volume editor(s) and series editor(s) should be named.

Bietenholz, Peter G. and Thomas B. Deutscher, eds. 1985-87. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. 3 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Goethe, Wolfgang von. 2009. “Litterarischer Sanscülottismus”. In Wirküngen der Französischen Revolution, 1791-1797. Ed. Klaus H. Kiefer et al. Vol. 4(2) of Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens: Münchner Ausgabe. Ed. Karl Richter et al. München: Carl Hauser Verlag, pp. 15-20.

Schlegel, Friedrich. 1963. Philosophische Lehrjahre, 1796-1828, Erster Teil. Vol. 18 of Kritische- Friedrich-Schelling-Ausgabe. Ed. Ernst Behler. München: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh; Zürich: Thomas Verlag.

Unpublished thesis

Andrews, Tara. 2009. Prolegomena to a Critical Edition of the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, with a Discussion of Computer-Aided Methods Used to Edit the Text. D.Phil., University of Oxford.

Journals, magazines and newspapers

  • No issue number is given for journals using consecutive page numbering throughout the volume

  • Journals, magazines and newspapers that list date rather than volume/issue number on their masthead, or that have no volume/issue number, should be cited by date.

  • Issues of journals that have a guest-editor and separate title must include these, followed by the words “Special issue”.

Debel, Hans. 2010. “Greek ‘Variant Literary Editions’ to the Hebrew Bible?” Journal for the Study of Judaism, 41, pp. 161–190.

Dillen, Wout, Caroline Macé and Dirk Van Hulle, eds., 2010. Texts beyond Borders: Multilingualism and Textual Scholarship. Special issue of Variants 9.

Dionísio, João. 2008. “Before Alexander Search: A Report on a Notebook”. Portuguese Studies: Journal of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, King’s College London, 24(2), pp. 115–27.

Michonneau, Stéphane. 2005. “Les Papiers de la Guerre, la Guerre des Papiers: L´Affaire des Archives de Salamanque” In Philippe Artières and Annick Arnaud (eds.), Lieux d´Archive: Une Nouvelle Cartographie: De la Maison au Musée. Special issue of Sociétés et Représentations, 19, pp. 250–67.

Websites, Online Articles

  • Citations of online materials should follow as closely as possible the format of a journal article or book, followed by the URL of the actual webpage and the date the material was accessed.

  • Journal articles included in standard full-text databases should be cited as if from the printed source (i.e., no mention of database or URL is necessary).

  • The same rule applies to digital reprints of books (e.g., Google Books), unless these reprints have a unique identity, as is the case with digital editions, digital archives or other scholarly resources.

  • Articles should not be cited from e-Repositories or other digital reprints if they exist in published form elsewhere. In these instances, the original publication must always be cited.

Leduc-Adine, Jean-Pierre. 2005. “Brouillons, Dossiers Préparatoires et Travail de l’Écriture d’Émile Zola”. La page des Lettres, 28 October, <http://www.lettres.ac- versailles.fr/spip.php?article303>. Accessed 27 September 2010].

“TEI Guidelines”. 2007. In TEI: Text Encoding Initiative. Charlottesville: Text Encoding Initiative, <http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines>. [Accessed 24 April 2012]

Van Deyssel, Lodewijk and Arnold Ising. 1968. De briefwisseling tussen Lodewijk van Deyssel en Arnold Ising jr., 1883-1904. Ed. Harry G. M. Prick. 2 vols. Den Haag: Nederlands Letterkundig Museum en Documentatiecentrum. Repr. Den Haag: DNBL, 2007.
<
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/deys001hgmp08_01/>.

Sample bibliography

Andrews, Tara. 2009. Prolegomena to a Critical Edition of the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, with a Discussion of Computer-Aided Methods Used to Edit the Text. D.Phil., University of Oxford.

Bietenholz, Peter G. and Thomas B. Deutscher, eds. 1985-87. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. 3 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Debel, Hans. 2010. “Greek ‘Variant Literary Editions’ to the Hebrew Bible?” Journal for the Study of Judaism, 41, pp. 161-190.

Dillen, Wout, Caroline Macé and Dirk Van Hulle, eds. 2010. Texts beyond Borders: Multilingualism and Textual Scholarship. Special issue of Variants 9.

Dionísio, João. 2008. “Before Alexander Search: A Report on a Notebook”. Portuguese Studies: Journal of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, King’s College London, 24(2), pp. 115-27.

Donne, John. 1978. The Divine Poems. Ed. Helen Gardner. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fabry, Heinz-Jozef. 2008. “Der Text und seine Geschichte”. In E. Zenger (ed.), Einleitung in das Alte

Testament. 3rd ed. Stuttgart and Berlin: Kohlhammer.

Garrett, Almeida. 2004. O Arco de Sant’Ana: Crónica portuense. Ed. Maria Helena Santana. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda.

Goethe, Wolfgang von. 2009. “Litterarischer Sanscülottismus”. In Wirküngen der Französischen Revolution, 1791-1797. Ed. Klaus H. Kiefer et al. Vol. 4(2) of Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens: Münchner Ausgabe. Ed. Karl Richter et al. München: Carl Hauser Verlag, pp. 15-20.

Hamon, Philippe, et al., eds. 2009. Le signe et la consigne: Essai sur la Genèse de l’Œuvre en Régime Naturaliste Zola. Genève: Droz.

Leduc-Adine, Jean-Pierre. 2005. “Brouillons, Dossiers Préparatoires et Travail de l’Écriture d’Émile Zola”. La page des Lettres, 28 October, <http://www.lettres.ac- versailles.fr/spip.php?article303>. [Accessed 27 September 2010].

Martens, Gunter and Hans Zeller, eds. 1971. Texte und Varianten: Probleme ihrer Edition und Interpretation. München: Beck.

Michonneau, Stéphane. 2005. “Les Papiers de la Guerre, la Guerre des Papiers: L´Affaire des Archives de Salamanque” In Philippe Artières and Annick Arnaud, eds. Lieux d´Archive: Une Nouvelle Cartographie: De la Maison au Musée. Special issue of Sociétés et Représentations, 19, pp. 250-67.

Ricoeur, Paul. 1981. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Trans. John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schenker, Adrian. 2010. “Textgeschichtliches zum Samaritanischen Pentateuch und Samareitikon. Zur Textgeschichte des Pentateuchs im 2. Jh. v. Chr.” In Menahem Mor and Friedrich V. Reiterer, eds. Samaritans: Past and Present – Current Studies. Studia Judaica: Forschungen zur Wissenschaft des Judentums 53. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, pp. 105-121.

Schlegel, Friedrich. 1963. Philosophische Lehrjahre, 1796-1828, Erster Teil. Vol. 18 of Kritische- Friedrich-Schelling-Ausgabe. Ed. Ernst Behler. München: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh; Zürich: Thomas Verlag.

Tanselle, G. Thomas. 1976. "The Editorial Problem of Final Authorial Intention". Studies in Bibliography, 29, pp. 167-211.

Tanselle, G. Thomas.. 1987. Textual Criticism since Greg: A Chronicle, 1950-1985. Charlottesville, Va.: Published for the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia by the University Press of Virginia.

“TEI Guidelines”. 2007. In TEI: Text Encoding Initiative. Charlottesville: Text Encoding Initiative, <http://www.tei-c.org/Guidelines>. [Accessed 24 April 2012]

Van Deyssel, Lodewijk and Arnold Ising. 1968. De briefwisseling tussen Lodewijk van Deyssel en Arnold Ising jr., 1883-1904. Ed. Harry G. M. Prick. 2 vols. Den Haag: Nederlands Letterkundig Museum en Documentatiecentrum. Repr. Den Haag: DNBL, 2007.
<
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/deys001hgmp08_01/>.

Wesseling, Ari. 1994. “Dutch Proverbs and Ancient Sources in Erasmus’s Praise of Folly”. Renaissance Quarterly, 47, pp. 351-78.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editor (at W.Van-Mierlo[at]lboro.ac.uk) if you have any queries.

Guidelines for Submissions

Variants invites submissions on any aspect of textual scholarship and the theory and practice of scholarly editing and textual criticism. We accept original articles written in English of no more than 7000 words. Articles may be submitted at any time, but note that submissions received after June may not be considered for the first upcoming issue. Translated articles and articles published elsewhere will not be accepted.

For all inquires, please contact the Editor, Wim Van Mierlo: W.Van-Mierlo[at]lboro.ac.uk

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