Style Sheet

Prior to submitting your contribution, please revise according to the following guidelines. Confirming that your submission follows these guidelines will significantly expedite publication. Use this style guide for all text-based material: articles, notes, and metacommentary on multimedia. Once your contribution is officially accepted, you will have the opportunity to review your contribution once more to ensure alignment with the style guide. All contributions will be edited and proofread prior to publication to ensure they meet the journal’s standards for language and style.

Formatting

Proofs. Prior to the publication of a contribution, contributors will have the opportunity to see a proof of their piece on the journal website. Other revisions to images and their placement can be made at that stage.

File types. Submissions should be saved as editable DOC or DOCX files. (See “Instructions for Contributors.”) All images should be sent as separate JPG or PNG files. (See “Captions” below.)

Title and Top of the Page. At the top of your contribution, type your title in Title Case (MLA-style). Beneath that, type your name as you wish it to appear, after the word “By.” Below that, affix your fifty-word Abstract, after or under the word “Abstract.”

Epigraphs. If you intend to use an Epigraph, please use Roman font (rather than italics), justify it right, and after a long (em) dash, type the originator’s first and last name, a comma, and the title of the work from which the quotation was excerpted. Scroll down and confirm that work appears in your Works Cited list.

Subheadings. The use of subheadings in text-heavy contributions is encouraged. These headings will float along the page to help readers navigate the sections of text. If your contribution uses subheadings, the first set of these (A-heads) should be left justified and the headings should be bolded. Please keep subheadings succinct. Mark the second level of subheading (B-level) by tabbing the left margin in once and bolding the heading. Again, make the subheading succinct. C-levels are tabbed in twice and italicized. For example:

Subheading A

Subheading B

Subheading C

The final, published appearance of these subheadings may vary given the formatting of the contribution on the website itself, but contributors will have the opportunity to see them in the proof stage.

Captions. As described in the Instructions for Contributors, images must be submitted separately from text files (for ease of uploading into the website). On a separate page, please list all captions and save images with corresponding file names. Indicate with [square brackets] where you would like your image to appear in the article—for example, [Image 1 here]. While due to the web environment we can’t guarantee that placement, the editors will work with the contributor during the proof stage to best display the publication. Model image captions are available here.

Alt(ernative) Text and Image Descriptions. Alt text or image descriptions will be required of all images embedded in a publication. The author should include alt text or image descriptions in the caption text file they submit with their final manuscript. Alt text or image descriptions are required for all images in addition to captions, because, unlike captions, which contain publication information (for example, illustrator or place and date of publication), they focus on the visual components of an image.

Alt text is classified as any description that is less than 125 characters and describes the basic details of an image. Image descriptions can be up to 280 characters and provide more details than alt text. Image descriptions are helpful when there is a lot of information in an image, such as a graph. To make the descriptions compatible with popular screen readers, please use alt text descriptions (less than 125 characters) whenever possible.

Alt text should seek to include colour, placement, image style, names, emotions, and settings where relevant. Alt text and image descriptions will be displayed in place of an image if it fails to load. Further information, including model alt text and image descriptions, is available here.

Affiliation. Affiliations are not required. If you would like to include any institutional or other affiliation(s), please list them exactly as you would like them to appear in the journal. Affiliations are included before the Notes and Works Cited. For example: University of Ontario, Independent Scholar, or The Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures, University of Winnipeg.

Acknowledgements and Permissions. Should you need an Acknowledgements section, place it between your Affiliation and your Notes, both of which precede your Works Cited page. Any substantial material not created by the contributing author(s) should be used only 1) if it is no longer protected by copyright OR 2) with permission of the copyright holders. Contributors may submit pieces before securing these permissions, but permissions must be secured before the piece can be published. More information about Montgomery material protected by copyright and about seeking permissions can be found in our Open Access and Copyright statements. The journal’s editors are happy to work with contributors on securing permissions.

Funding details. Please supply all details required by your funding and grant-awarding bodies as follows:

For single agency grants:
- This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].
For multiple agency grants:
- This work was supported by the [Funding Agency #1] under Grant [number xxxx]; [Funding Agency #2] under Grant [number xxxx]; and [Funding Agency #3] under Grant [number xxxx].

Works Cited. Note that we use a list of works cited, not a bibliography. Before finally submitting your accepted contribution, double-check that all entries on your Works Cited list are cited in this version of your contribution.

Style and Formatting

Style. The Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies follows the formatting and citation guidelines laid out in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook (2016). In addition to samples provided below, the MLA Style Center includes examples, templates, and guides that may be useful to you as a contributor.

Contributors should present citations in the format used for MLA-style parenthetical citations; however, rather than enclosing them in parentheses, contributors should present them as endnotes. Contributors should also include a Works Cited list at the end of the text. Our online publishing platform allows notes to hover within the text and appear at the end of submissions so that readers can easily navigate material. (See samples below.) We use both content and bibliographic notes within contributions. The MLA Style Center provides more information about and samples of these notes. All contributions must follow MLA style.

Endnotes. The journal only uses endnotes; all accepted contributions must use endnotes rather than footnotes. These notes should be used to cite sources, clarify terms, contextualize ideas, or refer to further reading. For consistency, the content and format of bibliographic endnotes should follow MLA style for parenthetical citations, without the parentheses and with a period for end punctuation. See samples below. In the submission, the Notes list appears before the Works Cited list.

Abbreviations. For ease of referencing and reading, the journal uses abbreviations for Montgomery's texts, as outlined here.

Sample Citations

Source Type

Basic bibliographic endnote

Works Cited entry

Book

First reference:

1. Last name, Short Title page referenced.

1. Epperly, Fragrance 125.

Subsequent references:

1. Last name page referenced.

1. Epperly 178.

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. City of Publication (only for books published before 1900), Publisher, Publication Date.

Epperly, Elizabeth Rollins. The Fragrance of Sweet-Grass: L.M. Montgomery’s Heroines and the Pursuit of Romance. U of Toronto P, 1992.

Journal article

First reference:

2. Last name, “Short Title” page referenced.

2. Robinson, “Girlness” 205.

Subsequent references:

2. Last name page referenced.

2. Robinson 210.

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Robinson, Laura M. “Girlness and Guyness: Gender Trouble in Young Adult Literature.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures, vol. 1, no. 1, 2009, pp. 203–222.

Webpage

3. Author OR Name of Site

3. L.M. Montgomery Online.

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

L.M. Montgomery Online. L.M. Montgomery Research Group, 2007–2014, http://lmmonline.org/.

Note: No access date required but please include a note if a website or webpage you're referencing is no longer live/accessible.

Selection from an anthology

First reference:

4. Last name, “Short Title” page referenced.

4. Noome, “The Nature” 203.

Subsequent references:

4. Last name page referenced.

4. Noome 205.

Last name, First name. “Title of Essay.” Title of Collection, edited by Editor's Name(s), Publisher, Year, Page range of entry.

Noomé, Idette. “The Nature of the Beast: Pets and People in L.M. Montgomery’s Fiction.” L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s), edited by Rita Bode and Jean Mitchell, McGill-Queen’s UP, 2018, pp. 198–212.

Cross-referencing

First reference:

4. Last name, “Short Title” page referenced.

4. Noome, “The Nature” 203.

Subsequent references:

4. Last name page referenced.

4. Noome 205.

Cross-referencing. If you cite more than one work (e.g., essay, poem) from the same collection (e.g., edited essay collection, anthology), cross-reference within your works cited list in order to avoid writing out the publishing information for each separate work. To do so, include a separate entry for the entire collection listed by the editor's name as below:

Bode, Rita, and Jean Mitchell, editors. L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s). McGill-Queen's UP, 2018.

Then, for each individual work, list the author's name in last name, first name format, the title of the essay, the editor's last name, and the page range:

Litster, Jennifer H. "The Scotsman, the Scribe, and the Spyglass: Going Back with L.M. Montgomery to Prince Edward Island." Bode and Mitchell, pp. 42-57.

Noomé, Idette. “The Nature of the Beast: Pets and People in L.M. Montgomery’s Fiction.” Bode and Mitchell, pp. 198–212.

Please note: When cross-referencing items in the works cited list, alphabetical order should be maintained for the entire list.

Montgomery's journals

5. Last name, Complete or Selected Journal abbreviation Volume (date of journal entry): page number

Montgomery, CJ 5 (10 May 1922): 32.

Last name, first name. Title. Edited by editors' names, Publisher, Year, Number of volumes in the series

Montgomery, L.M. The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery. Edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston, Oxford UP, 1985–2004. 5 vols.

[one entry for all Selected Journals; one entry for all Complete Journals: The PEI Years; one entry for all Complete Journals: The Ontario Years]

In the published version of the text, the notes will hover when a reader’s cursor moves over them, as below (sample from the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies):

Bibliography software. Contributors who use bibliography management software (e.g., Endnote, Zotero, etc.) may submit BIBTEX or RIS files.

Dictionary. The journal follows the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

Format for Dates. Use day, month, year format. For example, write 10 June 2020 rather than June 10, 2020.

Font. The entire submission (contribution, quotations, works cited page, notes, etc.) must be in 12-point, Times New Roman font upon submission.

Italics/Underlining. The journal uses italics rather than underlining.

Spacing. Double space your entire document (title, epigraphs, contribution, quotations, notes, works cited page, etc.). Remove all double spaces after periods. (To make this removal, using a Find and Replace function is easiest.)

Headers and footers. Remove all headers and footers, except page numbers.

Hyperlinks. Use Track Change Comments to indicate words/phrases that you would like to see hyperlinked in your online text. Please provide the hyperlinks in the Track Change Comments. This provides an opportunity to link to important sites and extend the conversation, but do use hyperlinks judiciously. In your initial submission, this will look like the following:

In the published version of the text, the hyperlinks will be embedded as below (sample from the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies):

Punctuation.

Oxford comma: We retain the Oxford comma.
Ellipses: Use smart-ellipses (...), rather than three spaced dots ( . . . ). Also, do not use square brackets ([ ]) around ellipses in quotations unless they are represented that way in the original quotation.
Emphasis: Do not use quotation marks and italics solely for emphasis, except where they are part of a quotation.

Quotations.

Accuracy: Check quotations used in your contribution against the original to make sure you have the correct wording. Also, make sure every quotation has an endnote citation, and that all entries in the Works Cited list are actually cited in this version of the contribution.
Quotation Marks: Quotations are set to American style rather than British. In other words, do not use single-quotation marks anywhere (‘), except for a quotation within another quotation. Also, confirm that your contribution has quotation marks (“) to open and close all quotations.
Block Quotes: contributors should use block-quote formatting for quotations longer than four lines. For example:

Dates of Publication. Remove all parenthetical dates of publication in your text (not your Works Cited list) unless the dates are relevant to your argument.

Lists. When using a list in your contribution, format numbers with Arabic numerals followed by a single close-parenthesis. 1), 2), etc.

Field Codes and Linked Bibliographies. Remove all field-code created information in your text, cutting and pasting entries if need be to unlink them.