In general follow Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth ed., and The Chicago Manual of Style.

Bibliography

Arrange items in alphabetical order by the surname of the author or editor or author equivalent.  Give full first names of authors if possible. If the person named is the editor, not the author, specify “ed.” following the name. Give the place of publication, name of publisher, and year of publication in parentheses following the book title and other data (edition, volume number, or the like). For annotations, brackets are used.

If two or more titles by the same author are listed, list them chronologically by publication date (from earliest to most recent), not by title. Repeat the name of the author in full for each citation.  In the case of two or more titles by the same author and having the same publication date, alphabetize by title using the word-by-word system, excluding the initial article.

For articles in periodicals, give the volume number and, if possible, the exact date (month, or month and day, and year). If the periodical is a quarterly, give the season and year if possible. The citing of pages is preferred but optional. Omit the name of publisher. Quotation marks are to be used for the article title, and italics for the name of the periodical. The sequence to be followed is author; article title; publication title; volume; number; date, if any; page numbers, if known.

For foreign titles use italics for translation of a title if published in English; if the work has not been published in English, enclose the translation in quotation marks.

Sample entries

Andcombe, G. E. M.  “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Philosophy 33 (1958):1-19.

Abelard, Peter.  Peter Abelard’s Ethics.  Edited and translated by D. E. Luscombe.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

Baier, Kurt.  The Moral Point of View: A Rational Basis of Ethics.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958.

Unwin, Liam P., and Joseph Galloway.  Peace in Ireland.  Boston: Stronghope Press, 1990.

Capitalization

Pay special attention to capitalization of geographical terms: the North, the South, the East, and the West as specific regions. Also, Northeast, Southwest, Midwest. Lower case southern, midwestern(er); but a Western novel, Southern literature (the genres, not the regions).

Lowercase political philosophies, for example communism, a communist, fascism, socialism, democracy, a democratic regime. But uppercase political parties: the Communist Party, the Democratic Party, the Democrats.

Capitalize formal proper names of academic chairs and professorships. Lowercase academic departments.

Contractions

Please avoid using contractions.

Dates

Use American date style: month, day, year.  For example: November 11, 2002.

Spell out months of the year.

Use numerals for centuries: 21st century; 19th century. 

Always repeat the century in hyphenated dates. For example: Washington Square Players (1913-1917); not (1913-17).

When decades are identified by their centuries, use numerals: the 1880s, the 1960s (no comma); not “the sixties,” or “the ‘60s.”

Avoid phrases and words such as “recently,” and “currently” or “one hundred years ago.” Instead try to provide more precise dates.

Em-dashes and En-dashes

Use em-dashes sparingly.

Foreign words

Italicize if unfamiliar to reader. Do not use Greek, Hebrew, Arabic or Cyrillic material.

Names

Jr.: Style is comma between last name and junior  (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Transliteration: Use the most common transliteration for Arabic, Chinese, etc. names. 

Numbers

1-9 are spelled out as are all numbers at the beginning of sentences. Other numbers are in numeral format.

Measurement Units

All measurement units should be in metric, followed by the US equivalent in parenthesis.

Undesirable Expressions

Avoid expressions that date an article in relation to the time of writing, such as “recent developments,” “now called,” “ten years ago,” “A new building is under construction.”

Do not use expressions that have a parochial point of view, such as “our foreign policy,” “in this country”. Rather than “came to United States in 1849”, make it “went to the United States”.

Do not use natives as a noun, but phrasing such as “native musical forms” is acceptable.  Exception: for the term Alaska Natives, use a capital.

Do not use primitive (except in fine-art contexts, but qualified – for example, “so-called primitive art”).  Use nonindustrial, indigenous peoples, small-scale, or native peoples instead.

Avoid using the expression and/or, using instead the construction X or Y, or both wherever possible.

Do not use etcetera or etc.  Use instead and so on or and so forth.