WLT Article Style Guide   |    WLT Review Style Guide
 
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World Literature Today Article Style Guide

Editorial Policy. World Literature Today is the University of Oklahoma’s bimonthly magazine of international literature and culture, founded in 1927. The editors welcome submissions on contemporary literary and cultural topics addressing any geographic region or language area. (By “contemporary,” we mean that our coverage generally ranges from the 1990s to the present.) Our preference is for “essays” in the tradition of clear and lively discussion intended for a broad audience, with a minimum of scholarly apparatus (see “Back to the Essay,” WLT, Winter 2000, 5-9). Prospective contributors are encouraged to consult recent issues of WLT for examples of our preferred style of writing. A manuscript, or its essential content, must not have been published previously or be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Advance inquiries, addressed to the editor (dsimon@ou.edu), are welcome. Please include in the body of your email or cover letter a brief explanation concerning the parameters and purpose of your essay and how it contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversation about contemporary world literature. If we invite you to submit the full text of your essay, our preference is for email attachments in MS Word (PC or Mac), with formatting (styles) kept to a minimum. Submissions may also be addressed to the editor at the following address:

World Literature Today
630 Parrington Oval, Suite 110
Norman OK 73019-4033
USA

Every effort will be made to promptly notify contributors that their texts have been received, but please allow a minimum of six weeks for evaluation of your submission and for a response concerning acceptance; all texts that pass initial in-house screening will be sent to at least two outside readers in the field. Unsolicited manuscripts not accepted for publication will be returned if accompanied by sufficient postage.

N.B. We do not generally accept unsolicited poetry or fiction for publication. In terms of creative writing, our general interest, with some exceptions, is in translations of authors who write in languages other than English.

Length of Prose Texts. Regular articles should have a maximum length of 2,500 words (approximately 10 double-spaced pages), unless otherwise directed by the editor.

Text Preparation. In matters of style and formatting, follow the guidelines in the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed., 2003, hereafter CMS) when preparing your document. On-line information about the Chicago Manual can be found at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org. For matters of spelling, we prefer the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.

Double-space throughout the text and leave the right margin unjustified (ragged). Number all pages, and leave 1” margins on all sides. Place the article title at the top of the first page, then place your name on a separate line. Brief epigraphs may be used and should be placed at the right-hand margin preceding the text. Your affiliation or city of residence should follow the concluding line of the text and be placed at the right-hand margin, italicized. Following your affiliation, please add two or three sentences about yourself and your current projects (100 words max.).

Titles and Names. The title of a published work should be given in the original language upon first reference in your article, followed by a parenthetical English translation, either your own or a previously published one—for example, Jiu guo (1992; Eng. The Republic of Wine, 2000). Subsequent references should be either all in the original or all in the English version. Original titles from languages not using the Roman alphabet (Russian, Greek, Arabic, etc.) should be rendered in a standard transliteration. Personal names taken from a language not using the Roman alphabet are treated in one of two ways: the more familiar ones should be given in their standard English form (Gorky and Yuri instead of Gorkij and Iurij); the less familiar ones should be anglicized in spelling (Lunacharsky and Bergholz instead of Lunacarskij and Berggol’c). For more details, see CMS, chapters 8 and 10.

Quotations. Short quotations should be worked into the body of the text; quotations of four lines or more may be set off as extracts. Do not use MLA-style parenthetical page citations in running text; they may be used with extracts, however, or placed in an endnote if they accompany a substantive note. A moderate number of citations from foreign languages may be used, particularly when the illustration involves a linguistic or stylistic point. For long and/or difficult passages in these languages, however, please provide an English version only, either your own or a published one. When in doubt, follow the guidelines set forth in CMS, chapter 11.

Notes and Bibliographies. Notes should be kept to a bare minimum, particularly avoiding long, digressive comments, the use of ibid., notes citing only a page number, etc. For an excellent discussion on shortening the length and number of citations, see CMS 16.36-46. Essential publishing data, for example, can sometimes be incorporated into the text parenthetically at a book’s first mention and omitted thereafter. Footnotes will be converted to endnotes in the published version of your article.

Lists of works cited should follow the guidelines for the humanities (“notes and bibliography”) style set forth in CMS, chapters 16 and 17 (see 16.3 and 16.8-18 for an overview of the system, and 16.19-89 plus chapter 17 for more detailed instructions).

Illustrations. We welcome suggestions for possible illustrations (artwork, photography, or graphics) to accompany your text. Illustrations may be submitted in the following formats: 4x6 color prints or 300dpi digital CMYK files (tiff or jpeg preferred, grayscale for b/w). A separate list of captions and credit lines should accompany the illustrations, clearly keyed by number, as well as releases granting WLT permission to reproduce any copyrightable text or illustrations (please specify nonexclusive world English rights for all editions). Guidelines on fair use and copyright can be found in CMS, chapter 4.

Revised April 2009
www.ou.edu/worldlit/submissions.html

Inquiries. Please inquire about books you would like to review, including as much information (author, title, publisher, publication date, price, and ISBN) as possible. However, do not order review copies directly from publishers in our name; we prefer to do that work and the necessary record-keeping.
Deadlines. Reviews of books published the previous year must be received by 1 September of the current year in order to be published in WLT.
Books sent out for review. If you find a penciled “R” on the first page of a book, we have requested the book from the publisher and are under obligation to review it. If you are unable to meet the deadline please either (1) advise us that we should expect the review for a later deadline or (2) return the book to us, with a brief note of explanation, for reassignment. A book marked “U” (unsolicited) may or may not need to be reviewed. Please advise us as to your decision, even if you deem the book unsuitable for comment.
Length. Our preference is for reviews in the range of 350-400 words; the maximum length is 500 words. Please observe the word limit. Not all reviews received can be published, and overlong reviews will be returned for revision or edited as needed to fit available space.
Submitting reviews. Please submit your review electronically, preferably in the form of a fully formatted e-mail attachment directed to the associate editor, Marla Johnson (mfjohnson@ou.edu). Diskettes are not necessary. If possible, please use MS Word or WordPerfect when typing your review. We also accept hard copies of reviews submitted to our address below or via fax at 405-325-7495.
Format. Below is an example of a WLT review heading:
Alexander Selin. The New Romantic. Richard Cook, tr. Moscow. Glas (Northwestern University Press, distr.). 2003. 158 pages. $17.95. ISBN 5-7172-0064-1
1. Order of data: Author. Title (underline). Editor/translator/compiler/illustrator. Place of publication (both city and state or country, as appropriate). Publisher (and distributor, as appropriate). Year. Number of pages. Price. ISBN (use a period after each item, except the last)
2. Double-space the heading and the entire text of the review.
3. When calculating page numbers, include only those pages that relate to the book proper; do not include advertisements by the author or publisher. Note if the book is illustrated, and note plates by page count.
4. We encourage quotations, but keep them brief and to a minimum of two or three. Quotations from works in languages other than English should include a parenthetical English translation of the cited material.
Tearsheets. Upon publication of your review(s) in WLT, you will receive a clipping or tearsheet of the review several weeks following release of the issue. Unfortunately, we cannot send galley proofs of reviews or complimentary copies of complete issues to reviewers.
Change of address. Please keep in touch even when traveling, and let us know of all changes of address of one month or longer. Thank you for your help and collaboration.
Reviews Editor
World Literature Today
630 Parrington Oval, Suite 110
Norman OK 73019-4033

Main telephone number: 405-325-4531
Website: www.ou.edu/worldlit

Revised August 2006