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Style Guide|Eighteenth-Century Life

Documentation and Books Received

Endnotes are used; there is no bibliography. The first citation of a work provides full bibliographic information, and the author’s name should be given in full (i.e., don’t use just the last name). After the first citation, use parenthetical citations and include the minimum information necessary for clarity, which is often just a page number, without p. or pp., e. g. (36). When that isn’t clear, give author’s name and page number (Smith, 36), and if that isn’t clear, give author, abbreviated title, and page number (Smith, Contrasts, 36). The idea is to give the necessary information, but not to impede the flow of the text. If it turns out that the parenthetical note would be clumsy, for example, when more than one work is being cited, then use an end note.

Subsequent citations in the endnotes should also be abbreviated; however, here it is appropriate to use author, short title, and page number. 

In abbreviated titles, omit the article, i.e., Bingham, The Bastille, becomes Bingham, Bastille. Also, in abbreviating the title, do not merely give one word, but go as far as a complete-looking short title. Thus, Gerbers, The Formulation of English in Eighteenth-Century Society becomes Gerbers, The Formulation of English.

We avoid ibid, op cit. , and loc. cit., eadem, idem, infra, and supra; passim is allowed, as is ff. (for “the following”). Commonly used abbreviations include ca. (for “circa”), chap. (chaps.), cf., d. (died), ed. (eds.), for either editor (editors) or edition (editions); e.g., esp., et al., etc., facs. (for “facsimile”), fig. (figs.), fol. (fols.), i.e., ill. (ills.), l. (ll.), n. (nn.), no. (nos.) p. (pp.), pt. (pts.), qtd. (for “quoted in”), rep. (for “reprint”), rev., ser., sig., s.v. (under the word), trans., vol. (vols.). Latin abbreviations are not italicized. Ordinal numerals are used to designate centuries in the notes, and “century” is abbreviated as “c.”: “18th-c. literature is commonly misunderstood” and “the early 20th c. saw the birth of academia in Chicago.” Publisher names are shortened with the following abbreviations: Univ., Assoc., Foun., Inst., Lib.

Note: for multiple editors in Books Received, use eds. In citations where there are multiple editors, however, use ed., which now means ‘edited by.’
Superscript note numbers go only at the end of sentences, not in the middle. Parenthetical page references go as close to the quoted passage as possible, following the example of line numbers (ll. 184-92), except when a series of quotations in a sentence can be more compactly annotated by a covering parenthetical reference at the end of the sentence or at the end of a paragraph.

Superscript numbers should be Arabic. For some loony reason, the default mode for end notes in Microsoft Word uses Roman numerals. The default can be changed by clicking on Tools, then Reference, then Footnotes (which also means “Endnotes”).

See also Sample Note Citations, Sample Entries for the Books Received Section, and Books Received Examples.


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