Guidelines for Literary Editors

Guidelines for Literary Editors

Approach

The Stockcero collection of significant Spanish and Latin American books includes titles regarded as classics of Spanish (both Peninsular and Latin American) literature, history, economics, and cultural studies.
These books are being published with modern readers and students in mind, and thus include updated prefaces, footnotes and bibliographies in Spanish.
When planning your edition, please bear in mind that the ultimate goal is to help the modern reader enjoy the text.

Readership and Level
Targeted readers include:

Students, both at an undergraduate and a graduate level.
Teachers seeking works to include in their respective course syllabi.
Educated nonspecialists and general readers who appreciate accurate complementary information on their reading material

Fact/Interpretation

We expect the Stockcero editions to have an objective tone.
Like all academic reference works, they should serve as a reliable, impartial, and authoritative source.
Insofar as they feel able to draw the distinction, editors should clearly delineate the transition from factual to interpretive or controversial material.
They are invited to include their own views, while avoiding partisanship or polemic.
We regard it as appropriate to summarize debates rather than to participate in them, and to avoid hyperbole and unsupported statements about the importance, virtue, or glory of people, works, events, or geographical areas.

Prologues

Prologues should provide university-level readers with basic information about the author, the work, its reception when it was published, and its historical context, as well as some discussion about ways the work can be read, with some bibliography so students can pursue these topics.
Prologues should be between ten and twenty pages in length, with approximately two pages of bibliography.

Citations and References
- Avoid lengthy quotations.
- If you do include a quotation, however, the exact spelling and punctuation of the original should be faithfully copied.
- Your own interpolations into quoted matter should be clearly enclosed in square brackets.
- Reference the source on a new line.
About authors
- The text should include a critical appreciation and analysis of the writer's works as well as brief biographical data.
- The focus should be on the meanings and contexts of the works as well as its cultural and political impact rather than on the biography of the author.
- Biographical information should include the most widely accepted date and place of birth and death; nationality; key events in the life; and major contributions.
- It may also refer to social, political, and other circumstances relevant to the individual's work.

Footnotes

Our aim is to assist readers to better comprehend the text.
Therefore, it is important that entries be self-contained, written as clearly as possible, and avoid the use of undefined jargon or terms that are not easily understood.
In all cases the footnotes must be as concise as possible -even laconic-. A good rule of thumb is to think about what you would say if consulted by a reader inside a library reading room.
Both lexicographic and contextual footnotes are requested, when advisable.
MSWord numbered footnotes is preferable to manually numbered inserts.
Annotated terms must appear italicized, then ":", then a space.
All footnotes must end with a period.
Verbs must be annotated in infinitive.
Localisms must be specified between parenthesis.
Between the note number and the term there should be a tabulation.
i.e.
12 Bogar: (Colombia) beber, tomar.

Bibliographic References and Further Reading

Primary and Secondary sources should be identified as such and listed under the general header “Bibliographic References and Further Reading”, preferrably following the Chicago Manual of Style:

Primary Sources

List only the most important works by the author in chronological order.
Please give only the standard edition of a classic work; do not list several or the most recent editions.
Include date of publication, place and publisher.
You may include one preferred English translation (with English title, name of translator, year, place and name of publisher).
If the author's works have been translated into languages other than English, you may note "translated in xxx, xxx, and xxx" as appropriate.

Secondary Sources

List important works about the author.
Please limit the list to the most important critical works.
Several of these writers have been the subject of hundreds of articles and essays in books, journals, and dissertations.
This secondary bibliography is meant to provide the reader with an idea of where to obtain further information on that specific writer, if needed.
Please specify an edition for any work.
Try to list books that most users could find in a research library

Additional Style Points

Non-Spanish terminology

Should the text contain non-Spanish terms, these may be italicized as appropriate.
The word should then be referenced with a footnote clarifying its Spanish translation.
In the instance of a non-literal translation, the word must be set in italics followed by the approximate translation in quotation marks.

Abbreviations and acronyms

Any abbreviation or acronym you employ should appear in full on its first appearance in the entry, with the abbreviation or acronym in parentheses: e.g., Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

Identification of people and places

Give chronological, geographical, or cultural clues to identify people and concepts mentioned in your article wherever appropriate.

Numbers

Spanish notation should be used (1.000 is a thousand; 1,000 is a unit with 0 decimals).
Spell out fractional amounts (e.g., dos tercios) and do not use abbreviated notation for numerical ranges; use expressions such as «pp. 170-179» for page ranges.
When dealing with percentages in the body of the text, use numerals for the amounts and spell out the word percent (e.g., «While 75 percent of authors. . .»).
When percentages appear in parentheses to provide greater detail, use numerals and the percent symbol (e.g., «The majority (75%) of authors. . .»).

Dashes, Quotation marks and white spaces

Dashes:
- Use long «em dashes» for dialogue lines: «—Mira a tu alrededor...»
- Use mid-length «en dashes» for comments internal to phrases: «... a tu alrededor –dijo como si le importara mucho– no hallarás nada...»
- Use short dashes for compound words: «Sud-América».
Quotation marks
- Use low marks for first level «..»
- In nested quotations use double high for second level and simple high for third level: «...“...‘...’...”...».
White spaces
- use white spaces before an opening «en dash» and after a closing «en dash».
- Do not use white spaces before or after an«em dash».