Author-date

STYLE GUIDELINES FOR DISSERTATIONS (TFM): AUTHOR-DATE SYSTEM Format (1) Cover: name of Master’s programme, title of dissertation, author’s name, supervisor’s name, academic year. (2) Please include a Table of Contents. (3) Length: approx. 60 pages (double-spaced, Times New Roman 12). (4) Pages should be numbered. Organising your contents (1) Dissertations should open with an abstract (one paragraph of approximately 300 words), which should be single spaced and clearly separated from the main text. (2) The main text should open with an where you set out the main argument(s) or idea(s) you want to explore and the issues you intend to address. (3) The main body should examine the ideas in question and should consider the issues outlined in depth, bringing together and assessing the relevant evidence. (4) At the end of the dissertation, a concluding section should summarise the main points you have raised (remember that new evidence or new points should not be introduced at this stage). (5) Dissertations should have a clearly-defined focus rather than a sprawling development. With this aim in mind, dissertations should be divided up into sections, each with its own heading. Style (1) Be accurate and clear in your choice of vocabulary and syntax. (2) Avoid informal or colloquial registers. (3) Check your spelling, grammar and syntax for basic errors before handing in your dissertation. Be consistent in your use of either British or American spelling conventions. (4) Make sure that each sentence or paragraph follows logically from the previous one, so that overall your argument(s) is/are internally coherent. (5) Paragraphs should be neither too long nor too short; you should be able to develop one main idea adequately in a paragraph. Documenting sources (author-date system) (1) Reproducing another author’s ideas or words without making the necessary acknowledgment is plagiarism and is absolutely unacceptable in academic work. This includes materials found on the web.

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(2) Two types of documentation are used: brief parenthetical in-text citations and a works cited list at the end of your dissertation. Each quotation must be documented in both ways. (2) In-text parenthetical references: quotes from both primary and secondary sources must always be followed by the corresponding bibliographical reference in brackets, according to the following basic format: author’s surname (unless you have already mentioned it in your own text), year of publication (of the edition you have actually used), colon followed by a space, page number(s). For example: (Donaldson 1998: 115) or (Frye 1957b: 24-5). (3) Short quotations (up to four lines) appear in the main text between double inverted commas. For example: As Donaldson claims, “The staircase motif is again used in a thematically significant way after the ‘mousetrap’ scene, when Hamlet makes a long ascent to his mother’s chamber” (1998: 113). (4) Longer quotations are indented and single spaced. Omissions, which should never damage or distort the author’s argument, are indicated by means of three dots in square brackets. For example: This is Anthony Davies’s assessment of the visual impact of Olivier’s Henry V: The second respect in which external time affected the spatial strategy of the film lies in the film’s special relevance to the wartime circumstances of Britain in 1943-4. Like the films of Eisenstein, Olivier’s Henry V was directed partly towards social control. In its endeavour to project a romantic illusion, the film incorporates colour-plate illustrations from the original manuscript of Les Très Riches Heures [...] The use of these pictures as a basis of set design gives the film a spatial delicacy and visual charm which justifies their own artistic validity. Yet, at the same time, the pictorial stylization moves the film close to the realm of the fairytale, whose brightly coloured glamour and spectacle was highly appropriate for the aesthetic appetite of the time. (1988: 27) (5) Although you are expected to substantiate your arguments with pertinent quotes, the excessive use of quotation should be avoided. (6) At the end of the dissertation you should include a list of Works Cited, in alphabetical order, according to the following basic formats: Books: Davies, Anthony 1988: Filming Shakespeare’s Plays: The Adaptations of Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Peter Brook and Akira Kurosawa. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Felman, Shoshana and Dori Laub 1992: Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History. New York and London: Routledge. Frye, Northrop 1957a: Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton: Princeton UP. --- 1957b: Sound and Poetry. New York: Columbia UP. --- 1983: The Myth of Deliverance: Reflections on Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies. Toronto: U of Toronto P. Joyce, James 1993 (1914): Dublineses. Ed. Fernando Galván. Trans. Eduardo Chamorro. Madrid: Cátedra. Nelmes, Jill, ed. 1996: An Introduction to Film Studies. New York and London: Routledge. Articles or chapters in a book: Donaldson, Peter 1998 (1990): “Olivier, Hamlet, and Freud”. Robert Shaughnessy, ed. Shakespeare on Film: Contemporary Critical Essays. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.103-25. Kritzer, Amelia 2003: “Political Currents in Caryl Churchill’s Plays at the Turn of the Millenium”. Marc Maufort and Franca Bellarsi, eds. Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama and the Dawn of the New Millenium. Brussels: Peter Lang. 57-67. Mulvey, Laura 1991 (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Robyn R. Warhol and Diane P. Herndl, eds. Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan. 23-61. 2

Articles in an academic journal: Claw, Charles J. and Richard Wingley 1981: “The Myth of Troy”. Arts and Architecture 13.2: 17-34. Ellis, John 1982: “The Literary Adaptation: An Introduction”. Screen 23.1: 3-5. Nield, Sophie 2006: “There is Another World: Space, Theatre and Global Anti-Capitalism”. Contemporary Theatre Review 16.1: 51-61. A newspaper or magazine article: Eagleton, Terry 1991: “Out of the Closet”. Times Literary Supplement 15 Nov.: 20. Rafart, Susanna 2002: “Rodoreda i el teatre”. Avui 21 Nov.: 18. An on-line publication: Armstrong, David 1998: “Haunting Irish Play Loses a Bit on Film”. San Francisco Examiner. (Access date: 15 May 2004). A film: Wyler, William dir., 1939: Wuthering Heights. Samuel Goldwyn. (7) Notes: the author-date reference system renders most footnotes or endnotes unnecessary, so their use should be limited to additional commentary that you cannot easily accommodate within the main body of the text. Notes must not be used to provide bibliographical references, since these must appear in parenthetical form within the main text, as explained above.

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