YGAS Submission Guidelines and Style Guide

Revised May 2026

Adapted from submission guidelines and style sheet from Monatshefte für deutschsprachige Literatur und Kultur

Articles

Length and formatting

  • Normally, articles of no more than 12,000 words including notes and bibliography.
  • Shorter pieces will also be considered (for instance as part of a special issue)
  • Times New Roman, one-inch margins, left justification
  • Formatting should be kept to a minimum
  • Paginate the manuscript at the bottom center of the page
  • All other paragraphs are indented at 0.5 inch
  • Use endnotes (not footnotes) and generate them using Microsoft Word
  • Keep the use of endnotes to a minimum (no endnotes with bibliographical information only; see below for bibliographical information and in-text citations)
  • For articles written in German: follow the neue Rechtschreibung(Duden, 28th and following editions); quotes from texts written in alte Rechtschreibung stay as they are
  • For articles written in either German or English, please see further house style guidelines below
  • All illustrations must be submitted as .jpg or .tiff files with at least 300 dpi (dots per inch, and the authors must have the rights to publish the image (copyright)
  • All images and figures must be accompanied by alternative text (alt text) descriptions. Alternative text is a brief descriptive text that conveys the meaning of an image or graphical object.
    • images and objects must be placed “in line with text” to ensure proper reading order (e.g., by screen reading technologies)
    • Alt text should be added either via the “Alt Text” option or as a caption
    • For detailed information on alt text and general accessibility guidelines, see the following: https://www.section508.gov/create/alternative-text/
    • Please provide alt text in the language of the article (German or English)

Preparing and submitting your manuscript

  • Title and, if applicable, subtitle (14-point font regular; boldface, centered), in English or German
  • Name of the author (12-point font; e.g., Walter X. Petig)
  • Institutional affiliation (12-point font italics; e.g., University of Kansas)
  • Abstract of 150 words in English
  • Text (12-point font regular)
  • Endnotes (11-point font regular) after the text
  • Works Cited/Zitierte Literatur (11-point font regular) after the endnotes
  • Your complete address (12-point font regular) including your email address, after the Works Cited/Zitierte Literatur list
  • Send your manuscript to the Editor of the Yearbook of German American Studies

    Manuscript Revisions
  • Article revisions at any stage should be submitted using the track changes function in Word

Works Cited / Zitierte Literatur list

  • The Works Cited / Zitierte Literaturlist provides the full bibliographical reference for all texts cited at the end of the article
  • Each entry should be formatted in 11-point font, single-spaced, and with a hanging indent. Do not use “tab” or “space”.
  • University Press is always: UP (e.g., U of California P; Oxford UP).
  • Articles written in German follow the German style, i.e., spell the names of the cities in German (e.g., München, not: Munich); abbreviate Herausgeber as: Hg. (not: ed.); use German quotation marks ( „...“ ,...’); Frankfurt am Main (not just: Frankfurt).
  • Include DOIs (digital object identifiers) instead of URLs where available.
  • Please note that citations for sources with more than three authors should list the first author’s name followed by “et al.”

Monographs

Sonkwé Tayim, Constantin. Das Gedächtnis der Kolonisation. Afrikanische und europäische Narrative ab 1980. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2024. 

Monographs published in a series

Pierstorff, Cornelia, Hg. Kellers Wissen. Dinge – Diskurse – Praktiken. Gottfried Kellers Moderne, Band 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024.

Anthologies

Chorley-Schulz, Miriam, and Alexander Walther, eds. Socialist Yiddishlands: Language Politics and Transnational Entanglements between 1941 and 1991. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024.

Editions

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 Bänden. Hg. Erich Trunz. München: Beck, 1989. Print.

Herder, Johann Gottfried. Frühe Schriften 1764–1772. Hg. von Ulrich Gaier. (J.G.H., Werke in zehn Bänden, Bd. 1.) Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985.

Article in a book

Zhang, Chunjie. “German Indophilia, Femininity, and Transcultural Symbiosis around 1800.” Imagining Germany Imagining Asia. Ed. Veronika Fuechtner and Mary Rhiel. New York: Camden House, 2013. 204–219.

Article in a journal

Scott, Claire E. “Intimacy and Failed Solidarity in the Teen Girl Film Lollipop Monster (2011).” Feminist German Studies 39.2 (2023): 74–97.

Websites

“bell hooks and Laverne Cox in a Public Dialogue at the New School.” https://youtu.be/9oMmZIJijgY. [Accessed 16. May 2024].

Newspapers cited from online editions

Carrington, Damian. “Geologists Reject Declaration of Anthropocene Epoch.” The Guardian, 22. March 2024. http://theguardian.com/geologists-declaration-of-anthropocene [Accessed 1. October 2024].

Book Reviews

Book Reviews are solicited by the Book Review Editor and submitted by prior arrangement. If you wish to be considered as a reviewer, please send a brief CV or bio-bibliographical statement to the Book Review Editor Gregory Redding (reddingg@wabash.edu) along with a list of topics/areas of expertise and interest for possible reviews.

Length and formatting

  • Book reviews should be between 800–1200 words
  • Times New Roman, 12 pt. font
  • Left justification (not full justification)
  • Indent the beginning of all paragraphs except the first; do not leave an extra line between the paragraphs
  • For reviews written in German: follow the neue Rechtschreibung(Duden, 28th and following editions); quotes from texts written in alte Rechtschreibung stay as they are
  • For reviews written in either German or English, please see further house style guidelines below
  • Do not hyphenate, use headers or footers, or paginate

Submitting your review

  • Please save reviews as either .doc (MS Word) and send as an email attachment to Gregory Redding (reddingg@wabash.edu)
  • We will acknowledge your review promptly by email. If you have not heard from us within one week of sending your review please contact us.
  • Proofreading and editing of reviews is done by the Book Review Editor and editorial staff.
  • A PDF copy of the review will be sent to the publisher of the book under review.

Specific guidelines

  • Include an overview of the book's contents (for edited volumes: include number of contributions)
  • Try to articulate the book’s focus in your own words as much as possible (while quotes from the book under review are welcome, avoid an overreliance on direct quotes)
  • Situate the volume with respect to existing and current research on the topic in question
  • Provide a fair assessment of its strengths and weaknesses
  • Give readers a sense of the intended audience

Review heading
Please follow the examples below, noting arrangement, punctuation, and italics/boldface:

  • a) German title
    • Zeiterfahrung und gesellschaftlicher Umbruch in Fiktionen der Post-DDR-Literatur. Literarische Konfigurationen von Zeitwahrnehmung im Werk von Lutz Seiler, Julia Schoch und Jenny Erpenbeck.

Von Carola Hähnel-Mesnard. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2022. 293 Seiten. €45.00 gebunden oder eBook.

  • b) English title
    • A Companion to Sound in German-Speaking Cultures.
    • Edited by Rolf J. Goebel. Rochester, MI: Camden House, 2023. 301 pages + 7 illustrations + 2 musical examples. $130.00 hardcover, $29.95 e-book.

 Omit the series title, e.g. Abhandlung zur...

  • For edited works, please use the following format:
    • Works in German: Herausgegeben von...
    • Works in English: Edited by...
  • Other examples of currencies include: sFr 55,00; £12,50 [orGBP 12,50] (If you do not know the price, do not worry—we will insert that information)

 Quotations and citations

  • Do not use end- or footnotes. Incorporate references, if needed, into the text via brief parenthetical notation, for example: This volume complements a recent study by Eve Gardener (The Pineapple, Honolulu 2009).
  • When referring to titles in your review, please italicize book titles, but place titles of shorter works in quotation marks.
  • See the “Yearbook of German American Studies Style Guide” below for details

Name and affiliation

  • Your name and affiliation should come at the end of your review in the following form. You need not include the location of your institution unless there are several campuses.

Example:

Alexander Goethe

University of North Carolina

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Style Guide (for articles and book reviews)

Quotations and in-text citations

  • Please link all quotations grammatically/syntactically in your writing. (That is, quotations should be connected syntactically to the surrounding material and analyzed, not included as separate sentences without discussion.)
  • Avoid quoting second-hand where possible; when unavoidable, identify the original source in the sentence and quote the secondary source in parenthesis: (cit. [author] [page number])/ (zit. [Autor*in] [Seite])
  • Include bibliographical references in an abbreviated form in parentheses in the running text, either with the author’s name and page number (e.g., Somers 56) or, if there is more than one title by the same author, chose a short title (italicized for monograph titles, in double quotation marks for article, short story, or poem titles) and add it to name and page number (Somers, Scriptus49)
    • For in-text citations, if the author’s name is in the sentence, you do NOT need to include it in the parenthetical citation: [“Or indeed, as the editor Willy Haas has put it, the journal operates as an “Art der Verständigung und Selbstverständigung” (176).]
  • Mark material youhave omitted in a quote by a bracketed ellipsis [...]. Mark your alterations to the quoted original text with square brackets [XXX]. Omissions by the quoted author will be given as an ellipsis without brackets.
  • If a quotation is longer than three lines, format it as a block quote, i.e., omit the quotation marks, indent the entire passage at 0.5 inch, and format it in 11-point font with single-spaced lines.
  • Formatting differences between texts written in German and English: Articles and reviews written in English are completely formatted ‘the English way’; articles written in German are completely formatted ‘the German way.’
    • In English, periods and commas go inside quotation marks [Chicago style]. Please note that semicolons, in contrast, go outside of the quotation marks.
    • In German, this is slightly different, depending on the quote: include commas or periods in quotation marks only if they are part of the quotation itself.
  • Mark the quoted text by including it in double quotation marks (articles written in English: “…”; articles written in German: „...“)
    • Mark quoted text within a quotation in simple quotation marks (articles written in English: ‘…’; articles written in German: ‚...’)
  • Avoid the use of c.f.: some authors/readers use it in the sense of “see in disagreement,” while others use it to mean “see further” or “see also.” We suggest “see” with qualifications as necessary, e.g.: “In contrast, see X” or “For more on this point, see Y.”

A punctuation miscellany

  • Dashes and hyphens:
    • An n-dash is used between date ranges and page numbers: “134–43”
    • An m-dash is used for interjections, or it can be used in place of commas to create a sharper break, or to clarify muddled sentences: “The colors of the costume—blue, scarlet, and yellow—acquire symbolic meaning in the story.” There is no space on either side of the m-dash.
    • In German-language manuscripts, an n-dash is used (with a space on either side) rather than an m-dash.
    • Hyphenation is complicated; we generally suggest following the first option given in Webster's dictionary (e.g. “nonhuman,” “self-conscious”); if in doubt, the Chicago Manual of Style has a detailed entry: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/book/ed17/part2/ch07/toc.html
  • Please use the serial/Oxford comma in English (“Gustav Frank, Madlen Podewski, and Stefan Scherer” NOT “Gustav Frank, Madlen Podewski and Stefan Scherer”)
  • Use scare quotes (single quotation marks to express distance, or indirect quotation) very sparingly; indirect quotation/paraphrase or common phrases should not use any quotation marks; translations should use double quotation marks and cite either the published translation or original.
    • “This article offers a thick description…” or, if quoting directly “This article offers a “thick description”; not “This article offers a ‘thick description’…”
  • For English-language articles and book titles, separate title and subtitle with a colon; for German articles, separate title and subtitle with a period:
    • Literary Conclusions: The Poetics of Ending in Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist.
    • Die komische Differenz. Zur Dialektik des Lächerlichen in Theater und Gesellschaft.
  • Please write out centuries (seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth …) rather than 17th, 18th, etc.
    • a hyphen should be used when the indicated century is used as an adjective: “twentieth-century texts” (BUT “twenty-first century texts”)