Style Guide
Number of words: 6,000-8,000
Page size: 8 by 11 inches (Letter size).
Page margins: 1 inch at the top and bottom and on both sides of the text.
Body Text: 12 point Times New Roman, align left.
Title: 16 points Time New Roman, centered. No punctuation marks should be used after the title.
Author’s name and institution: in 14 point Times New Roman, below the title in one line. After that
you should add a footnote with a brief description of your CV.
Subtitles: 12 point Times New Roman, align left, upper case, do not use bold letters nor italics.
Line-spacing: Double spaced. There should not be extra space before or after paragraphs.
Indentation: First line of each paragraph (excluding a paragraph continuing after a quotation) by 0.5
in.
Quotations: Long quotations (more than four lines of text) should be indented by 1 in. from the
left margin and are not placed in quotation marks. If any part of a quotation is omitted, mark the
places where text has been elided by placing an ellipsis, with a space before and after each
period . . . . If the ellipsis coincides with the end of a sentence, add a fourth period to the ellipsis,
except if it is followed by a parenthetical reference, in which case, the stop should come after it.
Footnotes: These are not to be used for citations, but only for comments and explanatory notes. We
strongly advice against its use and should be avoided wherever possible. Footnote handles should be
placed after punctuation marks, never immediately before punctuation marks.
Works Cited: Should be marked with the heading: Works Cited. This section should list only those
works that have been quoted in the text; it is not intended as a further reading or works consulted
list.
Quotation marks: Use double quotation marks. Single quotation marks are only used for quotation
marks within another quotation.
Spelling: We accept any English standards of spelling as long as these are applied consistently
throughout.
General style: English Studies in Latin America, a Journal of Cultural and Literary Criticism bases its
criteria on matters of punctuation, formatting and style on the MLA Manual and Guide for Scholarly
Publishing (Sections 3-8).
Images: For those submitting non-fiction or fiction works, you are welcome to attach an image that
somewhat relates to your work. Hopefully you own the rights to the image, or if not, please submit
one that is either public domain or under creative commons license (in this case please include the
source so we can acknowledge it). The image provided will be used as a thumbnail in case your work
is published.
Cover Page: All critical articles must include a biography of the author (approximately 50 words),
an abstract (250 words) and 3 to 5 key words.
CITATIONS
ESLA, a Journal of Cultural and Literary Criticism follows strictly the MLA style of citation. When
quoting another person’s work, the quotation must be followed by a parenthesis indicating the author’s
last name and the page number(s) from where the reference was taken. In case that you refer
to the author’s name when introducing the citation, only the page number(s) should appear in the
parenthesis.
Regarding the Works Cited section at the end of the document, it must list all the references in alphabetical order according to the author’s last name.
For further guidance consult the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (8th ed.), the MLA Style
Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (3rd ed.) or visit the website of the Online Writing Lab of
Purdue University: http://owl.english.purdue.edu