PQ follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., with minor exceptions as noted below in paragraphs 4 and 7, and asks that bibliographic citations appear in endnotes rather than as a list of works cited. Normal length for an article is roughly 7000–9000 words.
Spelling should follow American conventions except in quotations, which reproduce the original spelling exactly.
Numbers one through ninety-nine are spelled out in the text except in dates, page numbers, line numbers, and as percentages. Roman numerals should be converted to Arabic. Dates should appear in European style: 25 December 1965. Numbers that identify centuries are also spelled out ("eighteenth century"). Em dashes should appear as -- or —, not as a hyphen (-) or en dash (–), and without a space between the characters preceding or following it; en dashes serve to connect inclusive numbers (1685–1750). Use lower case and Arabic numerals to refer to sections of a work, even if the original text uses upper case or Roman numerals: e.g., "book 2," "chapter 5," "part 3," etc.
Ellipsis should not ordinarily be placed at the beginning or end of quotations, but when needed is indicated by three spaced periods, or by four periods, if it falls at the end of a sentence within the quotation, and without square brackets. Quotations of more than eight lines of type are set off from the text. Parenthetic citations of poetry following a block quotation drop to the line below the final line of the quotation. Line breaks in poetry are indicated by a forward slash with spaces on both sides (e.g., "a red wheel / barrow"). Short quotations should be placed in double quotation marks and followed by an endnote or by parenthetic citation if several follow in a row.
Multiple citations, especially of primary texts, should appear parenthetically once the source has been noted (with a comment about subsequent references). Make an effort to reduce a large number of successive notes that refer to a range of pages within a single book, but also avoid stranding parenthetic numbers with no clear reference. In endnotes and parenthetic citations, add a short title to the page reference when referring back to a text mentioned earlier.
Old English characters (æ, Æ, þ, Þ, ð, Ð, etc.) require consistent coding; ordinarily we do not set Greek or Hebrew quotations.
Works divided into sections should be indicated by separating the elements with periods: Macbeth 1.1.1–10 refers to Act I, scene 1, lines 1–10 of the play; Faerie Queene 1.1.1–10 would refer to Book I, canto 1, stanzas 1–10 of Spenser's poem. In certain cases it might be necessary to use abbreviations for clarity, "chap." for "chapter," "n" or "nn" for notes, "pt." for part, and so forth. Verso and recto, when they appear, are in lower case: fols. 1r–10v. For poetry, use line numbers, not page numbers, and do not abbreviate "line" as "l." Avoid whenever possible idem, passim, op. cit., and loc. cit.; f and ff should also be avoided. Roman (not italicized) Ibid. can be used sparingly.
In PQ's house style we omit the place of publication for well known university presses, and we also abbreviate "University" as "U." For example, "Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 77" should appear as "(Harvard U. Press, 1999), 77." Provide foreign places of publication in English (Munich, not München), and if the location of an American city needs clarification (Venice, CA) specify the state's name by using U.S. postal codes. Usually, supplying a single place of publication will suffice ("London," e.g., rather than "London and New York").
With proper names that end in an s that is unpronounced or pronounced eez, avoid the possessive form 's and add an apostrophe only: "Descartes' philosophy," "Euripides' tragedies," "Sophocles' tragedies." (Traditional usage favors other exceptions--"Jesus' name" and "Moses' law"--but CMS 7.23 prefers "Jesus's contemporaries.")
Citations give inclusive page numbers as follows (see CMS 9.64): 1–99 use all digits; 100 or multiples use all digits (100–104, 1100–1113); 101 through 109, 201 through 209, etc., uses a single digit in the second place (501–8); 110 through 199, etc., use two or more digits as required (322–26, 498–532, 1085–89).
Quoted matter in block quotations appears in double quotation marks, and titles within italicized titles also appear between double quotation marks. Double quotation marks replace chevrons in quotations of foreign languages, which generally follow the original punctuation while adapting some conventions to English-language rules (see CMS 11.87).
Do not supply the issue number of a journal article unless the publication paginates each issue separately, e.g., Melvyn New, "Taking Care: A Slightly Levinasian Reading of Dombey and Son," PQ 84 (2005): 80. Note too that we abbreviate the following journal titles: ELH, ELR, JEGP, JHI, MLQ, MP, N&Q, PMLA, PQ, RES, SAQ, SEL, SP, TLS.
Institutional affiliations appear italicized between the body of the text and the endnotes.