Author guidelines


1. Abstract
A full-text needs to be preceded by an abstract of maximum 250 words and a list of maximum 5 keywords. Documenta accepts articles in Dutch and English. Please take notice that the language of your abstract corresponds to the language of the article. If you plan to write the article in Dutch, please add an additional English version of your abstract. Send your abstract for acceptance to documenta@ugent.be, before handing in your full text. For guest edited issues, send your abstract to the mail address indicated in the Call for Papers. You will receive advice as soon as possible.

2. Manuscript submission (full article): Academic Section

General
A full-text article has a maximum word count of 7,500 words and explores a topic within the context of theater and performance studies or Media Arts. Documenta accepts contributions in Dutch and English. If none of these two languages are the author’s mother tongues, the author is responsible for a language check by a native speaker. The editors can explicitly ask for such a language check after the peer review. In any case, the author takes on the financial cost.

After submitting, the editors will select two peer reviewers. Documenta has a double-blind peer review. You will receive news from us as soon as both reviewers handed in their advice. As we are a double-blind peer reviewed journal, please pay attention to remove all name indication of the author in the final document. If you have any questions before handing in or during the review process, please contact us at documenta@ugent.be.

Style guide (for articles in English)

If your article is written in Dutch, please switch to 'Nederlands' at the top of this webpage.

  • Titles of Works
    • Titles of complete, self-contained works such as books and journals are italicized. Titles of shorter works or parts of larger works (articles, book chapters, folktales, fairy tales) are enclosed in quotation marks.
    • Titles of works should be capitalized using headline-style capitalization, which follows several rules:
      • Capitalize the first and last words and all other major words in the title and subtitle.
      • Do not capitalize a, an, the, and, but, for, or, nor, to and as, unless it is the first word in the title or subtitle.
      • Do not capitalize prepositions unless they are used as adverbs or adjectives (e.g., Going Down but Thoughts on Problem Solving). 
  • Titles of Websites & Blogs
    • Titles of blogs should be italicized.
    • Titles of websites, even if similar to a traditionally printed work, should be set in capitalized headline-style; do not use italics or quotation marks.
      • e.g., Google Photos, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, Apple.com
    • Titles of websites that also have a printed counterpart (e.g., newspapers, magazines, reference works) should be in italics.
      • e.g., Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, the American Heritage Dictionary, the New York Times online, The Chicago Manual of Style Online
    • It’s sometimes hard to distinguish between a blog and a website; in that case, treat the title like that of a website.
    • Put titles of blog posts and titled sections, pages, and features of a website in quotation marks.
      • e.g., the “Back Up Photos and Videos” page
  • Quotations
    • Quotations are set off by double quotation marks (“ ”); quotes within quotes use single quotation marks (‘ ’).
    • An ellipsis, or three spaced periods, may be used to indicate material omitted from a quotation.
      • e.g., “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself. . . . This piratical warfare . . . is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.”
    • For in-line quotations, parenthetical citations fall outside the closing quotation mark but inside closing punctuation; periods and commas follow the parenthetical citation.
      • e.g., The “struggle between the Red Men and White on the American frontier” became “the archetype and precedent for the worldwide struggle between ‘progressive’ and ‘savage’ or ‘regressive’ races that shaped the modern world” (Slotkin 1993).
    • If your quotations are longer than 250 characters, please provide block quotation.
    • If a word is misspelled or otherwise wrongly used in an original quotation, add [sic] immediately after the word.
  • Italics and Emphasis
    • Use italics to indicate a foreign word the reader is unlikely to know. If the word is repeated several times (made known to the reader), then it needs to be italicized only upon its first occurrence.
    • Italics can be used for emphasis, but usage should be limited to a minimum. Preferably use efficient sentence structure to indicate emphasis.
    • If you add emphasis in a quotation, place “italics mine” in parentheses following the quotation.
  • Spelling
    • Documenta follows American spelling, which should conform to Merriam-Webster's dictionary.
      • e.g., center; theater; institutionalization; criticizes; emphasized; neighborhood


(Based on: Gobble, MaryAnne. 2012. Chicago Manual of Style Guidelines: Quickstudy Digital Guide. Boca Raton: BarCharts Publishing, Inc.. Accessed November 14, 2023. ProQuest Ebook Central.)


References (for articles in English)

Documenta follows the Chicago 17 Manual of Style (author-date system) for referencing. Please consult the sample citations in this document.


Lay-out
The lay-out will be applied by Documenta in the final stage of the process. You hand in the full text in a basic lay-out (Arial 11, double-spaced). Please take care of the structure:

Headline
Abstract (English)
Introduction
Subtitle 1
Subtitle 2
Subtitle 3

Images
You add the photos in a separate folder. Please pay attention to the quality of your images. The file names of each picture should be as follows: "Fig. 1 (same indication as in your text)_title_photographer". You also add a list with all information on the image captions. The author is fully responsible for the copyrights.
In the text itself, you indicate clearly where the photos need to be added:
  • In the text: "(fig. 1)", "(fig. 2)", …
  • Caption: "Figure 1: Title (date), copyright"

3. Manuscript submission (full article): Artistic Section / Portfolio
Each edition of Documenta contains a portfolio section. This is a section with only artistic contributions to the topic of the issue and is curated by the head or guest editors. Contributions for this section may contain image and text materials. Proposals for individual contributions can be sent to documenta@ugent.be

4. Copyright
Authors who publish in this journal agree with the following terms:

  • Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication of the work under a Creative Commons Attribution License that enables others to share the work, indicating authorship of the work and its first publication in this journal.
  • Authors may enter into separate, additional contractual agreements for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published by the journal (e.g. placement in an institutional repository or publication in a book), always acknowledging the first publication in this journal.
  • Authors have the right and are encouraged to make their work available online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during submission, as this may lead to productive discussions, faster and more citations of the published work.