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Guidelines on Style for Authors

Below are half a dozen of the main elements of GAP Style that authors are requested to follow in preparation of their papers. Following these guidelines will help in quicker processing. Authors are requested to pay particular attention to the citation, referencing and the limited use of endnotes.

I. Endnotes

GAP  uses Endnotes, and not Footnotes.

Why Endnotes: Endnotes distract readers from the flow of the text. Therefore, minimise their use, keep them brief, and avoid endnote indicators in headings or subheadings.

Endnotes, when used, should be placed to explain or elaborate on the arguments in the text.

The endnotes should not be used to give references and notes should not be combined with references. GAP follows the in-text citation method for citations/references (see Section II).

Endnotes can, however, be used for evaluative bibliographic comments but not for references/citations.

II. In-text citations

  •  Author-date

Referring to the works of others in the text is done by using what is known as parenthetical citation.

(Human beings have been described as  “symbol-using animals” (Barua 1993).)

All author-date citations will go in the text, with full references in the bibliography.

Please do not use ibid. or op.cit. All such citations must follow the author-date citation approach, even when there are repeated citations.

Page numbers

Provide the author and date, followed by a colon and the specific page number (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in the text.

  • According to Mitra’s study, dreams may express “profound aspects of personality” (1884: 72).
  • Eliot’s theories on sensibility are also a poet’s way of explaining his own work (Leavis 1964: 36–43).
  • Notes and references

Notes and references should not be combined. But they can stay combined in history papers, where separation is sometimes difficult.

III. Citations and References

  • The article in a scholarly journal

Author(s) (Year): “Title of article,” Title of journal, Volume, Issue, pages.

Bagchi, Alaknanda (1996): “Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi’s Bashai Tudu,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, Vol 15, No 1, pp 41–50.

  • Government publications

Cite the author of the publication if the author is identified. Otherwise start with the ministry, committee, agency, or any subdivision that served as the author, followed by the date, title, place, and publisher. For parliament or assembly documents, try to include the relevant session.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (1979): “Debate on the Geopolitics of Oil,” Monsoon session, 1978, Lok Sabha, New Delhi: Government Press.

  • Books

The basic form for a book citation is Last name, First name (Year of publication): Title of book, Place of publication: Publisher.

Book with one author

  • Gleick, James (1987): Chaos: Making a New Science, New York: Penguin.
  • Henley, Patricia (1999): The Hummingbird House, Denver: MacMurray.

Book with more than one author

First author name is written last name first; subsequent author names are written first name, last name.

  • Gillespie, Paula and Neal Lerner (2000): The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring, Boston: Allyn.

Two or more books by the same author
Use an em dash for the author’s name after the first time. List books by year.

  • Palmer, William J (1993): The Films of the Eighties: A Social History, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
  • — (1997): Dickens and New Historicism, New York: St Martin’s.

Book by a corporate author

A corporate author may be a commission, a committee, or any group whose individual members are not identified on the title page.

  • Indian Allergy Association (1998): Allergies in Children, New Delhi: Penguin.

Online citations

Providing only the URL is usually not sufficient.

Required information

  • Citations of electronic sources should include an author or editor, the title of the text, date, the title of the website, the electronic address, and page or paragraph numbers. If the date when the source was accessed is crucial to the argument, include it in brackets at the end.
  • Citations of books, journal articles, periodicals, and other sources published online should follow GAP style for traditional citations as closely as possible, with the addition of the electronic address or URL. Citation of online sources of a publication/article that was originally published in print should be an addition and not the only citation.
  • Citations to online postings and email messages must include the date they were posted or sent.

IV. Headings

  • Principle: A hierarchy of headings organises complex text, but please keep it to a maximum of three levels.

4 Financial and Economic Evaluation (Level 1)

4.1 Economic Benefits (Level 2)

4.1.1 Flood Control (Level 3)

It is advisable to have only two levels of headings, and if absolutely necessary three.

An alternative, especially when there are many sub-headings in Level 2 or Level 3 is to convert the sub-headings into bold text (or italics) and run on with the paragraph.

V. Tables and Figures

  • Please cite each table or figure in the main text. Follow the same rules for citing tables or figures in the appendixes.
  • The production of urea was 640 million tonnes in 1994 compared to 540 tonnes in 1991 (Table 2).
  • Exports rose from 2,768 heavy vehicles in 1988-89 to more than 12,000 a year by 2001-02 (Figure 5).

Use a table or figure only when it amplifies and illustrates the discussion in the text.

Please take care to list all units in a table/figure. List all legends in a figure. All sources should be mentioned in full.

VI. Non-English Terms

  • Give the term in italics on the first appearance and provide its approximate English translation in parentheses (if the explanation is short) or in an endnote (if it is long).
  • The term will be in plain without the translation for all subsequent appearances