What is the stylistic form to use for including foreign text in an English article?

Question

Academic texts often include translations of terms, and these are included in parentheses. Is there a standard to use when including foreign language text (e.g. Arabic, Russian, Chinese, etc.)? Let's say we include a term in Russian, perestroika or перестро́йка. The essay might include the sentence: "Mikhail Gorbachev initiated the political reforms of 'restructuring' or 'perestroika'". However, I would like to include the original Russian word as well. How does one do this? What order should the words be in, i.e. the translation in English, the transliterated English, and the original word? Another example: "Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto (坂本 九 ) became famous in the West for the hit "I look up as I walk" or "上を向いて歩こう" (Ue o Muite Arukō)." What is the correct style to use? What should the correct order be?

Answer 1

When citing a foreign (non-English) word you want to use Italics. This signals to the reader that this is not an English term and will likely be explained shortly thereafter, or you will need to use context clues to understand the term.

For example, inter alia (amongst): "The judge said, inter alia ("among other things"), that the time to file the action had passed." - This is anexample where you introduce he foreign/non-English term and then define it.

Another example: She demanded the attention of every soul in the crowed room; she had the certain je ne sais quoi, that lured in her audience.- This is an example where one must use context clues to understand the foreign/non-English phrase.