Religion: Writing & Citing
Help with Citing
If you follow a citation style correctly, you will avoid plagiarism and help your reader find your information sources.
The Religious Studies program has its own Style Guide for Chicago A (footnotes):
For general Chicago referencing style help, please see these two resources:
The Chicago Manual of StyleOnline or in the Library
Central Library: Z253.CH32. 2017
Robertson Library: 808.0270973 CHI 2017
Computer Fonts
Māori Font
Te Reo (at Otago)
Biblical Fonts
Society of Biblical Literature
Downloadable fonts for biblical Greek and Hebrew, as well as 'BibLit" which combines Greek, Hebrew & Latin Characters, including transliteration diacritics.
More information and help with installation and use can be found here.
Pali
For diacritics, the best font to use is Unicode Times Roman or Helvetica.
For the keyboard, Toshiya Unebe's Easy Unicode is recommended by the Palii Text Society:
Religion Specific Writing Guides
The Religion and Theology Student Writer's Manual and Reader's Guide by ISBN: 9781538100943Publication Date: 2017-11-02The Religion Student Writer's Manual and Reader's Guide, is a set of instructions and exercises that sequentially develop citizenship, academic, and professional skills while providing students with knowledge about a wide range of religious concepts, phenomena, and information sources. Part 1 begins by teaching students about reading and writing in introductory religion. It focuses on the crafts of writing and scholarship by providing the basics of grammar, style, formats and source citation, and then introduces students to a variety of rich information resources including the religious journals and the Library of Congress. Part 2 prepares students to research, read, write, review, and critique religious scholarship. Finally, Part 3 provides for the practice of religious scholarship in advanced courses such as the history of religion and contemporary approaches to the study of religion.
A Guide to Writing Academic Essays in Religious Studies by Call Number: BL41 .BV71ISBN: 9780826498885Publication Date: 2008-05-13One of the greatest challenges for instructors in religious studies is the task of explaining why, in colleges and universities, the truth claims of religions are not accepted or even investigated, but instead a disinterested, secular approach is taken. Most instructors prefer not to address the issue directly, leaving their students to work out for themselves the difference between religious studies and the study of religion. Those who remain confused inevitably submit essays that reveal more about their religious upbringing than their ability to analyze a phenomenon objectively. A Guide to Writing Academic Essays in Religious Studies eases the transition for undergraduate students by explaining what they need to know about writing research essays pertaining to religion. Topics include methodological and theoretical presuppositions of religious studies, types of research essays, locating appropriate scholarly literature, developing a thesis, the essentials of essay form and content, quotations, forms of documentation, avoiding plagiarism, gender-inclusive language, layout, style, conciseness, rewriting and proofreading, approaching ancient texts, and how to recognize and avoid bad scholarship. This guide is indispensable for students new to religious studies.
Referencing Management Software
There is software available to help you to keep track of all of the information that you find and ensure that your citations are formatted correctly
Managing Your References - Introduction (Citation Library)
Know which reference manager you are looking for? Use the following links to quickly navigate to their tabs in this guide:
EndNote is software used to manage bibliographic citations. It can be used to organise references, cite them in papers, and automatically generate bibliographies - in the citation style of your choice.
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.
Mendeley is a free reference manager that can help you store, organize, note, share and cite references and research data.
- Endnote 20
Helpful links on Sharing a Library versus Sharing a Group & EndNote Chat