LibGuides: Religion: Writing &amp; Citing

CRAAP Test - Evaluating Information

Evaluating Information (Te Ara Canterbury)

It is important to identify Good information from Bad information

The video will help you evaluate the information you come across

Plagiarism

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Academic integrity and academic misconduct

Academic integrity means being honest in your studies and assessments. Academic integrity is informed by the values of honesty, trust, responsibility, fairness, respect, and courage.

Plagiarism at Otago

In New Zealand, high value is placed on full acknowledgment and referencing of the words and ideas of others. If you want to use information that you find elsewhere you must acknowledge where it came from.

How to avoid plagiarism (Massey University)

This interactive online tutorial will help you learn what plagiarism is, why and how students get in trouble for it and how to use ideas or quotes from your research effectively.

Help with Citing

If you follow a citation style correctly, you will avoid plagiarism and help your reader find your information sources.

The Theology program has very helpfully created its own Style Guide for Chicago A (footnotes):

Religion Style Guide

For general Chicago referencing style help, please see these two resources:

Chicago A - Otago LibGuide
The Chicago Manual of Style
Online or in the Library
Central Library: Z253.CH32. 2017
Robertson Library: 808.0270973 CHI 2017

Religion Specific Writing Guides

The Religion and Theology Student Writer's Manual and Reader's Guide by Joel Hopko; Gregory M. Scott; Stephen M. Garrison
ISBN: 9781538100943
Publication Date: 2017-11-02
The 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 Scott G. Brown
Call Number: BL41 .BV71
ISBN: 9780826498885
Publication Date: 2008-05-13
One 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.

Theses & Dissertations

Thesis Information
Everything you need to know about organizing, completing and depositing your thesis, including what you need to know about copyright.

Mind Mapping Apps

Mind Mapping Apps - Individuals & Teams

Coggle - with this you'll see the central node of a new mind map, with a plus sign to get started adding new nodes and ideas

MindMeister - this tool includes keyboard shortcuts, embeds live videos, adds team members' upvotes, downvotes & leave comments.

Scapple - start with an idea, work "backwards" to find the main idea. Individual nodes will connect by dragging and dropping.

Stormboard - uses sticky notes and index cards, group your notes on different parts of the screen to represent connections.

SimpleMind - click on it to change it to whatever idea you're mind-mapping, click on plus icons to create new branches and nodes.

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:

Pali fonts for PC

Pali fonts for MAC

How to Manage Your References

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)

References - Introduction

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

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

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

Assignment Planning Calculator

Assignment Planning Calculator This link opens in a new window
This tool has been created to help to get started with your assignment. It provides a recommended timeline with a list of steps to follow.

Search Strategy Worksheet
Search Strategy Hints for Research on a Topic .

Zoom Etiquette

Zoom - Host Tips

Zoom - Attendee

Zoom - Recoding sessions

Creative Commons

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.