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Article Submission GuidelinesThe Westminster Theological Journal welcomes contributions on biblical, theological, and historical subjects. Contributors should attend to the guidelines given below. Please note (N.B.): The editors do not give advice on how to write an article. It is assumed that authors submitting manuscripts to the Journal will have some expertise in the field and be familiar with academic writing. General Information 1. A manuscript should be submitted in what the author intends as its final form, and should conform to the guidelines given below. If a manuscript departs from these instructions in major ways, it may be returned to the author for corrections before it is considered for publication. 2. The manuscript should be submitted electronically in Microsoft Word format (i.e. doc and docx). Please note: We no longer accept manuscripts mailed to the journal.
3. A statement certifying that the article is not being submitted simultaneously to another journal should accompany the manuscript. Articles that have appeared or are to appear elsewhere, whether in English or in another language, should not be submitted. 4. Except for the specific instructions given below, the directives of the most recent editions of The Chicago Manual of Style and The SBL Handbook of Style are to be followed. The American style of spelling is to be used, and the preferred authorities on spelling are Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.; Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1993) and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1967). When there is more than one way of spelling a word, the first one listed in these authorities should be used. 5. Authors of articles selected for publication will receive first page proofs, which they are expected to read carefully, check against the original manuscript, correct, and return promptly. The editors will accept no changes at this stage other than clear errors that might appear in the page proofs over against the original manuscript.
1. Manuscripts should normally be between 6,000-10,000 words, including footnotes, in the fields of Reformed theology, history, or exegesis. Shorter manuscripts are also welcomed when the topic warrants it, and longer manuscripts may be considered where the importance of a full dicussion requires it. We do not publish devotional essays, or non-scholarly literature. 2. The manuscript file should contain the name of the article and the author's name; however, the author's contact information should not appear within the manuscript file itself. In a separate document, either by email or a printed document, the author should include the following: name, date of submission, title of article, mailing address, email address, phone number, and statement certifying that the article is not being submitted simultaneously to another journal. 3. All lines are to be double-spaced, including those of footnotes and indented quotations. There should be no single-spacing or one-and-a-half spacing. Text should always be ragged right, never justified. Margins of at least 1.25 inches are to be left on all sides of the document. Font is to be Times New Roman, font size 12. 4. Special material (e.g., complex lists, tables, charts, diagrams) should be produced in documents separate from the main article; however, the location of such material in the main text should be indicated clearly (e.g., “insert here chart 1”). Charts and tabular material of a particularly complex nature may be submitted in JPEG (.jpg) or PDF (.pdf) format.
1. Ordinarily, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Coptic—whether a block of material is quoted or just a word or phrase—should not be transliterated, but given in the proper characters. Unless there is a special reason to draw attention to the consonantal text, Hebrew with vowel points should be used in quoting the Masoretic text. Cantillation marks should normally be omitted. 2. Whether or not one transliterates, an English translation should normally accompany at least the first occurrence of any Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, or Coptic word. In cases where transliteration seems appropriate, the systems specified in The SBL Handbook of Style, §§5.1-9; pp. 25-31, should be used. 3. Only the SBL Biblical Fonts (SBL Greek Font and SBL Hebrew Font) are to be used (Nota bene: We no longer use the older, outdated SP Legacy fonts). Manuscripts must be submitted with these newer fonts for them to be considered, so please revise your manuscripts accordingly. You can find the SBL fonts at: http://www.sbl-site.org/educational/biblicalfonts.aspx.
Stylistic Guidelines Quotations 1. Quotations of five or more lines in any language will be printed as a separate, indented paragraph without opening and closing quotation marks. Such quotations should be double-spaced, typed in the same font as the body of the article (i.e., Times New Roman, font size 12), and indented in the manuscript. 2. Respect for accuracy in verbatim quotations requires that the spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and abbreviations of the original be reproduced exactly, even if they differ from the style of this journal. Should a quotation contain an error, this may be indicated by [sic] or [?], at the author’s discretion. Note that the editor may change initial capitalization or final punctuation according to the quote’s syntactical relationship to the surrounding text (see CMS, §§11.16-18 and 11.57).
1. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively using arabic numerals, double-spaced, and gathered together at the bottom of the page or at the end of the article. (Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page in the Journal itself.) No period is to be placed after the number at the beginning of the footnote. 2. A raised arabic numeral (without punctuation or parentheses) should follow the appropriate word in the text (and its punctuation, if any) to call attention to the note. Footnotes should not accompany titles or subtitles, and, insofar as possible, footnotes should occur at the end of the sentence. 3. Multiple footnotes within one sentence should be avoided. For example, when several names occur in one sentence and a bibliographical reference is to be given for each, only one footnote should be used (not a separate footnote for each name). This should be placed at the end of the sentence and should include the pertinent reference for each name. 4. Ibid. (set in roman) is used to refer to a single work cited in the immediately preceding note. If the preceding note contains more than one citation, ibid. cannot be used; a short title plus page reference is employed instead. If ibid. is to refer to the preceding citation exactly, including page number(s), ibid. appears alone. If the page number(s) differs, ibid. plus page reference is used. Examples:
5. The use of idem is discouraged. Instead, when several works by the same author are cited within the same note, the author’s last name is repeated. Example:
Or the note could be handled this way:
6. When a footnote comments on an issue and includes a bibliographical reference within a sentence, the reference should be set entirely within parentheses, not commas, and if possible at the end of the sentence. Example:
7. The following are general footnote formatting guidelines (see The SBL Handbook of Style, §§6.2-4 for complete guidelines):
8. Sample footnote styles are available on the Footnote Style sheet.
See The SBL Handbook of Style, §§8.1-3.
See The SBL Handbook of Style, §8.4.1-2. Titles not found in this list are to be written out in full, except WTJ.
1. In articles or critical notes discussing biblical verses, the author should provide the reader with the text of the verse (at least in an English translation) at the beginning of the discussion. 2. Overcapitalization is to be avoided (e.g., biblical, temple). See The SBL Handbook of Style, Appendix A (pp. 153-64) as well as §§4.4.5 (pp. 19-20) and 4.4.7 (pp. 20-21). 3. Abbreviations such as e.g., i.e., viz., and etc. (all set in roman) are welcome in footnotes, but in the body of the text are to be used within parenthesis marks only. In the body of the text, e.g. should be spelled out as “for example” or “for instance”; i.e., as “that is”; viz., as “namely” or “that is to say.” Etc. can be spelled out as “and so forth” or “and the like.” However, it is often better to avoid the use of etc. by simply bringing a list to an end, as in the following example:
4. “Books of the Bible cited without chapter or chapter and verse should be spelled out in the main text. Books of the Bible cited with chapter or chapter and verse should be abbreviated, unless they come at the beginning of the sentence. All occurrences of biblical books in parentheses and footnotes should be abbreviated” (SBL Handbook, §8.2; pp. 71-72). Examples:
5. Some possessive rules:
6. Use of the hyphen and en dash:
7. The problem of “gender-specific language” is considered a stylistic question that authors must resolve on their own. Contributors are encouraged, however, to avoid offending the sensibilities of readers whenever possible. Thoughtless repetition of “man” in its generic sense, for example, is not advisable, but neither is the excessive use of the contrived “he or she” or the use of generic “she.” For a balanced discussion that is sensitive to both social and stylistic concerns, the editors recommend William Zinsser, On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction (4th ed.; San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990), 117-20. 8. Contributors may, at their discretion, use either traditional or more recent alternate abbreviations for chronological periods. The editors do not believe that the use of B.C./A.D. represents disrespect for Jewish and other non-Christian readers, but writers who prefer B.C.E./C.E. are at liberty to follow that preference. The terminology “Old Testament” and “New Testament” (generally abbreviated “OT” and “NT”) is also considered to be completely appropriate, though some authors may wish to use the equivalents, “Hebrew Bible” (abbreviated “HB”) or “Hebrew/Christian Scriptures.” (rev. date 3/15) |
