Introduction. English language Manual of Style

ENGLISH LANGUAGE MANUAL OF STYLE

PART 3

БОГОСЛОВСКИЕ РАБОТЫ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

ЧАСТЬ 3

Contents:

Introduction

1. Manuscript Standards

2. Reference Notes

3. Bibliographies

4. Parenthetical References and Reference Lists

5. Examples

6. Sources in Languages other than English

7. Translated Sources

8. The English Bible

9. Electronic Sources

Appendix 1: Transliteration of Slavic alphabets

Appendix 2: Geographical names

Appendix 3: Capitalization

Bibliography

To make scholarly theological writing from the countries of the former Soviet Union available to the widest readership possible, Bogoslovskie razmyshleniia/ Theological Reflections publishes all articles both in the language of the author and in English. As straightforward as that sounds, it has meant that many curious and unanticipated problems have had to be solved in the editing process.

Because the writers who contribute to the journal have been educated on different continents and in different languages and scholarly traditions, their work inevitably reflects a variety of approaches to organizing information. Moreover, even the most skillful translators do not always have the tools available to produce an accurate rendering of a theological article. While it would be impossible to compile a manual that would cover all possible editing situations, the following information on standard American scholarly usage has been collected to help writers and translators avoid the problems that occur most frequently, especially in creating adequate notes and bibliographies.

However, that task is also not as straightforward as it sounds. No single authoritative body exists in the United States to establish standards for American scholarly writing. The general consensus is that The Chicago Manual of Style, published by the University of Chicago Press, is a reliable basic guide. However, even sources that claim to rely mainly on The Chicago Manual of Style may disagree with one another on details.

Why should this be so? Scholarly usage has its own sub-categories. One of the sources consulted to compile this manual (see Bibliography) lists eight headings in its bibliography covering additional volumes on writing related to different disciplines—social sciences, humanities, engineering, and so on. That is, every field has its own nuances depending on what aspects of scholarly apparatus are of particular significance to that field.

For example, the sciences commonly use parenthetical references with a reference list (author-date style) because that style presents the date of publication first, which is important in fields that are constantly being brought up to date. Biblical studies and theology, on the other hand, use humanities style that emphasizes precision in citing the author’s full name, edition number, translator’s name, and so on.

Naturally, if there are bound to be differences in the way that scholars prefer to arrange information, we may expect the same from post-Soviet theological authors translated into English! Therefore, if a writer or translator finds exceptions to the guidelines laid down here, it will come as no surprise. Just as “…common sense and flexibility has always been a fundamental and abiding principle…” of The Chicago Manual of Style, [54] so should it be of the EAAA!

Wherever it has not been possible to find an existing written standard for specific stylistic issues, such as how to treat sources translated from other languages into Russian, I have relied on bibliographies of scholarly books to cull the basic pattern.

Finally, some readers may wonder why the EAAA standard is American and not British. The decision is somewhat arbitrary, but is basically due to the frequency of contact between evangelical scholars from the United States and Eurasia. Over the last fifteen years enough theological scholars from the former Soviet Union have received higher education in the United States and enough professors from there have worked and taught in the former Soviet Union to make American style familiar.

Mary Raber

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