Please try to
follow these as far as possible, but remembering that the Editor and his
staff are there to back you up. Exceptions can always be made if
particular circumstances justify them, though they should be consistently
applied and notified to the Editor.
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knowledge of the topic; try to make your title both clear and attractive.
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The Way follows modern British
spelling (though quotations are reproduced exactly) unless there is reason for special
provision—the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors is taken as
authoritative, though we prefer ‘judgment’ to ‘judgement’.
‘-ise’ is used
when the root derives from Latin (realise, recognise); ‘-ize’
when it derives from Greek (emphasize, baptize).
Possessives of nouns
ending in ‘s’ take the form s’s (Jones's), except in the case of biblical names or those that are classical or classicising (Jesus’, Ignatius’).
Single consonants
should be used in words such as ‘focusing’.
Italics are used for book titles and foreign words; please use sparingly for emphasis.
Upper Case—if in doubt, stay lower case
‘Church’ to
refer to a faith grouping (the Church of England); ‘church’ to a building.
‘Bible’, but ‘biblical’. Generally ‘incarnation’,
‘atonement’, ‘christology’, ‘christological’, ‘passion’, ‘resurrection’, ‘scripture’. ‘The Gospel of St John’ (text), but ‘the gospel (good news) proclaimed by
Jesus Christ’. The Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop McGarry (personal
identifiers) were present, as well as several other archbishops and
bishops (offices).
All but words except conjunctions, articles and prepositions in English-language book and
article titles, and in subtitles within the article, are upper case: The
Importance of Being Earnest. Foreign titles follow the conventions normal
in the original language.
While a few of our articles may be demanding, complex or academic, we always bear in mind that English is not the first language of all our readers, and ask authors to keep their style straightforward. The Way has a preference for simple, short sentences.
In general, there
should be no more than one qualifying phrase or clause before the main
clause of a sentence: ‘According to the authors, since the end of the
Second World War the world has got worse’ should be changed to ‘According
to the authors, the world has got worse since the end of the Second World
War’. Similarly, the main verb of a subordinate clause should not be too
far from its conjunction: ‘The authors think that the world is a great
deal worse since the Second World War ended’ is better than ‘The authors think that, since the Second World War ended, the world is a great deal
worse’.
Subheadings should break up the text
at appropriate points. We prefer not to introduce numbering or different
levels of subheading unless clearly necessary, though we do have provision
for sub-subheadings.
Please use ‘humanity’ in preference to ‘mankind’ or ‘man’. Avoid generic ‘he’, but do not use
cumbersome or pointed strategies. It is usually preferable to recast text in the plural (‘readers often find ...’ rather than ‘the reader’) than to use
‘he or she’ more than once or twice, or ‘they’ in the singular, which can create confusion.
The Way prefers to avoid
gender-specific pronouns with regard to God, but will respect the
convictions of an author who wishes to maintain them. However, if the
convention of referring to God as a male is kept, then please capitalize
as ‘He’, ‘His’, to signal some kind of disanalogy—Jesus of Nazareth and
Jesus Christ are ‘he’; ‘the Second Person of the Trinity’ is ‘He’.
‘America’ is never used to
refer only to the United States; please use US and US American, and North America only if you mean to include Canada and Central America.
Please use footnotes rather
than endnotes.
Brief references (biblical references, page numbers in a work that is cited a lot) can be
made within the text; anything longer becomes a note.
Scripture should be cited as
follows: Matthew 5:1-6; 2 Maccabees 7:4-7. We prefer
NRSV.
Spiritual Exercises, italicised and always in full, refers to the
text; ‘Exercises’or ‘Spiritual Exercises’ refers to the process.
Ignatian texts can be cited as: Exx
15.1; Constitutions X.1.1 [810]; Diary, 15 February 1544. Note that verses
are separated by a point, not a colon. These are our standard editions and abbreviations:
Autobiography |
‘Reminiscences (Autobiography)’, in Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, translated by Philip Endean and Joseph A. Munitiz (London: Penguin, 1996). |
Constitutions |
in The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996). |
Diary |
‘The Spiritual Diary’, in Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, translated by Philip Endean and Joseph A. Munitiz (London: Penguin, 1996). |
Dir |
On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of 1599, translated and edited by Martin E. Palmer (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996). |
Exx |
The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, translated by George E. Ganss (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992). |
Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu as: MHSJ EI 12, 456;
MHSJ MN 5, 556-557, etc.
Jesuit General Congregations should be cited from Jesuit Life and Mission Today: The Decrees and Accompanying Documents of the 31st – 35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009), as General Congregation 34, decree 2, in Jesuit Life and Mission Today.
Full bibliographical
references are made in line with the following examples:
books |
Nicholas
Lash, Easter in Ordinary: Reflections on Human Experience and the
Knowledge of God (London: SCM, 1988). |
articles |
Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle, ‘Angels Black and White:
Loyola’s Spiritual Discernment in Historical Perspective’,
Theological Studies, 44 (1983), 241–257. |
more complex texts |
Karl Lehmann, ‘Introduction’, in The Content of Faith: The Best of Karl Rahner's Theological Writings, edited by Karl Lehmann and Albert Raffelt,
translation edited by Harvey D. Egan (New York: Crossroad, 1994
[1977]), 1–41, here 25. |
|
Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, volume 20, translated by E. Quinn (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1981). |
online sources |
Michael Paul Gallagher, ‘Theology and Imagination: From Theory to Practice’, Christian Higher Education, 5/1 (2006), 83–96, here 84. Available at http://www.plaything.co.uk/gallagher/academic/ theol_imag.html, accessed 2 April 2014. |
Article titles should not be followed by a
comma if they end in punctuation (e.g. ‘?’ or ‘!’).
Places of
publication should only include US states if there is danger of
ambiguity (Cambridge, Ma), or if the place is very unfamiliar. Please use the form ‘Ma’, ‘Tx’, etc.,
with no full stop.
Publishers: ‘Press’ is generally omitted. Use ‘UP’
for ‘University Press’, and abbreviate further if publisher is obvious
from place of publication, e.g. (Oxford: OUP, 2001), but (New York: Oxford
UP, 2001).
Page references: do not use ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’; please avoid using
‘ff.’
Repeat citations should be cited using surname and brief title
(Dickens, Bleak House, 445). Never use ibid., idem or op. cit., and consolidate successive
citations of the same text where possible.
There is no need to put a date of accessing for established websites that do not change very often, such as the Vatican, and major newspapers and journals.
Dashes: please use ‘em’
dashes without space. ‘The Prime Minister—none other than David Cameron—gave
the speech.’ Hyphens should be used
minimally; if in doubt omit. ‘Sixteenth-century English’, but ‘first
class degree’. Always use en-dashes between ranges of numbers.
Points of omission are
indicated by an ellipsis (Ctl + Alt + ‘.’in MS Word). The ellipsis is
treated as a word in its own right:
Within a sentence it
has a space either side.
At the end of the
sentence it is followed by a full stop.
If it substitutes for the first words of a sentence, there is a space
between it and the full stop at the end of the previous sentence (though
we’ll avoid ‘…. …’).
Unless there seems some good
reason in context, we will not scruple about capitalization at the
beginning of such a sentence: ‘The book is very good. … It is
the best thing I have ever read … on the subject. … we need to do
something with it.’
Please try to follow UK
conventions about quotation marks:
Single quotation marks,
reserving double quotation marks for quotations within a quotation.
Final punctuation OUTSIDE the
quotation mark, except where the quotation is a whole sentence or longer.
Displayed quotations (where a quotation is four lines or longer) are
introduced:
with a comma if the syntax
flows from the main text;
otherwise with a colon;
never with a point.
Letters after a
person’s name, without full stops or comma: (Paul Nicholson SJ).
No full
stop in common acronyms such as USA and UK, or after US states (Ma, Tx). No full stop where an abbreviation ends with the same letter as the complete word (so Mr, but Rev.).
Avoid abbreviations of Latin
phrases such as ‘e.g.’, ‘i.e.’: better to use a full English
expression—‘for example’, ‘in other words’.
If the items are named by
complex phrases, please separate them with semi-colons. ‘Among the themes
discussed were: the Franco dictatorship; the Poll Tax and its effect on
the Thatcher government; the shortcomings of the Nixon presidency.’
If the items listed are
referred to in shorter phrases, please separate them with commas,
including one before the final ‘and’ unless the sentence is perfectly
clear without it: ‘There were apples, pears and oranges in the fruit bowl’;
BUT ‘on the drinks tray, there was white wine from France, port from
Portugal, and a liqueur from Eastern Europe’.
One-word numbers are
generally written out in full (six, seven).
Dates and other numbers are
written in numerals (1976, 4,400 years, 23).
Ranges of numbers are written
out numerically in full (17-19, 223-229).
Dates are generally written
out as follows: 16 August 2000, 7 April 1976.
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