A-Z Resource List

This online supplement for students in PDF format from the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) site gives pertinent information and multiple sample entries for a footnote and bibliography entries, as well as a sample paper formatted in SBL style.

This guide for creating citations for web sources is based on a September 23, 2015 email to Dr. Jane Webster, Barton College Professor of Religion and Philosophy, from Nicole Tilford, Production Manager with SBL Press. It supplements what the SBL Handbook of Style says about how to cite electronic sources.

This sample paper by Dr. Jane Webster uses footnotes for the secondary sources used within the paper (with the superscript numbers in the text corresponding to the same numbers for the footnotes at the bottom of the page), and in-text or parenthetical citations for the primary sources (the biblical passages: book, chapter, and verse). In the bibliography at the end of the paper, note that the information is the same as the information in the footnotes at the bottom of the page, but it is formatted differently.

This article by Dr. Rod Werline shows how a published work looks when formatted in SBL style. Note that unlike a paper turned in for an assignment, the text is single- rather than double-spaced, but the footnotes look the same as they would for an assignment. (This article sample does not include a bibliography.)

This tutorial by Dan Gookin from Word 2013 for Dummies is very useful in demonstrating how to use the Word 2013 footnote feature to insert footnotes into your document, including the superscript number in the text of your document as well as the corresponding footnote at the bottom of the page in your document. (Ignore the directions for using endnotes in this tutorial.)