Differences from Turabian Standards

Turabian requires that citations include the names of editors of individual books but not the names of series editors. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity, Tyndale encourages the omission of the name of the series editor.

Turabian §11.1.6.2 requires that publisher names be reproduced "exactly as it appears on the title page, even if you know the name has since changed or appears in a different form from other books in your bibliography." However, for the sake of convenience and consistency, Tyndale allows and encourages the use of standard shortened versions of publisher names. For example, "William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: may be shortened to "Eerdmans." A list of standardized, shortened version publisher names is provided in The SBL Handbook of Style (2nd ed.). If a standardized shortened name does not exist, students should use the full name.

Turabian §17.1.8.2 states that you may use a short title form for the book when you cite two or more essays from the same edited collection. However, this practice is discouraged at Tyndale.

In footnotes, standard lexicons may be cited using well-known abbreviations/acronyms rather than their full titles. For example, 

1 BDAG, s.v. “πιστεύω.”

2 HALOT, s.v. “אמן.” 

Tyndale encourages the use of the abbreviations in The SBL Handbook of Style (2nd ed.) rather than the abbreviations in Turabian §24. If students use the latter, they should do so consistently throughout a paper. 

When listing multiple references, list them in canonical order and

• use a colon (:) to separate the chapter from the verse or verse range within that chapter

• use a semicolon (;) to separate different books and different chapters of books

• use a comma (,) to separate different verses within the same chapter.

The use of the semicolon allows for full disambiguation between chapter numbers and verse numbers. The use of only the comma in Turabian §17.8.2 can lead to confusion between the two in complex lists of references.

• Students should use standardized titles for patristic literature found in The SBL Handbook of Style §8.3.3-17 or The Oxford Classical Dictionary.  Students may use either the English titles or traditional Latin or Greek titles, but they must do so consistently for all non-biblical ancient sources.

• When listing multiple Bible references, use a semicolon (;) to separate different books and different chapters within a book, and use a comma (,) to separate different verses within the same chapter. The use of the semicolon allows for disambiguation of chapter and verse numbers and avoids potential confusion caused by the method described in Turabian §17.8.2.

• When paraphrasing and summarizing material from the church fathers and other ancient sources, students should follow Turabian §17.8. However, when quoting from English translations of these works, the translator must be noted in parentheses and the secondary source must be included in the bibliography. There are two exceptions to this rule:

  • If quoting from a standard English translation, such as The Ante-Nicene Fathers or The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (series 1 or 2), the series, volume, and page number may be cited instead of the specific translator.

  • If quoting from a secondary source that is merely quoting an ancient source in English, follow the standard for citing a source within a source.