Michael Milton

Michael Milton and Faith for Living, Inc.

Online Citation Management

The following post is intended for use by my theological students. The post comes from an answer to a student about a specific concern. The response grew to the larger topic of citation management systems. We trust this might be of assistance to others.

ON CITATIONS AND FORMATTING KEYWORDS: TURABIAN, STYLE GUIDE, CITIES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, CITATION MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS, ZOTERO, ENDNOTE, ERSKINE, STUDENTS, FAQ, 9th EDITION, CONCORDIA, PATCH, FIX, FOOTNOTES, PEER-REVIEW JOURNAL ARTICLES, FORMATTING

To your writing question: check with the Turabian-Chicago style guide and you will see that if no city of publication is listed, then, of course, you can’t enter it. If you use Zotero, the free online bibliography reference generator and library storage software; or, Endnote, the premier software (but with a cost of around $60 or so—student price—but one I urge my students to consider). When one clicks on the, e.g., Safari or Chrome add-on icon (Zotero or Endnote add-ones, both are available), the respective program will automatically place the citation in your selected library group (e.g., “My Module 1 Library,” or “Vocation class”), and format it according to your settings. Endnote has an advantage of also having a “Cite-While-You-Write” add-on for Word and Apple Pages. Zotero has one, too, but not quite as intuitive to research writers, in my humble opinion.

A note on Zotero and the Erskine-required Turabian 9th edition: Zotero has not yet released the Turabian 9th edition style. It still uses the 8th edition (from 2012, I think). Erskine Seminary, like most other graduate schools of theology, requires Turabian 9th. Alternatively, and, predictably, for a paid service, Endnote has the latest edition of all style guides, including Turabian (which is, as you might know from undergraduate school, a derivative of the Chicago Style, developed by a Mrs. Kate Turabian, a faculty secretary at University of Chicago, for Humanities, especially Theology and Religious Studies).

Mercifully, there exists a temporary “fix” for this Zotero zinger. A clever Concordia Theological (Lutheran) Seminary (Fort Wayne, Indiana) student has created a “patch.” Download and install the “fix” and Zotero will begin formatting in Turabian 9th Edition. Here is the URL for Concordia: https://www.ctsfw.edu/resources/more-library-resources/citation-and-formatting-help/zotero-styles/

References (surprisingly, NOT formatted! Just giving some aid here.)

Both Zotero and the Concordia patch are available in either Mac (latest update) or Windows (or Linux).