FOR PH. D., TH.M., AND THESIS STUDENTS
Dissertation & Thesis Resources
Students writing research papers, book reviews, theses, dissertations, or D.Min. projects will find The Southern Seminary Manual of Style helpful in addressing many of their formatting questions. The manual is a supplement to A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, also known as Turabian. The Southern Seminary Manual of Style does not reproduce Turabian style guidelines; rather, it clarifies, specifies, or emends those guidelines to cater to the specific needs of the Seminary and its students. Students are encouraged to acquire a copy of Turabian to use during the course of their degree program(s) at Southern. Students may also find it necessary to consult The Chicago Manual of Style and The SBL Handbook of Style on occasion. The library has all of these resources available for students to consult at the library circulation desk.
We have a SBTS Citation (Turabian) Quick-Guide available. The University of Chicago has also created a Turabian Quick Guide for those wanting a basic list of sample citations.
Use this RDS dissertation/thesis template for working on a dissertation or prospectus.
Access the Chicago/Turabian Manual of Style. Use this site to make sure you have followed all of the Chicago style guidelines not addressed in the SBTS style guide.
Access the content of Society of Biblical Literature Handbook of Style online free of charge through the SBTS library.
Use these dissertation/thesis examples when working on your prospectus or preliminary draft.
Templates
The fourth edition of The Southern Seminary Manual of Style does not provide students with word-processor specific instructions. Instead, templates are available for students to use when beginning a new writing project. These templates have pre-set styles to aid students in formatting their papers. Students are ultimately responsible for ensuring that their final projects conform to The Southern Seminary Manual of Style.
If you see an error in any of the templates, please contact us. We will fix the template and include instructions for those using older versions of the template on the Errata page of this LibGuide.
Note: Microsoft Office is available free to current Boyce and SBTS students and staff. Get it here.
Download the Templates
*Mellel templates contain an .sset file that must be placed in your Mellel Style Sets directory in order to ensure full functionality of the template.
Use this link to submit your preliminary draft or your final draft to be reviewed by the Doctoral Style Reader. All drafts must be submitted as PDF.
Use this document to quickly make sure you have followed all of the SBTS style guidelines closely before submitting your draft, project, paper, or chapter.
Additionally, students may download the SBL BibLit font for Greek and/or Hebrew from the link below.
Use these examples when working on your prospectus.
Resource Links
The Southern Seminary Manual of Style is a supplement to A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, which is itself an enhancement of The Chicago Manual of Style.
Additionally, The Southern Seminary Manual of Style relies on The SBL Handbook of Style for some biblical studies-specific formatting issues.
Students interested in acquiring these resources can click the links below.
Additionally, students may download the SBL BibLit font for Greek and/or Hebrew from the link below.
Related Guides
Zotero — Easing Citation Management
This guide gives a basic introduction to Zotero, a free application that can help create footnotes and bibliographies. Zotero works very well with the LibreOffice and Word templates
Use this document to make sure you have followed all of the SBTS doctoral style guidelines closely before submitting your draft to be reviewed.
Click here for the latest version of the SBTS Manual of Style. Check here for important formatting requirements when writing your dissertation/thesis or other SBTS writing assignments.
Access to the doctoral website page on SBTS.EDU.
Click here to view errata/the list oof updates to the templates.