Accepted file types

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. You do not need to follow a template, but please ensure your heading levels are clear, and the sections clearly defined.

The LaTeX files are also accepted. A LaTeX template is available on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Your article title, keywords, and abstract all contribute to its position in search engine results, directly affecting the number of people who see your work. For details of what you can do to influence this, visit How to help readers find your article online.

Title

Your manuscript’s title should be concise, descriptive, unambiguous, accurate, and reflect the precise contents of the manuscript. A descriptive title that includes the topic of the manuscript makes an article more findable in the major indexing services.

Abstract

Please include an abstract of 50-150 words between the title and main body of your manuscript that concisely states the purpose of the research, major findings, and conclusions.

Keywords

Please include a minimum upto 5-6 keywords, listed after the abstract. Keywords should be as specific as possible to the research topic.

Please read the following style guidelines for Feminist Theology carefully:

GENERAL

Quoted matter, if more than four lines, should normally be indented, without quotation marks.

Quotations of up to four lines should form part of the text, and should be indicated by single quotation marks. Double quotation marks should be used only for quotations within quotations.

In general, foreign words and phrases should be italicized, both in main text and footnotes. Greek and Hebrew should be transliterated.

-ize spellings should be used (recognize, emphasize, organization, etc. BUT analyse, exercise, etc.).

Contributors from North America may use North American spelling and punctuation.

Headings: Please mark up heading levels 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1 etc. These will be removed later, but are helpful to the typesetter to assign heading styles.

Authors of articles and book reviews will be sent a first proof and will normally be expected to return these within two weeks of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical errors or to specific questions raised by the editors.

For further reference, The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (Clarendon Press 1981) is recommended.

GENDER & LANGUAGE

Where a gender-inclusive alternative is possible, it is to be preferred. e.g. 'humanity' rather than 'man' when referring to both sexes.

When personal pronouns are used both sexes should generally be included. e.g. 'The Christian has to acknowledge his or her dependence on grace'.

(If this seems clumsy, use plural forms: 'Christians have to acknowledge their dependence on grace'.)

UPPER & LOWER CASE

Use lower case for personal pronouns of divine persons other than at the beginning of sentences: he, his, etc.

In the case of the Church, use upper and lower case as follows:

Upper case (a) for the whole Church

(b) for a denomination, e.g. the Church of England

Lower case (a) for the building

(b) for the local church

(c) as an adjective: church teaching

also: churchgoer but High Church

In the case of the Scriptures, use upper and lower case as follows:

(a) Bible and Scripture but biblical and scriptural

(b) Gospel - when referring to a canonical book

(c) gospel - when speaking in more general terms

(d) Kingdom of God but cross, crucifixion, resurrection, etc.

ABBREVIATIONS

Use of full stops in abbreviations:

When an abbreviation is formed by cutting a word short, a full stop must be used at the end; when an abbreviation is formed by the omission of internal letters, a full stop is not generally used.

Thus: Rel. but Sgt

Note: Prof. Revd St Dr Mr

BC, AD, CE, BCE should be unpunctuated and set in small capitals.

Note the following abbreviations:

1. (editor, edited by)

trans. (translator, translated by)

rev. (reviser, revised by)

edn (edition)

repr. (reprint)

vol./vols. (volume)

VERBAL STYLE and SPELLING

Brackets within brackets should be square, e.g. G.H. Jones ('The Decree of Yawweh', VT 15 [1965], pp. 336-44). However, the major exception to this rule is that square brackets indicating text inserted into a quotation by the author stay in square brackets, e.g. [sic].

Numerals are written out in full when they are ten or below, when they begin a sentence and when they are an even hundred, thousand, million, etc. But sometimes it is better to have consistency rather than follow this rule. Numbers of centuries should always be written out in full: twentyfirst century; nineteenth century etc. Use Roman numerals for vol. numbers of books, and series numbers; and Arabic numbers for journal issue nos.

Possessives. For possessives of proper names ending in a (pronounced) s add 's, e.g. Child's Introduction, Jones's views. The exception is for ancient names, e.g. Jesus', Barthes', Descartes' etc.

Ellipses: all quotations are in the nature of things an extract from a longer text, so ellipses should not be used simply to indicate that in the original text there are preceding and following words.

Use:

focused, focusing etc (not focussed, focussing)

first, secondly, or first, second (but not firstly)

acknowledgment, judgment

analyse (but analyze in American spelling)

'E.g.' and 'i.e.' are only permissible in the body of the text if they introduce a list or are within brackets. Likewise, please avoid 'etc.' unless it is in a footnote.

Please do not use op. cit. and avoid ibid.

Avoid 'f.' and 'ff.'

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Please observe the following abbreviations:

Gen. , Exod, Song., Isa., Lev., Jer., Num., Lam., Deut., Ezek., Josh., Dan., Judg., Hos., Ruth, Joel, Sam., Amos, Kgs, Obad., Chron., Jon., Ezra, Mic., Neh., Nah., Est., Hab., Job, Zeph., Ps. (plural Pss.), Hag., Prov., Zech., Eccl., Mal.,

Mt., Col., Mk., Thess., Lk., Tim., Jn, Tit., Acts, Phlm., Rom., Heb., Cor., Jas., Gal., Pet., Eph., Jn, Phil., Jude, Rev.

Use Arabic numerals throughout: 2 Cor. not II Cor.

Full stops between chapter and verse numbers: Lk. 6.12

Hyphens to mark sequences of verses: Mt. 3.6-8 Lk. 6.10-12 Jn 10.12-14, 16 (N.B. the space after the comma).

En rules for sequences extending beyond a single chapter: Mt. 6-9

Semicolons to divide distinct references to different chapters of the same book: John 6.15; 14.12

Semicolons to divide single references to separate books: Lk. 4.12; 2 Cor. 3.8

Biblical references may be placed in parentheses in the text - e.g. (Mt. 2.6-8)

- or in the footnotes but please be consistent.

Footnote Style

The following conventions should be followed in footnotes. Please note articles from periodicals or titles of book chapters are printed within single quotation marks. Book titles are in italics.

Journal article:

25. Barrett, 'Theology as Grammar: Regulative Principles or Paradigms and Practices?', Modern Theology 25.2 (1988), pp. 155-72.

Book:

Colin E. Gunton, The One, The Three and The Many (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1993), pp. 56-59.

Chapter/article in a collected volume:

J.L. Martyn, 'Have we Found Elijah?', in R. Hamerton-Kelly and R. Scroggs (eds.), Jews, Greeks and Christians: Cultures in Late Aniquity (trans. J. Smith; SJLA, 21; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2nd edn, 1976).

Short title

When a book, a chapter or an article is referred to again, after its first occurrence, a short title form is used, e.g. Martyn, 'Have we Found Elijah?', p. 235.

Bibliography

The order of data in the bibliography is the following:

Element of Bibliography followed by

author(s), editor(s) (ed., eds.) comma

title opening round bracket

editor (ed.) (if there is an editor as well as an author) semicolon

translator (trans.) semicolon

series comma

number in series semicolon

number of volumes (e.g. 2 vols.) semicolon

reprint status (repr.) comma

place of publication colon

publisher comma

edition (e.g. 2nd edn, rev. edn) comma

date closing round bracket,

full stop

e.g. Smith, M., and D. Jones (eds.), Book Title, I (trans. Z. Smith; JSOTSup, 100; 2 vols.; place: publisher, edn, date).

Note: not all of these elements are appropriate for every book, of course!

The following conventions should be observed in the bibliography and footnotes:

1. When the reference is to a nineteenth-century or older work the publisher's name may be omitted.

The following conventions should be observed in the bibliography and footnotes:

1. When the reference is to a nineteenth-century or older work the publisher's name may be omitted.
2. Page references should be in the following form: pp. 92-98, pp. 153-79 but pp. 107-109, pp. 107-114. Avoid the use of 'f.' and 'ff.'
3. For more than three authors or editors it is permissible to use et al.
4. In the bibliography, multiple entries for an author may be arranged either in chronological or alphabetical order.
5. Title and subtitle. Between the title and subtitle of a book there should be a colon, not a full stop (though occasionally a book has a more complicated title and a full stop is more appropriate).
6. More than one place of publication. When a publisher has more than one office, only the first stated or the head office should be given.
7. More than one publisher. Where a book has been published by more than one publisher, use the following style:

Exeter: Paternoster Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Author-Date (Social Science) Style

The function of the author-date style of referencing is to reduce the need for footnotes, by embedding references to cited works in the text in abbreviated form (e.g. Brown 1980: 123).

Note there is no punctuation after the author's name and a space always follows the colon between the date and the page reference (which omits 'p.' or 'pp.').

Several works by the same author are cited by date only, the dates being separated by commas; when page numbers are given, the year dates are separated by semicolons:

(Jones 1963, 1972a, 1986)

(Jones 1963a: 10; 1972; 1986: 123)

Where there are authors with the same surname, initials should be included.

In bibliography

In the Bibliography, the basic forms of the author-date style are illustrated here:

Jones, A. 1980 On Consistency (HSM, 9; Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn).

1986a 'Second Thoughts: An Addendum', Journal of Bibliographic Research 30: 12-21.

1986b 'Second Thoughts: A Further Addendum', Journal of Bibliographic Research 30: 332-45.

Smith, H., and P. Smith 1980 'Atonement and Sacrifice in the Qumran Community', in Jones 1980: 321-86.

The order of entries is by year; if there is more than one item from the same year, the dates are labelled a,b,c, etc.

Artwork, figures, and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format, please read Sage’s artwork guidelines.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. If you have requested color reproduction in the print version, we will advise you of the costs on receipt of your accepted article.

Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Statements and declarations

Please include a section with the heading ‘Statements and Declarations’ at the end of your submitted article, after the Acknowledgements section [and Author Contributions section if applicable] including each of the sub-headings listed below. If a declaration is not applicable to your submission, you must still include the heading and state ‘Not applicable’ underneath. Please note that you may be asked to justify why a declaration was not applicable to your submission by the Editorial Office.

Ethical considerations

Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. You can find information on what to say in your ethical statements as well as example statements on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.

All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved the study, or waived the requirement for approval, providing the full name and institution of the review committee in addition to the approval number. If applicable, please also include this information in the Methods section of your manuscript.

Consent to participate

Please include any participant consent information under this heading and state whether informed consent to participate was written or verbal. If the requirement for informed consent to participate has been waived by the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board (i.e. where it has been deemed that consent would be impossible or impracticable to obtain), please state this. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section. More information and example statements can be found on our Publication ethics and research integrity policies page.

Consent for publication

Submissions containing any data from an individual person (including individual details, images or videos) must include a statement confirming that informed consent for publication was provided by the participant(s) or a legally authorized representative. Non-essential identifying details should be omitted. Please do not submit the participant’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent to publish but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file in addition to the statement confirming that consent to publish was obtained within the manuscript text. If this is not applicable to your manuscript, please state ‘Not applicable’ in this section.

Declaration of conflicting interest

The journal requires a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors so that a statement can be included in your article. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, see our policy on conflicting interest declarations and the ICMJE recommendations.

If no conflict exists, your statement should read: ‘The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article’.

Funding statement

All articles need to include a funding statement, under a separate heading, even if you did not receive funding. You’ll find guidance and examples on our Funding page.

Reference style and citations

The journal follows the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms.

Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year.

Authors should update any references to preprints when a peer reviewed version is made available, to cite the published research. Citations to preprints are otherwise discouraged.

EndNote

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file.

Supplemental material

This Journal can host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full text of the article. Your supplemental material must be one of our accepted file types. For that list and more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Author Services. Visit Sage Author Services for further information.

Acknowledgments

If you are including an Acknowledgements section, this will be published at the end of your article. The Acknowledgments section should include all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship. Per ICMJE recommendations, it is best practice to obtain consent from non-author contributors who you are acknowledging in your manuscript.

Writing assistance and third party submissions: if you have received any writing or editing assistance from a third-party, for example a specialist communications company, this must be clearly stated in the Acknowledgements section and in the covering letter. Please see the Sage Author Gateway for what information to include in your Acknowledgements section. If your submission is being made on your behalf by someone who is not listed as an author, for example the third-party who provided writing/editing assistance, you must state this in the Acknowledgements and also in your covering letter. Please note that the journal editor reserves the right to not consider submissions made by a third party rather than by the author/s themselves.

The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers.

Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission.

Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed.

Learn more about our preprint policy.

• We encourage all authors and co-authors ensure their ORCID IDs are linked to their accounts in the submission system prior to article acceptance, as this is the only way to have their ORCID ID present on the published article. ORCID IDs cannot be added to manuscripts after acceptance/publication.
  • Please note that each co-author must log in to the journal submission system to add their own ORCID ID to their account. To add an ORCID ID, edit your account, click the link when prompted, and sign into your ORCID account to validate your ID. You will then be redirected back to the submission system and your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata.
  • Please create an ORCID ID if you do not already have one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.