Format and Style Guide

Entry Style Guide

  • Entries should be professional and academic in tone, without bias.
  • Entries should be biographical, focused on the Subject rather than a denomination, teaching, or era.
  • Entries should have all information specified on the What Each Biography Should Contain page.
  • Word Count is 500 for local Subjects, 1000 for regional, and 1500 for global.
  • Generative AI should not be used to generate text.
  • Please do not use Facebook pages or online text from a church/ministry site as your text.
  • Please ensure accuracy of all facts, quotes, data, anecdotes.

For Further Reading

Please submit 3-8 resources for further reading. Recommended are:

  • any autobiography of your Subject
  • a landmark biography
  • the Subject's key authored work(s)
  • their specific ministry web article/video, if appropriate
  • any key source or source of numerical data in your entry

Up to 8 sources can be listed. Non-professional sources (e.g. YouTube) may not be applicable. Please make sure any links are working at the time of submission.

Bibliography Style

Please provide resources in simple Chicago style:

Synan, Vinson. The Old-Time Power: A History of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. 1st ed. Franklin Springs: Advocate Press, 1973.

Onyinah, Opoku. "African Christianity in the Twenty-first Century." Word & World 27, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 305-314. Google Scholar. https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/27-3_What_is_a_Christian/African%20Christianity%20in%20the%20Twenty-first%20Century.pdf.

Other Information

Non-English languages: You may work with your regional editor to submit an entry in more than one language. Please make sure non-English entries are edited and proofread before sending. This includes the header information, author bio, and bibliography.

Author bio: Please submit a 1-2 sentence professional biography of all authors involved with the entry, in order of preference. We do not print church titles in the bio (Bishop, Rev., Pastor), nor academic titles or credentials (Dr., ThM). However, we do request your academic institution and/or place(s) of employment and position(s).

Header information: Please ensure full name of Subject, correct years of birth/death, correct geographic locations, and correct religious traditions and offices are in the header information. These serve as search terms, so "Methodist" or "Orthodox" can be used in conjunction with "Pentecostal" or "Charismatic" to aid filtering. Names of churches, or regional- or sub-denominations (Greek Orthodox, International Methodist Pentecostal) do not go here, but in the entry.

Photography

A significant part of each entry is a reputable photograph of each Subject:

  • Please send as high resolution of a photo as possible.
  • Do not send a group shot—crop a single headshot.
  • Please ensure no logos or text are superimposed on the photo.
  • Please supply written consent or notice of public domain/creative commons when you submit your entry. If the photo is not specifically public domain or CC-SA licensed, please ensure that you obtain written permission from the source for online distribution in an educational resource. We cannot accept any photo that does not have permissions accompanying it unless it is verifiably public domain. Social media photos, photos on websites, libraries/archives, Google Books, or other public sites are still under copyright and cannot be used, even if altered, without written consent of the owner. An email from family or church can suffice for non-public photos.
  • Please add an approximate date of the photo and any caption/credit information that the copyright owner requested.