From Monachos.net
This document is intended for those taking part in the Monachos.net Library Project, and who are thereby involved in proof-reading and editing patristic source texts for inclusion in the Monachos.net library. Additional Project resources are available here.
When editing Monachos.net documents on-line, please follow the guidelines outlined in this document in making corrections and changes to your text.
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General formatting and layout
Please use the default font settings as the system configures them. This means you need do nothing at all vis-a-vis setting the standard font; simply enter text in the on-line editor for the document without attempting to set any special font tags.
Please do not centre text on the page—this includes titles, chapter headings and so forth, all of which should be flushed left on the page as the system will align them by default.
Sub-titles / section titles within a text should not have a full stop (period) following them. In the on-line editor, simply surround sectional titles with four equal-signs on each end, on its own line (e.g. ====This is a sectional title====), and the system will automatically convert to a larger, boldface font, etc.
For help on editing pages and formatting text, please see Help:Editing Pages and Help:Formatting.
Spelling
The official spelling standard for Monachos.net is British (UK) English. For all secondary text documents published on the web site (that is, articles, essays, commentaries, etc) we require that other English spelling systems be converted to UK English for publication; however, for source text documents, which are usually digitisations of earlier printed works, spelling should be left in its originally produced format (thus American English if so in the original document). As you are proofing your document, please ensure that spelling is consistent (e.g. that 'Savior' in the beginning does not become 'Saviour' later in the text, etc).
Capitalisation
The official capitalisation standard for Monachos.net follows academic guidelines for UK English texts, which in general favour a reduced number of capitalised terms in comparison with American style standards (for example, relative pronouns relating to God are not normally capitalised, nor are the terms 'fathers', 'patristic', and so on). However, with regard to source texts in translation, as provided from earlier printed and scanned works, the capitalisation preferences of the original may be maintained. As you are proofing your document, please be attentive to ensure that capitalisation remains consistent throughout the text.
As a general rule, the word 'church' should be capitalised when referring to the Christian body (e.g. 'The Church is a sacramental harbour...'), but printed in lower-case when referring to the church building (e.g. 'Go into the church and pray...'). It should also be capitalised when used in the title of a specific church ('the Church of Rome teaches...').
Punctuation
For the most part, punctuation may be left as found in the original document. However, Library Project editors are invited to make corrections to punctuation markings as appropriate—which may be especially relevant in older translations, where semi-colon (;) usage differs greatly from that of modern English.
Please be vigilant to the matter of scanned commas (,) and full stops (.), which are often misinterpreted by scanning software. You may notice that what should be commas appear as full stops and vice-versa; please correct as appropriate.
In accordance with UK English practice, Monachos.net employs single inverted commas (i.e. single quotation marks [' ... '] around quoted text, and reserves double inverted commas (double quotation marks [" ... "]) for quotations within quotations. Please note that this is the opposite case to American English usage. Thus the proper usage of marks for a quotation might look like the following:
- The high priest said, 'Take your offering, which is called "show bread", into the altar', and this the people did.
Commas and other punctuation following quoted terms should generally appear outside the inverted commas/quotation marks (again, this is a different practice from many American style systems). Thus:
- The term 'light', and not 'brightness', is the preferred terminology for 'the experience of the divine'.
Please ensure that dashes between hyphenated words are single (short) dashes (i.e. 'sixth-century'), and that dashes offsetting parenthetical remarks in a text are long (em) dashes, with no spaces before or after (e.g. 'the world—and not an escape from the world—is the subject of ascetical attention').
Key terminology
When proofing your document, please change any and all occurrences of 'Holy Ghost' to 'Holy Spirit'.
Biblical references
Biblical references should be provided as either the full name of the biblical book (e.g. '1 Corinthians') or the standardised abbreviated version (see next bullet point) without a full stop at its end (e.g. '1 Cor' but not '1 Cor.'); and the name of the book should be followed by chapter and verse, separated by a full stop rather than a colon (thus '1 Cor 1.5' and not '1 Cor 1:5'). A span of verses should be indicated with a dash (e.g. '1 Cor 1.5-9'); but if the span is two verses only, these should be indicated with a comma and a space rather than a dash (e.g. '1 Cor 1.5, 6').
The standardised abbreviated forms of biblical book names can be found at the web site of the Journal of Early Christian Studies
Activating biblical references as links
To make biblical references link to the text of the passage on-line, simply surround the reference with <bible></bible>, tags. When you preview/save the document, these references will automatically be hyperlinked (so <bible>1 Cor 1.5</bible> will become 1 Cor 1.5
, etc).
Endnotes and note references in the text
All endnote references in the text (if there are any in your document) should be converted the Monachos.net style note markers, using <ref>...</ref> tags in the on-line editor. This will mean replacing the note references in the text as you find them in the original document. Please do not make any attempt to hyperlink the note references—this will be done automatically by the system if you enter the <ref>...</ref> markers appropriately.
To create an endnote:
Part A - Placing notes in the text: In the text, at the location where you wish an endnote to occur, insert the following markers: <ref></ref>. Between these markers insert the full text of the note, however, long. For example:
There is a note at the end of this sentence.<ref>This is the text of the note.</ref>
Part B - Location of the notes themselves: The step involved in Part A locates a note in the text, which the Monachos.net system will automatically convert to a number and hyperlink; but you still need to provide a location at the end of the document for the listing of notes and their contents to appear. To do this, go to the bottom of your document, and insert the following:
===References=== <references/>
Ensure that you type the above exactly as it appears here. When you preview/save your document, you will see that this is replaced by a 'References' header and a listing of all endnotes, linking back to their location in the document. Please note: You only need to do this step once, no matter how many <ref></ref> markers are included in the text of your document.
Note references should appear outside relevant punctuation marks (that is, after full stops at the end of sentences, or commas), but before semi-colons (;) or colons (:). Examples are as follows:
Such was the thought of Grabe.<ref>A first note.</ref> However, unlike Marsh,<ref>A second note.</ref> he did not agree with Henry's 'all of unity in all things'.<ref>A third note.</ref>
When combined with a <references/> marker at the end of the document as described in Part B (above), this sample code would produce results as follows:
- References:
Please note how the Monachos.net system automatically converts all your <ref></ref> markers to numerical notes in the text, which are hyperlinked to the text of your notes at the end of your document, where you included the <references/> tag; and that each note in that listing includes an hyperlinked up-arrow that links back to the note's location in the text. All this is done automatically by the system; please do not try to insert any links yourself.
If you would like to see an example document that uses endnotes, please see: Athenagoras the Apologist, On the Resurrection of the Dead. Click the 'Edit' tab of this article to examine the coding used to produce the notes in the text.
Further style particulars
If you have further questions or specific style queries arising from your work on a particular document, please contact the Library Project director for guidance.