Josh Philpot

Recently I was looking over a paper I had written for a seminary class which conformed to the SBTS Style Manual. This manual is unique to SBTS and is loosely based off of the Chicago Style Manuel (Turabian). But I wanted to submit this paper to a journal, and nearly every biblical studies journal requires SBL Style, also similar to Chicago style but much different from the SBTS style. One difference, for instance, is that SBL style requires en dashes between numerals (Gen 3:14–19) while SBTS style allows for simply hyphens between numbers (Gen 3:14-19). It’s a very small difference, but I guess editors are different people.

So who wants to go through an entire research paper and change all hyphens to en dashes?! I don’t, so after two minutes of googling I found this quick solution for those who use MS Word on a PC or Mac (I happily fall into the latter category):

1. Go to “Edit” and click on “Find” or “Find and Replace” (or just Ctrl + “F” or Cmd + “F”)
2. Click on the “Replace” tab
3. In the “Find what” field type ([0-9])-([0-9])
4. In the “Replace with” field type \1–\2 (notice the en dash in between, not a hyphen)
5. Select “Use wildcards”
6. Click “Replace All”

And there you have it. If you run this script all hyphens between numerals will be replaced with en dashes. If you have hyphens between words they will remain the same. Saved me a bunch of time. Might be helpful for others. Thanks to Phil Gons for the help.

Maybe you’re like me and you have a laptop for when you’re at school and desktop for home. Fortunately, Zotero allows you to sync your sources from both computers automatically. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Create a Zotero.org account here
2. Once verified, click on the Zotero icon on your Firefox web browser, then the “actions” button, and then “preferences“
3. Click on the “Sync” tab at the top
4. Type in your username and password for Zotero.org
5. Make sure “Sync Automatically” and “Sync Attachment Files in My Library using Zotero” are both checked
6. Open your other computer and type in your log-in information in Zotero “preferences” as before
7. Close the page and restart Firefox. Click on the Zotero icon again and either wait for Zotero to begin syncing automatically, or start the process by clicking on the “Sync to Zotero Server” button.

I did this on a Mac, so it may look a little different on Windows. The steps are essentially the same. Now every time I add a new source on my laptop it will show on my desktop as well, and visa versa.

Away with you, formatting demons! Be gone!

Let’s get honest with one another: How many of you, as you write papers, leave little comments in parentheses or in a footnote to remind yourself of the source you are quoting from, only to go back and spend two hours formatting your footnotes once you’ve finished your paper? I’ve been there, and I’m never going back. Zotero is the reason why.

First, an overview:

And here it gets awesome:

If you haven’t checked out Zotero yet, you should! It’s a free Firefox extension and a real time saver. While I’ve had to make minor changes to Zotero’s footnote info from time to time (mainly spacing), Zotero still helps with many of those pesky formatting issues. Plus, you no longer have to go back through every footnote and add the bibliographic information. It works with almost every style guide, including Turabian, MLA, and APA. Just add your source from Zotero, make whatever comments are needed in the footnote, and continue writing your paper.

Many thanks to Jim Hamilton for telling me about Zotero a few months ago, and Andy Naselli for telling him!