Many of you may have used MLA format previously. Recently, MLA format was changed, and you are expected to use the UPDATED version in work for this course. The material below provides precisely that updated format AND gives some special instructions that apply to Paper 1, due at the end of Wk 3.
For Paper 1, you have been provided the ONLY sources you should be using (apart from the Bible and course resources). You should NOT try to hunt down any other resources. All you need to do is click on the title of the resource, and then look up your articles.
Although the resource is edited by “Balentine,” for both your reference citations and your bibliography, I want you to list your resource by the article authors name for the article you consulted, NOT the editors name (i.e., NOT Balentine!); the author is the one with the ideas, NOT the editor, and I think it is important to give the author appropriate credit. IF you are writing on Christ/Messiah, your bibliography should list the first two of the resources below; IF you are writing on Son of God, your bibliography should list the first and third resources listed below:
de Boer, Martinus C. Christology. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Theology, edited by Samuel E. Balentine, Oxford UP, 2015.
Fredriksen, Paula. Christ. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Theology, edited by Samuel E. Balentine, Oxford UP, 2015.
Spencer, F. Scott. Son of God. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Theology, edited by Samuel E. Balentine, Oxford UP, 2015.
The above format is how your bibliography entries should appear. Note that the article title is in quotation marks, with the book title in italics. In the latest edition of the MLA guidelines, the publication city is NOT indicated, and you should NOT specify the format (e.g., “Print” or Web). The punctuation in this entry is correct and is a CHANGE from the former MLA format. Notice also that there is a hanging indent whenever an entry is longer than one line, i.e., the first line goes all the way to the left margin, with any subsequent lines in that entry indented. (For those of you who are curious, this is the format in the MLA guide for A Work in an Anthology, Reference or Collection. For more info on MLA format info, see https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/.)
For Reference Citations (of which there should be many in this paper!!!), you should use the article authors name, NOT the editors name; “Balentine” should NOT appear anywhere in a reference citation for this paper. Normally in MLA format a reference citation entails parentheses that include JUST the authors last name and the page number, e.g., (Elliott 7) NOTHING else. For MLA reference citations, never include the publication year! HOWEVER, for the specified resource you are to use for this paper, there are no page numbers. THEREFORE, for THIS paper only, I would like you to list the paragraph number in the article, rather than the page. YOU will need to count the paragraphs in the article; that information is not listed in the article. Thus, for purposes of this paper, (de Boer par. 6) would mean the 6th paragraph in the article by de Boer. A reference citation goes at the end of the sentence, outside any quotation marks, and PRIOR to the final punctuation. See the following example:
The various titles which the New Testament applies to Jesus have a history, even if they also acquire significantly new meanings when used for, or in association with, Jesus (de Boer par. 6).