Please update SBL to SBL2 on automatic citations

Dear Logos,

Last year the SBL Hand book was updated. Thus, all automatic citations are off. I recently got hit on my latest paper because all my citations were SBL1.

Thank you very much! This would save us many hours of editing and boring formalities!

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Comments

Reimar Vetne

Yes, there are quite substantial differences in the new version 2 of the SBL style. A lot of information that was earlier inside the parenthesis (like series, editor, etc) now appears outside the parenthesis - somewhat similar to the Turabian style.

Some academic institutions and publishers might choose to continue with SBL 1 at least for a while, so the best thing would be if Logos made both SBL1 and SBL 2 available as citation styles.

Another problem that affects all styles equally is the way Logos is handling book sections (articles in edited volumes). Logos consistently make the book editor the author of the piece instead of the one who actually wrote it. But it will take a lot of work for Logos to fix that problem, since information about the actual author of an article inside a book is probably not even stored in the appropriate Logos database that pulls out the bibliographic information.

Reimar Vetne

I listed these as examples of errors here on the forum two years ago, but nothing has been done, probably because fixing it will be an enormous task of updating a lot of information in the databases.

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SERIES TITLES

Footnote produced by Logos in alleged SBL style:

Mark L. Strauss, The Davidic Messiah in Luke–Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series; Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 16.

Correct SBL style (notice the abbreviation of the series inside the parenthesis, and the number in the series):

Mark L. Strauss, The Davidic Messiah in Luke–Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology (JSNTSup 413; Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 16.

Bibliographical entry produced by Logos in alleged SBL style:

Strauss, Mark L. The Davidic Messiah in Luke–Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology. Vol. 413. Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995.

Correct SBL style:

Strauss, Mark L. The Davidic Messiah in Luke–Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology. Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series 413. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995.

EDITED BOOKS

Many books, like Festschrifts and other essay collections, consist of articles/book sections written by different authors. Instead of giving credit to the person who wrote the piece being quoted, Logos incorrectly give credit to the editor of the book.

Footnote produced by Logos in alleged SBL style:

John Kaltner and Louis Stulman, eds., Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 336.

Correct SBL style is VERY different:

Michael S. More, "Bathsheba's Silence (1 Kings 1:11–31)," in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East Essays in Honor of Herbert B. Huffmon (ed. John Kaltner and Louis Stulman; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 336.

PUBLISHING HOUSE NAMES, STATE ABBREVIATIONS

In section 7.1.4.1 of the SBL Style Handbook it says that the publisher's name should be abbreviated as much as possible by the omission of Publishing Company and similar (except for university presses).

Regarding the US states (when referring to lesser known cities), SBL uses standard abbreviations and not postal code abbreviations (Handbook 7.1.4.2).

Alleged SBL style footnote produced by Logos:

Gary A. Long, Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Greek: Learning Biblical Greek Grammatical Concepts Through English Grammar (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), 69–70.

Correct SBL style:

Gary A. Long, Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Greek: Learning Biblical Greek Grammatical Concepts Through English Grammar (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2006), 69–70.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Just like Logos fails to abbreviate book series in the footnotes, they fail to abbreviate journal titles. (Obviously, the SBL Handbook has not produced abbrevations for all existing journals worldwide, but they have made a list of abbreviations for the most common ones in theological and biblical studies.)

Logos also incorrectly adds the name of the journal editor, and in the case of journals where the page numbering of the second and third issue in the same year follows consecutively upon the last page of the previous issue, Logos incorrectly adds the issue number. Specifying the issue number in the footnote and in the bibliography is only necessary for those journals where the page number start with 1 in each issue.

For instance, the Tyndale Bulletin issue 2 of 2008 begins with page 161 (since issue 1 of 2008 ended with page 160). It is then not necessary (and not correct) to include the issue. Only the volume should be stated.

Footnote produced by Logos in alleged SBL style:

Michael F. Bird, “New Testament Theology Re-Loaded: Integrating Biblical Theology and Christian Origins,” ed. P. J. Williams, Tyndale Bulletin Volume 60 60, no. 2 (2008): 267.

The reduplication of the volume number 60 is probably a bug in the template for the SBL style. But this footname has a lot of other errors as well, as can be seen when compared to the following correct version.

Correct SBL style:

Michael F. Bird, “New Testament Theology Re-Loaded: Integrating Biblical Theology and Christian Origins,” TynBul 60 (2008): 267.

These were just a few scattered examples.

I do understand that in order for Logos to do the SBL style correctly they would have to manually go through ALL the resources they sell and add a lot of new information in their database, including the proprietary SBL abbreviations for journals and book series, and article information for each and every article/section in edited books. It would be a lot of work for them, but it would be a wonderful time saving feature for many of us who write academic articles and books in that has to be submitted in the SBL style. Now it takes a lot of time to manually edit the footnotes and bibliographical entries Logos provides.

As a university professor it is also quite frustrating to have students hand in term papers that they believe is in the correct format, when their footnotes and bibliographies are riddled with errors. Logos uses ready-formatted footnotes and bibliographies as a selling point to students, and they list SBL as one of the styles supported. Unfortunately this is not quite true.

Let me point out that I am a very happy and satisfied Logos customers otherwise. I love the software and the huge number of commentaries and other resources available for Logos. Logos enables me to do fast and effective research and I would not go back to life without Logos for anything. I just wanted to point out to Logos that their SBL style template needs some serious work in order to follow the official SBL Handbook of Style.

SineNomine

Dear Faithlife,

Please don't get rid of SBL 1 when you add SBL 2. Thank you.

Phil Gons (Logos)

Thanks for the feedback. I'll put a case in to look at adding the new SBL style.

Sam Choi

Thank you for working on this Phil! This would greatly serve those who are using Logos academically.

Sam Choi

Hi Phil!

Just checking in to see if there has been an traction on this request.

Thanks for your work.

Gratefully, Sam Choi

Sam Choi

Hi Phil, just following up again regarding this. Logos is such a blessing to me because it enables me to be more efficient and focus on the things that really matter. Wrong citation formats rob valuable time away from the things that matter. Logos not having SBL 2 is included in that.

Please help us!

Thank you!