Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has been prepared using the MS Word template provided by Uniting Church Studies available below.
• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
• All citations are complete and accurate, and, in the case of electronic references, URLs are active.
• All illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.

Author Guidelines

Format etc.

Articles must be submitted using the UCS Template available here.

Font size, headings levels and styles, spacing etc. are all set on the template. 

Referencing - general

Footnotes (not endnotes) are used. Bibliographies are not required and should not be included in the submission. Do not use the Author Date system.

Note these examples of common references: book, chapter, journal reference (print and online) and website:

• Joerg Rieger, Christ & Empire: From Paul to Postcolonial Times (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 27.
• Michael S. Northcott, “The Dominion Lie: How Millennial Theology Erodes Creation Care,” in Diversity and Dominion: Dialogues in Ecology, Ethics, and Theology, eds. Kyle S. Van Houtan and Michael S. Northcott (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2010), 100.
• Theodore W. Schultz, “Investment in Entrepreneurial Ability,” The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 82, no. 4 (1980): 437.
• Amritraj Joshua Paul, "The Doctrine of Human Being in Indian Conversations: An Evangelical Imagination," Religions 16, no. 5 (2025): 546, accessed August 20, 2025, https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16/5/546 
• "Our Faith," Uniting Church in Australia, accessed August 20, 2025, https://uniting.church/ourfaith/ 

For guidance on other forms of reference, consult the Chicago Manual of Style. See: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-1.html#cg-journal

Referencing - the Bible

When quoting the Bible in English, use the NRSV. If other versions are used for comparison, indicate the version in-text.

For citation of book, chapter and verse(s), follow the SBL Handbook of Style as summarised in the Style Guide of the University of Divinity. Basic format is: Book short title, space, chapter, colon, verse(s). For example Gen 1:3; Matt 25:1–10 (note the en dash, not a hyphen).

If the Bible is quoted in the original languages, provide an accompanying English translation.

Miscellaneous Style Issues

Format for dates (e.g. in access to web articles): October 14, 2019.

In-text quotations should begin and end with double quotation marks.  

Quotes over three lines should be placed on a separate line and indented. Do not use quotation marks for indented quotes.

When a quotation ends a clause or sentence, the comma, full stop (but not colons, semi colons or question marks) should be included in the quotation. And footnote superscripts should follow the punctuation. For example: According to Smith, the doctrine of eschatology is "the most significant doctrine in Christian theology."¹

Dashes. Please use en dashes –, and never use hyphens for anything other than hyphenating words. From a typographic perspective en dashes have a space either side, e.g. lorem – ipsum.

Spelling and Capitalisation and Abbreviations

Use "Australian/British" rather than "American" spelling, e.g., standardise not standardize, colour not color.

Use 'Bible' and not 'bible' when it is used as a proper noun. Use 'biblical' and not 'Biblical' for adjectival purposes.

Use "Church" to refer to a specific Church/denomination, and "church" to refer to the church universal.

Abbreviations: documents

The following documents are also included in the Journal's Standard Abbreviations. They should be sourced from the linked websites below. The full title should be used when referring to (but not quoting) the document for the first time; second and subsequent references may use the abbreviation. Direct quotations from the documents should be cited in-text as per the format indicated below. Authors are not required to include the bibliographic information.

• Basis of Union  (BOU #paragraph number). [Use the 1992 Version of the document, as per the previous link. If for scholarly reasons the 1971 version is used, provide a brief explanation.
• Revised Preamble (RevPreamble #paragraph number)
• Covenant (Cov1994)
• The Uniting Church is a Multicultural Church (UCMCC #paragraph number)
• Uniting in Worship 2 (UIW2, page number)

Abbreviations: institutions and organisations

First references to the following institutions or organisations should employ the full name.  Future use of the abbreviation can be indicated by "(hereafter ABC)". 

• Uniting Church in Australia:  UCA
• Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress: UAICC
• World Council of Churches: WCC
• Assembly Standing Committee: ASC

Images (including charts).

Authors should negotiate with the editor about the need for images and charts.  If you intend to use images you should understand that they are going to be reproduced in black and white only, so if colour differentiation is important then they should be approached with caution. In the case of charts, the data should be made available for the layout people to recreate them.

Copyright Notice

Copyright of the full edition belongs to United Theological College, 16 Masons Drive, North Parramatta, NSW. 

Copyright of the articles and reviews belongs to the respective individual authors.

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