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Terminology

• Citations take the form Author, Work, 12.345. The 12 stands for a chapter number, section, or paragraph (if one is present). The 345 stands for a page number (always present). The 2006–2007 Ocean Library at bahai-education.org/ocean facilitates the checking of citations and their sources.

• Page Numbers.Different editions of Baha’i Writings strive for constant page-numbers. Nevertheless, page numbers still often slip a page or two. Citing by paragraph-number will solve this problem in future. But for now, the 2006–2007 Ocean Library has served as a reference standard for page-numbers too.

• Endnotes. Some endnote numbers carry suffixes tagging them as having a Revelation1‑R, Jewish2‑J, Christian3‑C, Muslim4‑M, Baha’u’llah5‑B, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá6‑A, or Shoghi Effendi7‑S source.
 
• Year-Dates follow the main formats: BC/AD years for Christian settings; Anno Moshe AM years for Jewish settings; Anno Hijrae AH years for Muslim settings;Baha’i EraBE years for Baha’i settings; and Common Era BCE/CE years for general settings. Inevitably between calendars, dates slip up to a year either way. For example, the two Jewish years AM5760 (9/11/1999–9/29/2000) and AM5761 (9/30/2000–9/17/2001) overlapped the Christian year AD 2000.
 
• Numbers appear usually as digits, in order to stress their value as codes.
 
• Capitals head Pronouns, Titles, and Names for God; Titles for Messengers; major Entities like Faiths, Eras, and Cycles; and important Symbols like Door, Ram, Altar, Ark,and Menorah.
 
• Spelling and Style is American except where British is cited.
 
• Transliteration is kept as simple and as accent-free as possible. The Greek letters eta and omega do appear as a long ē and a long ō, and the Greek opening h-sound and the Hebrew guttural ayin and alef glottal stop all appears as a generic “ ’ ”.