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As a result of vote of the 1985 Triennial Delegate Assembly and the General Council, the Executive Committee assigned to the Publications Committee the task of developing a uniform system of citation for The Urantia Book. To accomplish this task, the chairman prepared a position paper, which was circulated to an ad hoc committee composed of 36 interested readers, and including the Executive Committee and the Trustees of Urantia Foundation. Thoughtful and insightful comments were received from nine individuals and circulated for further discussion. Based on these comments and informal discussion within the Publications Committee, a standard citation system is now proposed. This proposal applies chiefly to citation of the English text of the book.

The specification of a citation standard involves several phases. Basically, one must determine what attributes of the text (e.g. page number) will be used to identify a citation, how the attributes will be determined from the text, and how the citation will be written. Other important issues not directly related to the citation system itself involve the utility and scope of application of different parts of the system.

Uniform Identifying Attributes

After consideration of fifteen different sets of identifying attributes, it appears that only three are appropriate for selection as standard citation methods at this time. These are:

o Page-paragraph (Page:Paragraph) with optional line number

o Page-Line (Page/Line)

o Paper- , Section-Paragraph (Paper.Section.Paragraph) with optional line number

No one of these methods is ideally suited to meet all citation needs; therefore, we recommend that standards be promulgated for all three methods, and that no other methods be recommended for use in official Brotherhood publications.

Uniform Determination of Attributes

The attributes used in constructing the three recommended citation methods are to be defined and determined as follows:

Paper--One of the 196 papers of The Urantia Book, designated by its number; The Foreword, designated as paper "F"; text appearing on pages not a part of a paper is not referenceable by paper number.

Section--One of the numbered, subtitled sections of a paper, designated by its number; the introductory unnumbered section of each paper, designated as section "0".

Page-One of the numbered pages of The Urantia Book, designated by its printed number, either Roman or Arabic; one of the unnumbered pages, designated by a Roman or Arabic number inferred from the numbering of immediately adjacent pages.

Paragraph-usually, any connected body of text, the first line of which is indented and the last line of which is typeset flush left; however, paper numbers, paper titles, and section's headings are not paragraphs and isolated blocks of poetic material are paragraphs. Itemized lists, whether or not enumerated, are considered a part of the paragraph in which they are embedded and may or may not end a paragraph, depending on the indentation of the next succeeding line of text. The first complete paragraph on each page is designated "1", with others numbered sequentially. If the page begins with a partial paragraph, it is designated "0".

Line---any line of text on a page, including titles and subtitles, but excluding the header line occurring with the page number at the top of most pages, designated by number, counting from the first line at the top of the page as number "1".

Uniform Citation Orthography

Page.Paragraph: The page number, followed by a colon (:), followed by the paragraph number, as in "1233:2" to indicate paragraph "2" on page "1233". If a line reference is required for precision, it will follow the Page:Paragraph and be prefaced with the word "line" or the abbreviation "L.", as in "1233:2 line 4" or "1233:2 L. 4".- May be used in combination with the word "page" or the abbreviation "p.", as in "page 1233:2" or "p. 1233:2".

Page/Line: The page number, followed by a virgule, slash, or shilling-mark (/), followed by the line number, as in "1233/2" to indicate line "2" on page "1233". May be used in combination with the word "page" or the abbreviation "p.", as in "page 1233/2" or "p. 1233/2". When an entire scholarly work uses the Page/Line system, a colon may be uniformly substituted for the shilling-mark, providing the method of citation is otherwise identified in the work.

Paper.Section.Paragraph: The word "Paper", followed by the paper number, followed by a period (.), followed by the section number, followed by a second period, followed by the paragraph number, as in "Paper 196.2.2" to indicate paragraph "2" in section "2" in paper 196. The paragraph number and second period may be omitted, as in "Paper 196.2" to indicate section 2 of paper 196. If a line reference is required for precision, it will follow the Paper.Section.Paragraph and be prefaced with the word "line" or the abbreviation "L.", as in "Paper 196.2.2 line 4" or 'Paper 196.2.2 L. 4". The word "Paper" may be abbreviated to "P." after its first use in a work.

It is important that users of this standard adhere to these conventions, including the redundant use of the words "paper" and "line" as specified to avoid confusion between the three methods. We recommend, but do not require, that citations in the Page.Paragraph and Page/line methods be prefaced with the word "page" or the abbreviation "p." to further reduce possible confusion.

Orthography for Ranges of Reference

When it is desired to cite a range of locations within the text, the hyphen (-), may be used to concatenate instances of attributes designating the beginning and ending of the range cited, as in "1233:2-4" to indicate paragraphs "2" through "4" on page "1233," or "1233/1-3" to indicate lines "I" through "3" on the same page.

When the range of reference crosses a page boundary, the hyphen concatenates complete references, as in "1232/45-1233/3" to indicate the text beginning at line "45" on page "1232" and ending at line "3" on page "1233," inclusive. For simplicity, citations to the last partial paragraph on one page are assumed to include the initial partial paragraph on the succeeding page, so that "1232:5" has the same meaning as "1232:5-1233:0."

Suggested Applications and Limitations

No one of these three standards is uniformly useful in all applications. We believe the following factors should be considered by persons desiring to cite references to the book.

In most other circumstances, the Page:Paragraph method is currently the preferred First, any one of the three standard methods is generally to be preferred to any nonstandard method.

Second, it is recommended that the preparers of research works, such as indexes and concordances, give consideration to. providing citations in more than one of the methods, so that their readers can choose the one which best fits individual needs.

The Page/Line method is preferred for scholarly purposes requiring precise reference to individual lines, particularly when it is undesirable to provide an exact, complete quotation of the material being cited.

The Paper.Section.Paragraph method is preferred in all situations in which a substantial community of readers is being addressed which is expected to use one or more translations of the book in conjunction with the English text.

In most other circumstances, the Page:Paragraph method is the preferred method of citation, and should be the commonly used method. Since the rules of paragraph counting are not always obvious in their application, users of the Page:Paragraph method should recognize that Page:Paragraph references to certain pages of the. book will be ambiguous or confusing to most casual readers. This difficulty can be overcome by providing a quotation of the text being cited or by shifting to the Page/Line method in such doubtful situations.

Long-range Recommendations

In order to promote the utilization of this standard system of reference methods, we recommend that the publications committee, on behalf of Urantia Brotherhood, prepare and distribute to the readership a pamphlet describing the methods and giving examples of their proper and recommended use.

In order to enhance the usefulness of the Paper.Section.Paragraph method and to promote the exchange of ideas among readers of different languages and cultures, we recommend that, at some future time, when it may next be convenient for Urantia Foundation, the plates of the English text be altered to provide a heading or footing giving the number of the paper.

In the same spirit, to assure the usefulness of the Page.Paragraph method to non-English readers, we recommend that all future translations of The Urantia Book provide the page reference to the English text, as is the case in the current French translation.

Finally, to increase the usefulness of the Page/Line method to readers of the English text, we recommend that, at some future time, when it may next be convenient for Urantia Foundation, the plates of the English text be altered to provide a series of marginal markings, spaced every five or ten lines, to facilitate identification of specific citations.

We recognize that any large-scale, systematic alteration to the plates of The Urantia Book will involve significant work and expense for Urantia Foundation. By suggesting the desirability of certain alterations we do not mean to say that, these activities should have priority over other work of the Foundation.

Every reader of the book who needs to cite from the text should realize that, if the design of the book makes the use of a favorite method unworkable at this time, there are practical alternatives. If the design of the book is sometime modified, the Page/Line and Paper.Section.Paragraph methods may become more useful for general purposes of citation than they are at this time.

Submitted by the Publications Committee of Urantia Brotherhood

Dan Massey, Chairman
Barbara Kulieke
Mark Kulieke
Eileen Laurence
Lisa Renn, Secretary
Neal Waldrop

5 May 1986