Formatting Guidelines for Works Submitted to Virginia Research Lodges
General: Research papers submitted to the six Virginia Research Lodges are welcomed from any source. The following guidelines are provided in order to establish the guidelines for submission of your paper. Other presentations of a non-research paper format may be delivered within the Research Lodges (video, slideshow images, music or oral presentations based on experiences, etc.) with the permission of the Worshipful Master, however, these presentations must still comply with applicable copyright law and must cite sources for information derived from another’s work, in conformity with both our Masonic obligations and laws on intellectual property.
Foundational Standards: For research papers, the following minimum criteria are established: 1) Papers must be longer than five (5) pages. 2) The following formatted appearance standards are required: a) Times New Roman b) 12pt font c) Double-spaces d) No extra spacing between paragraphs e) No titles or headings in the text pages f) Page numbers in the header or footer are required g) Cover page without a page number.
3) Citations are required in the form of endnotes (footnotes are not allowed). There should be no in-text parenthetical citations. Chicago Style or Turabian are allowed (no others). 4) You must include a minimum of five (5) sources. These may be from any published book, article from a reputable journal/magazine, or other sources of your choice. Of note, online encyclopedias (e.g. Wikipedia) are not considered reputable for source material to meet these requirements. 6) The Research Lodges can provide assistance in Chicago Style for Bibliography format and Endnotes format – and can also point you to a number of good websites that can also help.
For other presentations, not in the form of papers (e.g. speeches derived of other people’s work, slideshows containing images not taken by the presenters, etc.) citations of the originator of the work are still required to protect intellectual property (e.g. on a backup slide for presentations or by acknowledging the author in your oral review of the work.)