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Citing & Formatting

About Chicago and Turabian Styles

So what's the difference? 

Turabian and Chicago Style use the same guidelines. Turabian is simpler and aimed more towards students and researchers, while Chicago is designed for professionals publishing in their field. 

Turabian is a style of writing and formatting that is created and updated by Kate Turabian. It is adapted from the University of Chicago's 'Chicago' style of citation and is simplified for students and researchers. Turabian is most commonly used in the social sciences, such as in History courses.

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) is used by a wide variety of disciplines. Literature, history, and the arts in particular may use CMOS for the clean look of endnotes or footnotes. CMOS offers two different systems for documenting sources which we'll cover in the next few sections. 

 

Note: CMOS is currently on the 17th edition and updates every few years. Be sure to use the edition your instructor asks for. 

Formatting a Word Document

Student papers in Chicago/Turabian style consist of three main parts: a title page, the body text, and a bibliography/references page. Your instructor may not require a title page, so be sure to check first!

If your instructor does require a title page, then the first page of your paper will be the title page and includes these elements:

  • Title of the paper centered a third of the way down the page
  • Your name, course code and title, and the date should follow several lines later
  • Double-space each line of the title page 

The main body of the paper is double-spaced with the first line of each paragraph indented by one tab key. You may use headings as needed the separate different sections of your paper. 

  • double-spaced
  • uses an easily readable font
  • 1 inch margins
  • indent new paragraphs with one tab key press

Endnotes & Footnotes

Unlike most citation styles, the Chicago and Turabian offer two methods for documenting sources: the notes-bibliography and author-date systems. The author-date system uses in-text citations similar to MLA or APA style along with a bibliography page with full citations. The notes-bibliography systems uses notes - whether endnotes or footnotes - and a bibliography page with full citations. 

Your instructor should tell you which system they'd like you to use, or they may allow you to choose. Use the tabs at the top of the box to view the different systems. 

The Notes-Bibliography system is more flexible than the Author-date system, since the notes allows more space for unusual types of sources as well as commentary on the sources cited. It's also visually appealing since there are no parenthetical citations to break up the flow of the paper. Instead of a parenthetical citation, superscript numbers are used to point the reader to the corresponding endnote or footnote. 

Footnotes and endnotes contain the same information, but footnotes are listed at the 'foot' of every page, while endnotes are listed after the conclusion of the paper. Both endnotes and footnotes will be accompanied by a Bibliography page with the full citation. A note is typically a shortened citation including the author's name in normal order, the title of the work, and a page number if applicable. See the example below, and for a full sample paper in CMOS with footnotes, click here. 

Note:

1. Mandal, "Digital Humanities," 318.

Corresponding Bibliography entry:

Mandal, Anthony. “Digital Humanities.” The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 24, no. 1 (2016): 317–342. Accessed October 25, 2018, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ywcct/mbw015

The Author-Date system is similar to APA because instead of superscript numbers with corresponding notes, in-text citations are used within the body text. The in-text citation is a shortened citation similar to the notes and the full citation will be listed on the References page at the end of the paper. 

In-text citations will include the author's last name, year of publication, and page numbers if applicable. 

Examples:

In-text: (Mandal 2016, 318)

Reference entry: Mandal, Anthony. “Digital Humanities.” The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory 24, no. 1 (2016): 317–342. Accessed October 25, 2018, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/ywcct/mbw015

Bibliography / References

Whether you are using the Author-Date system or Notes-Bibliography system, after the conclusion of your paper you must include a list of full citations of sources used in the text. For Author-Date system, this will be a References page. For Notes-Bibliography, this will be a Bibliography page. They are essentially the same thing and follow the same guidelines. 

  • Label the page ("References" for Author-Date and "Bibliography" for Notes-Bibliography)
  • Leave two blank lines between the label and your first entry
  • Entries will be single-spaced, but leave one blank line between all entries
  • Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name (or title if no author is available)
  • Entries extending beyond one line will have a hanging indent

 

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Templates and Examples

Books

Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Wordsworth Classics, 1993.

Journal Articles

Last name, First name. "Title of Article." Title of Journal Volume, issue (publication date): pages.

Krishnan, Lakshmi, and Daniel Marchalik. "Physicians, Oaths, and Vampires." The Lancet 394, no. 10203 (September 2019): 1001-1001. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32098-7.