The University of Chicago Press style is used in many types of academic and popular writing. Because of its wide application, there are two Chicago sub-styles: one for humanities and one for sciences.
Kate Turabian adapted and popularized Chicago style in A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. It is designed to be used by students for all types of papers. Chicago and Turabian are, therefore, basically the same style.
Because Chicago style is used in many different forms of writing, there is no standard format for headings. Turabian recommends double spacing except for block quotes and notes. Pages with a major heading (i.e. a title or bibliography heading) should be numbered at the bottom center of the page, and other pages should be numbered either top-center or top-right. Consult your instructor regarding these issues.
Humanities Substyle
In-Text Citation: Notes
Chicago/Turabian Humanities Style uses footnotes or endnotes. Footnotes appear at the bottom of each page. Endnotes appear at the end of the paper, article, or chapter. It is usual to place the note at a break in the sentence, such as a comma or period, but sometimes the note is attached to a specific word or placed in the middle of the sentence for a specific reason. A superscript number should be placed after the referenced material (i.e. Text…at the time.1). The numbers preceding sources in footnotes or endnotes should correspond with the superscript. The first time a source appears in a note, it appears with complete bibliographic information. Subsequent citations of the same source have their own superscript number but require less information.
The basic format for a note citing is as follows:
Note for a book:
1. Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 5.
Note for a journal article:
2. James M. McPherson, “Lincoln as Commander in Chief,” American Heritage 32 (2009): 3.
Note for an online journal article:
3. Zachary S. Taylor, “Albums That Tell Secrets: A Facebook-based Ethnography of American College Students,” American Anthropologist 45, no. 2 (2009), http://www.aaanet.org/pdf/upload/50-4-Taylor-Zach-In-Focus.pdf (accessed March 17, 2009)
Note for a website:
4. Discovery News, “Europeans Urge Cleaning Up Space Junk,” Discovery Channel Website, http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/space-junk-europe.html (accessed April 8, 2009).
The first line of the note is indented; subsequent lines are not. The publishing information is enclosed in parentheses. Also note the comma after the parentheses before the page number.
Other information is required for different types of sources, such as periodicals, reference works, or websites. Consult one of the sources given at the end of this style sheet for more information.
Later notes citing the same work only require the author’s last name and the appropriate page numbers as follows:
5. Welty, 6-8.
If more than one work by the same author is used, include enough of the title to distinguish between works, for example:
6. Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings, 6-8.
If a note cites the same work as the note immediately before it, “Ibid.” may be used instead of the author’s name, for example: Ibid., 7.
Bibliography
In Chicago/Turabian Humanities Style, a bibliography is theoretically unnecessary because the first citation of a work includes all bibliographic information. However, it is still standard to include a bibliography at the end of the paper, and the citation style is slightly different from that used in endnotes and footnotes.
Bibliographic entry for a book:
Welty, Eudora. One Writer’s Beginnings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.
Bibliographic entry for a journal article:
Bee, Anna. “Globalization, Grapes and Gender: Women's Work in Traditional and Agro-Export Production in Northern Chile.” The Geographical Journal 3 (2000): 255-265.
Bibliographic entry for an online journal article:
Hart, Curtis. “J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Faith Development Portrait” Journal of Religion and Health 47, no. 1 (2008), http://wfxsearch.webfeat.org/wfsearch/search#wf (accessed April 8, 2009).
Bibliographic entry for a website:
Health & Fitness, “Nature for Our Well Being.” Bear Grylls Official Website. http://www.beargrylls.com/health.html (accessed April 8, 2009).
The first line of the entry is not indented; subsequent lines are. In the bibliography, there are no parentheses around the publishing information and page numbers are not given. Entries are not numbered and the author’s last name is given first because the entries are alphabetized by author. Double space the entire bibliography.
Sciences Substyle
When citing sources in the sciences, Chicago style resembles APA format. Because current sources are more important in science than in the humanities, the year of publication is given greater emphasis in the sciences substyle.
In-Text Citation: Parenthetical Notes
Chicago/Turabian Sciences Style uses parenthetical, in-text citations. The author’s name and year of publication are given, along with the page number cited. Here is an example:
. . . at the time (Welty 1984, 5).
Note the space before the parentheses and the period after the parentheses. Parenthetical citations can also occur in the middle of a sentence. Within the citation, there is no comma between author and year, but there is a comma between year and page number.
Works Cited
In the sciences substyle, the bibliography is called the “Works Cited” page. A “Works Cited” entry for a book appears as follows:
Welty, Eudora. 1984. One Writer’s Beginnings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
The first line of the entry is not indented; subsequent lines are. No page is given. Double space the entire “Works Cited” section.
Other information is required for different types of sources, such as periodicals, reference works, or websites. Consult one of the sources given below for more information.
For Further Information:
- Lester, James D. and James D. Lester, Jr. The Essential Guide to Writing Research Papers. New York: Longman, 1999.
- Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing In History, 2 ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998. [This is a standard text for history majors at Wheaton.]
- Troyka, Lynn Quitman. Quick Access: A Reference for Writers. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990.
- Turabian, Kate. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations, 6 ed. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996. [808.024 T84m in Reference section and regular sections of Wheaton College Library and Billy Graham Center libraries.
See also the >> online Turabian citation guide.