chicago documentation style

(pdf)

Each academic discipline has its own expectations for style and documentation. Often, these disciplines rely on a broad system of guidelines that are determined by professional organizations in the field. In history and other humanities fields, the standard style is based on The Chicago Manual of Style.

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, contains extensive information about editing and documentation. Brief versions of this same material appear in many other handbooks, including A Writer's Reference by Diana Hacker. (SWS has copies of The Chicago Manual of Style, A Writer's Reference, and other handbooks for student use.)

CHICAGO STYLE USES A SYSTEM OF SUPERSCRIPT NUMBERS AND CORRESPONDING NOTES—these notes can come at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or the end of your paper (endnotes). It is best to ask your instructor's preference when determining whether to use footnotes or endnotes.

• In the text: As Jones notes, it is often impossible to tell at an early age which children will best acclimate to school.¹
   
• In the note: 1. Melissa Jones. The Education Challenge: How to Prepare Your Student for School (New York: Middleton Press, 1995), 149.

THE FIRST TIME A SOURCE IS MENTIONED, its full citation information should be given. Thereafter, use only the author's name, a keyword from the title, and the page number from which the information came. Moreover, if the same source is used two or more times in a row, then the name/keyword/page number are given once, and thereafter the abbreviation “Ibid.” is used.

Example:

18. Jones, Education Challenge, 149.

19. Ibid., 150.

20. Ibid., 236.

INDENT THE FIRST LINE OF EACH NOTE FIVE SPACES and introduce the note with its corresponding number, a period, and one space. Double-space all end notes. For footnotes, single-space each entry and double-space between entries.

In addition to noting the sources cited in your text, you may be asked to compile a BIBLIOGRAPHY at the end of your paper. A bibliography includes publication information for all of the sources that you cited or consulted in order to write your paper.

• Arrange bibliographic entries alphabetically by authors' last names
• The first line of an entry should be flush with the left margin; subsequent lines should be indented five spaces
• Double-space the list

Chicago style does not have specific requirements for INTERNET CITATIONS. However, the style guide Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources, by Andrew Harnack and Eugene Kleppinger, is recommended. This style includes the following elements: author name, title, publication date, address, date of access (date that you got online), and text division (page number or other division) if applicable. For a web-based style guide, see also the Library of Congress's How to Cite Electronic Sources.

For a sample Chicago-style bibliography, please see the pdf version of this document.

For more information:

Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.

Harnack, Andrew, and Eugene Kleppinger. Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources With 2003 Update. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.