Citation Style Guide: Chicago 17th/Turabian 9th

Need additional help? The Turabian Citation Quick Guide provides great examples worth checking out! Check it out by clicking on the icon below.

Purdue Online Writing Center provides a Chicago Style formatting guide and tons of examples.

Chicago Style provides two different ways to cite/format a paper. These are called the Notes-Bibliography (NB) System and Author-Date System. Here is Tip Sheet for this style. There is more information on this page for each of them and to find out sample paper of either, click on the links below.

Author-Date System

Notes-Bibliography (NB) System

1. Author
2. Title of the book/article
3. Title of newspaper/journal
4. Publication year
5. Publication month and date (if it is not available use n.d.)
6. Publisher
7. City of publication
8. Date of access (if the publication date is not available)
9. Page numbers
10. URL or DOI (preference is given to DOI)

The general Chicago Style paper format is as follows:

• Double-space you paper
  • Exceptions include: notes, bibliography entries, block quotations (extracts), table titles, figure captions
• The header includes the page numbers
• Longer papers should include subheadings

Additional Turabian Style guidelines

• Margins to be at least 1”
• Font needs to be readable (ex: Times New Roman)
• Font size to be at least 10 pt. (it’s a good, general rule to get in the habit of using 12 pt. font)

Book Example:

FORMAT: Author’s Last Name, First. Title of the Book. Publisher, Year Published.

Martin, Anthony. Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006.

Journal Example:

FORMAT: Author’s Last Name, First. “Article Title.” Journal Title volume number, issue number (publication year). Page number. doi: OR URL.

Rieppel, Lukas. “Bringing Dinosaurs Back to Life.” ISIS: Journal of the History of Science in Society 103, no. 3 (2012). 460-490. doi:10.1086/667969.

Notes-Bibliography (NB) System is preferred by humanities including literature, history, and the arts. It consists of two parts a bibliography and a superscript number in the text and a corresponding note. 

This means it uses a bibliography at the end of the document, endnotes at the end of the document, or footnotes at the bottom of a page. This system uses Footnotes/Endnotes instead of in-text citations which are not intended to replace bibliography and reference. Please note that the format and punctuation are different in the bibliography and footnote/endnote, and this guide covers only the format for the bibliography.

You can find a sample paper for this system at this link: Notes-Bibliography (NB) System.

There are more sample citations for this style HERE, Quick Guide.

In-text citation style will depend on whether you are using the Author-Date System or the NB System.

With the Author-Date System, in-text citations are cited in parenthesis and contain the author’s last name followed by the publication year, and then the page number (if applicable). This is very similar to what we see with other, more common, citation styles. The full citation entry will then be listed on the References page located at the end of your paper.

Here’s an example of an in-text citation for the Author-Date System:

• The author described the "Dinosaurs were capable of inflicting great bodily harm" (Martin 2006, 120) or (Martin 2006) if no page number is being referenced

Using the NB System is a bit different than the Author-Date System. Generally, footnotes or endnotes are used to reference sources in the body of the paper. For more information on Author-Date citations and in-text citations, click HERE.

Generally, footnotes or endnotes are used to reference sources in the body of the paper, specifically in the NB system. Unlike the other citation styles in this guide where the last name of the author is generally used, a superscript number is used following a direct quote or a paraphrased statement. You begin numbering your in-text citations with the number one and continue in sequential order. At the end of your paper, you will include a footnote/endnote, which references the superscript numbers used in the body of your paper. Note that the footnote/endnote page is not a substitution for a bibliography/references page. If you are using an endnotes page, it will be located right before the Bibliography page and it should be titled Notes. If using footnotes, these will be located at the very bottom of the page where the superscript number is used.

Here’s an example of an in-text citation using superscript numbering:

• The author described the "Dinosaurs were capable of inflicting great bodily harm".¹
  • Your footnotes/endnotes page will then contain the respective citation

For more information on NB citations and in-text citations, click HERE.

How should I format my citations page?

This will depend on whether you are using the Author-Date System or the NB System (if you haven’t yet, check out the links in the box above for more information). If you are using the Author-Date System, you will label your citations page as “References” and if you are using the NB system, it will be titled “Bibliography”. The following, general guidelines should be followed for either one:

• Give the page a title (either References or Bibliography)
• Before listing your citations, leave two blank lines between the title and the first citation entry
• Every time you finish one citation entry, leave on a blank line in between
• Your citations list needs to be alphabetized
• For multiple authors, spell out the word “and” instead of using “&”.
• Access dates are not required

For a detailed explanation of the References and/or Bibliography page, use the Purdue Online Writing Lab link in the Additional Resources box located on the left side of this page.