THE CHICAGO

MANUAL OF
STYLE (17 TH

EDITION)
Notes & Bibliography Formatting and Style Guide

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What is Chicago
Style?
Chicago Style formatting for notes and
bibliography is often used in the
humanities, especially in history,
literature, and the arts.

The University of Chicago also offers

The Chicago Manual of Style Online,
a website that provides additional
resources:
www.chicagomanualofstyle.org
Chicago regulates:

•Stylistics and document format

•in-text citations (notes)
•End-of-text citations (bibliography)

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Chicago Style
(con’t)
Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for
Writers of Research Papers, Theses,
and Dissertations (9th ed.) offers
more specific Chicago style information
for students and researchers.

This presentation draws on the 9th

edition of A Manual, as well as the most
recent changes to the 17th edition
CMOS.

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Overview
This presentation will cover:
• How to format a paper in Chicago Style (17th ed.)
• General guidelines
• Title page
• Section headings

• In-text citations (author-date)

• Documenting sources (bibliography)

• Core elements
• Formatting best practices

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Significant Changes
in 17 Ed.
th
The 17th edition CMOS updates and adds to the 16th edition.
Here are some significant changes and additions:

- Techniques for achieving gender-neutral language (5.255-

5.256)

- Italics are the preferred form of emphasis in a text; moreso

than boldfaced or underscored text (7.51)

- Internet should now be styled as internet (7.80)

- E-mail should now be styled as email (7.89)

- Use of ibid. for repeated citations is discouraged in favor of

shortened citations (14.34)

- Use of the 3-em dash for repeated names in a bibliography

is discouraged for authors (14.67)

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Caveat

Basic rule for any formatting

style:

Always follow your instructor’s

guidelines

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Formatting: General
Guidelines
Chicago recommends:
• Typing on white, standard-sized paper (8.5“ x 11“)
• Using 1”-1.5” margins on all sides
• Using a readable typeface (e.g., Times New Roman) at no
less than 10 pt. font (preferably 12 pt.)
• Double-spacing all text, with one space after punctuation
between sentences
• Numbering pages beginning with Arabic numeral “1” on the
first page of text

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Formatting: Title Page

No page numbers
Title is centered one-third on title page
of the way down the
page and written in ALL
CAPS.

Name, course, and date

follow several lines later,
and are also centered.

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Formatting: Body
Text
Body text should be
double-spaced, with no
break between paragraphs
or sections.

Footnotes and endnotes

are single-spaced.

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Formatting: Section
Heading
Chicago has an optional system of five heading
levels:

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Formatting:
Headings (con’t)
Here is an example of the five-level heading
system:

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 Formatting: Quotes
• A prose quotation of five or more
lines should be “blocked.”

• The block quotation is singled-

spaced and takes no quotation
marks, but you should leave an
extra line space immediately
before and after. Indent the entire
quotation .5” (the same as you
would the start of a new paragraph).

• Block quotations may be preceded

with a period rather than a colon.

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Formatting: Tables
and Figures
• Position tables and figures after the paragraph in which
they’re described.

• Number tables and figures separately, in the order you

mention them in the text.

• In the text identify tables and figures by number.

Ex. “in figure 3” rather than by location (“below”).

Formatting: Tables
and Figures (con’t)
• Every table should have a number and a (short and descriptive)
title, flush left on the line above it.
Table 1. Title without a terminal period

• Every figure should have a number and a caption, flush left on the
line below the figure.
Figure 2. Caption with or without a terminal period.

• Any figure or table that uses symbols or patterns should be

accompanied with a key to identify them, either within the figure or
table itself or in its caption.

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Formatting: Tables
and Figures (con’t)
• Cite the source of table and figure information with a
“source line” at the bottom of the table or figure.

− Source lines are introduced by the word ‘Source(s),’

followed by a colon, and end with a period.

− Cite a source as you would for parenthetical citation,

minus the parentheses, and include full information in an
entry on your Bibliography page.

− Acknowledge reproduced or adapted sources

appropriately (i.e., data adapted from ___ ).

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Formatting:
Bibliography
Center the title,
“Bibliography,” at the top
of the page. Do not bold,
italicize or enclose in
quotation marks.
Flush left the first line of the
entry and indent
subsequent lines

Single-space reference
entries internally. Double-
space entries externally. Order entries alphabetically
by the authors’ last names.

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Source Citations:
The Basics
Authors are required to identify source material for direct
quotations, paraphrases, and “any facts or opinions not generally
known or easily checked” (14.1).

Notes-Bibliography Style:

•Requires footnotes and/or endnotes to cite sources and/or provide

relevant commentary within the text.

•Includes each source cited within the text as an entry in the

bibliography at the end of the paper.

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Source Citations:
Bibliography
• Invert authors’ names—last name followed by first name—and alphabetize
reference list entries by the last name of the first author of each work.
Ex. Agamben, Giorgio
• Use headline-style capitalization for titles.

Ex. A Tale of Two Cities

• Italicize titles of longer works such as books and journals.
• Put quotation marks around the titles of shorter works such as journal
articles or essays in edited collections. Unpublished works are also placed in
quotations.
Ex. A Tale of Two Cities vs. “An Essay on Dickens’ A Tale of Two
Cities”

•Publishers’ names are generally written out in full but may be abbreviated.

Ex. Purdue University Press OR Purdue UP

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Source Citations:
Bibliography (con’t)
• For multiple authors, use the conjunction “and,” not the
ampersand (&) symbol.

• For two to three authors or editors

- write out all names in the order they appear on the title page
of the source in both your notes and bibliography.

• For four to ten authors:

-write out all names in the bibliography but use
just the first author’s name and “et al.” in the
notes.

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Source Citations:
Bibliography (con’t)
When determining the appropriate formatting for a citation on the
bibliography page:

1.Identify the source type (book; journal article; online article)

2. Find the appropriate citation on the Purdue OWL Chicago Guide:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/717/01/

3. “Mirror” the sample entry on your bibliography page, replacing

the sample information with the new entry’s information

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Source Citations:
Bibliography (con’t)
•For electronic journal articles and other web sources, DOIs (Digital
Object Identifiers) are preferred to URLs (Uniform resource
Locators).

•DOIs are to be prefaced with the letters “doi” and a colon. ex: DOI:
10.1353/art.0.0020

•While DOIs are assigned to journal articles in any medium, you only
need to include a DOI if you access the electronic version of the
source.

•If you must use a URL, look for the ‘stable’ version assigned by the
journal.

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 Source Citations:
Bibliography (con’t)
• No access date is required to be reported for electronic sources.
Access dates cannot be verified; therefore, only resort to using
access dates when the date of publication is unavailable.

• If you cannot ascertain the publication date of a printed work, use

the abbreviation “n.d.”

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Source Citations:
In-Text NB
In-Text Citations:
• Each time a source is used in
the text, it must be cited by
note: footnote or endnote.
• Footnotes appear at the
foot (bottom) of the page
and are preferred.
• Endnotes appear at the
end of the paper before
the bibliography.
(Endnotes are useful when
footnotes have become
exorbitant.)

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Source Citations:
In-Text NB (con’t)
In-Text Citations:
A combination of footnotes and endnotes and even author-date
style can be used:

• Use footnotes for substantive commentary and cite sources

with endnotes.

• Use footnotes for substantive commentary and cite sources

with author-date parenthetical style.

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Source Citations: In-
Text NB (con’t)
Formatting notes:
• Place note numbers at the end of the clause or sentence to which
they refer. (After any and all punctuation except the dash.)

• Begin note numbers with “1” and follow consecutively throughout

the paper.

• Note reference numbers are set as superior (superscript) numbers

in the text.

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Source Citations:
In-Text NB (con’t)
A complete “note” citation for a book, which corresponds to a
slightly differently formatted bibliography entry, would look like
this:

1. Jodi Dean, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies:

Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2009), 30.

Subsequent note citations can and should be shortened, using the

author’s last name and a shortened version of the title. Subsequent
citations of Dean would be shortened to:

2. Dean, Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies, 30.

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Source Citations:
In-Text NB (con’t)
The first line of a footnote is indented .5” from the left margin.
Subsequent lines, within a note, should be formatted flush left.

Leave an extra
line space
between notes.

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Source Citations: In-
Text NB (con’t)
When an editor’s or translator’s name appears in addition to an
author’s, the former appears after the latter in notes and in the
bibliography.

Bibliographic “Edited by” or “Translated by” should be shortened

to “Ed.” and “Trans.” in notes.
Plural forms, such as “Eds.,” are never used.

Ex.
6. Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is
Enlightenment?” in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, trans. Ted
Humphrey (1784; repr., Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), 41.

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Source Citations: In-
Text NB (con’t)
• When a note contains both source documentation and
commentary, the latter should follow the former.

• Citation and commentary are usually separated by a period, but

such comments as “emphasis added” are usually enclosed in
parentheses.

Ex.
75. Lisa Ede and Andrea A. Lunsford, “Collaboration and Concepts
of Authorship,” PMLA 116, no. 2 (March 2001): 354-69,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/463522. Ede and Lunsford note that
we all agree that writing is inherently social, yet we still rely on
individualistic praxis; we still ascribe to pedagogies that
encourage the independent author producing concrete (original,
honest and “truthful”) works.

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The End

The Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition

Formatting Style Guide

Brought to you in cooperation with the

Purdue Online Writing Lab

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THANK YOU
Purdue University On-Campus Writing Lab
Krach Leadership Center (2nd Floor)

Web: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
Phone: (765) 494-3723
Email: owl@owl.english.purdue.edu

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