There is no universally accepted method of formatting and documenting citations in academic writing. Different disciplines, and even different journals within a discipline, are each likely to have their own partly rational and partly idiosyncratic customs and rules. An important part of scholarly training is learning what the rules are in one's particular field, so one can display the right kind of learning and professionalization.

In history and the humanities, Chicago style is a widely-used format, favored by those who prefer the traditional look of footnotes (or endnotes) rather than in-text citations. Nuts and Bolts presents here a concise guide to Chicago notes style. Lovingly detailed treatment is available in The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2003). It is worth noting that for the physical, natural, and social sciences, the Chicago Manual recommends the author-date system of in-text citations, similar to MLA and APA formats. For more information on the difference between these two styles of citation, see the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide online.

Chicago document formats

Paper and binding

Use sturdy white, unlined 8.5" by 11" paper. Chicago style is to use paperclips (in the upper left corner) rather than staples, though some teachers may have their own requirements. Don't use binders or plastic covers unless your teacher wants them. Don't hold your paper together by folding or tearing pages.

Margins, line spacing, and paragraphs

Except for page numbers (see below), use margins of one inch on all sides. The essay, including set-off quotations, should be double-spaced (but not the notes or the bibliography), with no blank lines between paragraphs. The first line of each new paragraph is indented a half-inch on the left (or five spaces if you use a typewriter). Set-off (block) quotations are indented one inch on the left.

Printing and fonts

Type or print; don't turn in handwritten formal work. Print on only one side of the page, in black ink. Use a plain serif or sans-serif font. Good serif choices are Times Roman and Palatino; good non-serif choices are Arial and Helvetica, though some teachers require a serif (more traditional) font.

Emphasis

For emphasis and titles of books, use either italics or underlining. Choose one and be consistent.

Page numbers

Put page numbers a half-inch from the top edge of the paper, flush with the right margin. Don't spell out the numbers and don't precede them with the word "page." (Your teacher may require you to put an identifier like your last name before the page number.)

If you have a title page don't number it but count it for purposes of pagination. Word processors automate pagination, so make sure you know how to use the page number command.

Spaces between sentences

In the old days of typewriters and nonproportional fonts (in which every letter, from i to w, takes up the same space), the rule was to put two spaces between sentences to improve readability. But if you print from a computer, you should put just one space between sentences.

Title

Normal Chicago-style titles are between seven and 15 words long. Make sure your essay has a meaningful title that is more than a bare-bones identifier (not Essay #1 or Essay on Milton). It should signal to the reader what your essay is about (like Irony in Marvell's Ode on Cromwell, or Jefferson's Unpublished Writings on Slavery). A common academic device to create a bit of elegance is to use a title and subtitle, separating them with a colon. Typically the titles are balanced so that one is broad and the other more focused, or one uses a key term and the other starts to delimit and explain it:

Often you'll see a pithy quoted fragment before the colon:

Title page

Papers longer than five pages need a separate title page. It looks something like this:

The title is centered, about half-way down the page. If it exceeds a single line, break it at a natural point.

The essay begins on the next page with no special heading:

Short paper (no separate title page)

Short papers (no more than five pages) don't need a separate title page unless a teacher requires one. Here's an example of the first page of a short paper, Chicago-style. Note that with no title page, the first page includes information on the student, course, professor, and date (different teachers may modify this).

Notes (endnotes or footnotes)

In literature, history and the arts, Chicago style uses bibliographic notes rather than in-text citations. Your teacher will require you to use either footnotes (at the foot of the page) or endnotes (at the end of the essay). Detailed treatment of notes for different kinds of texts follows below, but here are the general formats.

Authors' names are not inverted in notes (Michael Harvey, not Harvey, Michael). See below for examples.

Endnotes

Endnotes are gathered together at the end of the essay, commencing on a new page. Pagination continues from the essay. The word Notes is centered on the first line (subsequent pages of notes don't have a title). Notes are numbered, following the note numbers used in the text. In the endnotes the numbers are in normal text (not superscript), and are followed by a period and a space. The first line of the note is indented a half-inch (or five spaces); subsequent lines are flush left. Notes are single-spaced, with a blank line between notes.

Footnotes

Footnotes occur at the bottom of each page. A line extending about 40 spaces or a bit less than half the width of the page separates the notes from regular text. Notes are numbered; the numbers are in normal text (not superscript), and are followed by a period and a space. The first line of the note is indented a half-inch (or five spaces);: subsequent lines are flush left. Notes are single-spaced, with a blank line between notes.

Late corrections

Sometimes you will discover mistakes in what you thought was a final draft, when you no longer have time to print out a corrected version. In such cases, you should hand-correct the printed version (that's one reason to double-space essays). It's usually okay to turn in an essay with one or two such corrections. How to do it: Cross out the mistake with a single horizontal line. Mark the insertion point with a caret (^). Neatly write in the correction above the printed line. Don't write below the line or in the margin. If you need to make a more substantial correction, make a clean printout.

Basic Chicago citation style

The traditional Chicago citation style consists of references in notes, either footnotes or endnotes (footnotes go at the bottom of the page on which the note occurs, and endnotes are gathered together at the end of the paper; which you use depends on what your teacher prefers). The examples here assume footnotes, but endnotes would look the same.

The first citation of a work requires full bibliographic information. Subsequent citations take a brief note: usually just author and page. At the end of the paper is a bibliography with a complete, alphabetized list of all works cited. The point of Chicago style is to make it easy for readers to see at a glance the source of a citation.

Note that the page number is given without any abbreviation like p.

Introducing quotations elegantly takes some practice. Check Effective quoting for help.

Bibliography

Chicago style requires you to list your sources with full bibliographic information at the end of the paper (after any endnotes). The usual title is "Bibliography," though other titles (like Works Cited or References) are permitted. The bibliography begins on a new page and continues the paper's page numbers. Like other page numbers, the page number for the bibliography appears in the upper-right hand corner, half an inch from the top and flush with the right margin (all margins are one inch).

The title is centered, an inch from the top of the page. Double-space between title and the first entry. Each entry begins flush with the left margin, and is then indented half an inch (learn how to do hanging indents in your word processor of choice to manage this; in a pinch, indent five spaces from the left margin). Entries are single-spaced, with a blank line between entries.

Bibliographic references

The point of a bibliographic reference is to allow your readers to track down your sources. As the examples in the list of works cited above show, you need to include standard bibliographic information: author, title, place of publication, publisher, and year of publication.

Titles

Get the title from the title page, not the cover or another source. Give spelled-out equivalents of symbols like &. When a title consists of two phrases on separate lines, join them with a colon. For example, this title page would be listed as Shakespeare Reread: The Texts in New Contexts.

Alphabetization

Alphabetize the list by author, or for any anonymous works by title (ignoring but not deleting A, An, and The).

Capitalization

Capitalize all significant words, regardless of how the original source is capitalized. Capitalize most words except articles (a, an, the), prepositions (of, to, in, against), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), and the to in infinitives. But if any of these occurs as the first or last word of a title or subtitle, capitalize it.

Underlining/italics and quotation marks

The titles of works published independently (not within another volume) are typically formatted with underlining (or, increasingly often, italics). These include books, plays, long poems published as books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, journals, films, radio and television programs, web sites, CDs, software, ballets, operas, paintings, and other works and artifacts that stand on their own.

The titles of works published within other works are typically placed in quotation marks. These include articles, essays, stories, short poems, chapters, encyclopedia entries, sections of online documents, songs, and individual episodes of broadcast programs.

Titles in titles

Underlined (or italicized) titles in quoted titles. Retain the underlining: "Death in Death in Venice."

Quoted titles in quoted title. Switch to single quotation marks for the inner title: "Ironic reversal in Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'"

Underlined titles in underlined titles. Don't underline or use quotation marks: Stowe's Trumpet: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Civil War.

Quoted title in underlined title. Keep the quotation marks: "Sailing to Byzantium" and Modern Memory

If a quotation-mark title ends a sentence, put the period (but not other punctuation marks like question marks) inside the quotation mark.

Exceptions

Titles of sacred writings like the Koran or Bible (and all books therein) are not underlined or italicized: "The story of Moses is told mainly in Exodus and Deuteronomy."

Neither are the names of laws or other political documents (the U.S. Constitution), musical compositions like symphonies or concertos (Beethoven's Symphony no. 3), series, societies, buildings, conferences, and courses.

The divisions of a work (preface, introduction, foreword, act, scene, canto, section, etc.) are not underlined or put in quotation marks; nor are they capitalized when used in the text of a paper: "Claudius dominates act 4 of the play."

Chicago notes and bibliography details

Nuts and Bolts helps with many questions about Chicago notes and bibliographic entries. But before we launch into the minutiae of how to cite this or that source, let's state a couple of guiding principles: the point of Chicago style, or indeed any citation style, is not rules for their own sake, but as conventions meant to enhance clarity, readability, and usefulness. If any of the rules below seem to produce unclear citations or a difficult-to-read paper, that may because this summary treatment makes Chicago style seem more rigid than it really is. If you want further guidance, consult the 900-page Manual itself, or send a query to the Chicago Manual FAQ.

Each entry below shows how to format the footnote citation and the bibliographic entry, and provides examples when needed. For full details and hundreds of special cases, consult the Chicago Manual of Style.

Here are the types of sources detailed below (the next section treats Internet sources):

1. Basic book format

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

2. Basic journal article format

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

3. Two or more works by the same author

Footnote/endnote. Citing more than work by a scholar is no problem for the first citation, because the first note will have full bibliographic information. But subsequent citations will have to identify not only the scholar, but also the specific work, as this example shows:

Bibliographic entry. For second and subsequent entries by the same author(s) type three dashes (___) or three hyphens (---) instead of the name. Sort the author's works alphabetically by title or chronologically. Whichever you choose, be consistent throughout the bibliography. (If you sort by title, disregard but don't delete The, A, and An).

But do not use the dashes or hyphens for any case where the same person is cited as part of a different coauthorship. And they're never used in combination with a spelled-out name (not ___ and William Harrison).

4. Edited work by a single author

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

5. Edited anthology

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

6. A chapter or essay from an anthology

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

7. Citations of multiple works from an anthology

Treat each citation separately. Chicago style discourages cross-references.

8. An anonymous work

Footnote/endnote

Normally, citations from the Bible follow a particular format (book, chapter, verse, and version). The footnote here would follow that format and add publication information since a (now) non-standard historic text is being used for scholarly purposes.

Bibliographic entry. Alphabetize by title, disregarding A, An, and The.

The Bible is not normally included in the bibliography, but in this instance the work's status as a scholarly edition of a historical text means that a bibliographic entry is appropriate.

9. An article from an anonymous reference book

Footnote/endnote

s.v. stands for the Latin sub verbo ("under the word").

Bibliographic entry. Encyclopedias and dictionaries are generally not included in the bibliography

10. An introduction, preface, or similar part of a book

Reference to a part of a book does not necessarily have to identify the part, especially if there are other citations to the text as a whole. But if citation of a specific part is indicated, here's the format:

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

If the part is by someone other than the author, follow this format:

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

11. A work by two or three authors

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

12. A work by four or more authors

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

13. A work by a corporate author

Footnote/endnote. Treat the organization as the author, and cite the name or a short version of it: (Modern Language Association)

Bibliographic entry

14. A multivolume work—referencing the whole work

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

15. Untitled volume in a multivolume work

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

16. Titled volume in a multivolume work

You've got a choice: you may give the title of the individual volume before or after the title of the multivolume work. Whichever you choose, be consistent.

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

17. Classics

For well-known editions of classic texts, only the name of the edition and the date of the volume are necessary (translator, place, and publisher can be left out).

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

For less familiar editions, full bibliographic information is given.

Citation of specific passages in classic works usually is made to parts (books, sections, cantos, lines, etc.) rather than page number.

It's common to compress this style in papers consisting mainly of classical references: 29. Horace Odes 1.3, 4.8 (additional abbreviations may also be used: see the list of standard abbreviations at the front of the Oxford Classical Dictionary).

In general, division labels (book, section, canto, etc.) are not used, though abbreviations (bk., sec., etc.) may be used if deemed necessary for clarity. It may be convenient to use division names in the text: "In the sixth canto Dante meets a man transformed into a pig").

18. Poems

Footnote/endnote. Omit page numbers when citing classic poems. Instead, cite by textual division (act, scene, canto, book, part, etc.) and line, with periods separating the numbers. However the numbers are formatted in the original, use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3). Don't label the divisions in parentheticals or use l or ll. to denote lines, because these can be confused with numbers.

Bibliographic entry

. . . Quoting poetry

Quotations of more than one line of poetry are usually set off from the text . But if you do quote more than one line in the text, indicate line breaks with a slash (or a solidus, as the Manual reminds us is the proper name) with a space on each side ( / ):

Set-off quotations of poetry are often visually centered on the page (the rule of thumb is to center the longest line and work from that, but make sure to keep at least a quarter-inch left indent). Reproduce the quoted passage line for line, with the same indentation pattern and spacing between stanzas as in the original.

If you choose to begin quoting in the middle of a line of verse, convey that with extra indentation. Ellipsis follows the same format as for prose quotations, except that if you skip one or more whole lines of verse, you need to denote that with a line of em-spaced dots about the same length as the line of verse above:

If a line of verse is too long to fit on a single line in your paper, you may continue the line with a further indentation of a quarter inch.

Citations for set-off quotations of poetry are dropped to the first line after the quotation and, usually, centered on the rightmost letter of the longest line of verse, though they may also be flush right or indented a uniform distance from the right margin.

19. Drama

As with poetry, omit page numbers when citing classic drama. Instead, cite by textual division (act, scene, etc.) and line, with periods separating the numbers. However the numbers are formatted in the original, use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3). In parentheticals don't label the divisions or use l or ll. to denote lines, because these can be confused with numbers (but you may use division names in the text: "Claudius dominates act 4 of the play").

Plays may be written in prose or verse. Prose presents fewer difficulties, and quotations from prose drama follow the usual Chicago conventions for prose quotations. Quoting from verse, however, is more complicated. It's helpful to understand something about the conventions of how verse is written and printed, and how lines are counted.

Shakespeare and many other classic dramatists wrote most often in iambic pentameter, with 10-syllable lines comprising five feet of two syllables each. Such a line doesn't necessarily end when a different character speaks. Line 5.6.100 above, for instance, consists of three utterances. Note that Line 99's formatting indicates it's completing a line already begun.

Although Chicago style is based on notes, the style discourages numerous footnotes or endnotes to the same works. If you have many references to a pay, for instance, put them into the text in parentheses. The following example assumes that the author and text have already been established in an initial reference.

Bibliographic entry. There's no need to include the original publication information for classic works unless that's germane to your point.

You may even leave such a text out of the bibliography altogether. According to the CMS (15.296), unless a particular edition is germane to your paper, plays and poems carrying standard section and line or stanza numbers may be omitted from the bibliography. In such a case, most teachers expect an initial note stating which edition(s) are being used.

. . . Quoting drama

If you are only quoting one character and a short speech, you may put the quotation within quotation marks in your text. If you're quoting a prose passage, treat it like any prose quotation; if a verse passage, treat it like poetry:

But as with poetry, passages of more than one line are usually set off from the text, indented as for poetry. Begin each speech with the character's name (denoted with italics or all capitals) followed by a period and a space. Quotations of prose need no special handling; verse speeches should follow the layout of the original.

As with poetry generally, runover lines of dramatic verse (but not prose) should be indented an additional quarter-inch.

20. The Bible

Footnote/endnote. Cite book, chapter, and verse, and identify the version used. Abbreviate the version name in subsequent notes. The Chicago Manual of Style has a list of abbreviations for scriptural books and versions (14.34-35).

If there are numerous scriptural quotations, follow the procedure noted in item 32 below for in-text parenthetical citations. The initial citation would give version information ("Quotations from the Bible are from the King James Version"); subsequent references would be placed in the text: (Job 38.36).

Bibliographic entry. The Bible is not normally included in the bibliography.

21. Letter in a published collection

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

22. Public documents

There are many kinds of public documents. Here we present guidance with the most common types, focusing on American public documents. In some cases I have chosen one of several acceptable formats (there is a good deal of leeway in CMS treatment of citations of public documents). See the Manual for fuller treatment.

Information supplied in a reference

What information you must supply and how you order it may vary. A full reference would include these elements, though not necessarily in this order:

• Governmental territorial division (country, state, etc.) issuing the document.
• Legislative body, executive department, court or other top-level author.
• Subsidiary offices or departments.
• Title of the document or collection.
• Individual author (editor, compiler) if given.
• Identification number or other reference referring to the specific document.
• Publisher, if different from the issuing body.
• Date.
• Page or textual division, if relevant.

Not all references will have all this information. For economy, some categories may be omitted if obvious from context or deemed unnecessary. References to Senate documents, for instance, often eliminate mention of the Congress. As always, whatever decisions are made about format, consistency should be maintained throughout a work's notes and bibliography.

Publication information

Most U.S. government publications are printed by the Government Printing Office (Washington, D.C.). Publication information for government documents may format this printing information in a variety of ways (for instance by abbreviating to GPO or leaving off the city). The Chicago Manual recommends that a work's references and bibliography choose one format and use it consistently, regardless of how the publication information is formatted in the source. Consistency matters more than the particular format. Nuts and Bolts recommends this version:

Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2000

The Internet

Most U.S. government public documents are now accessible online via the Government Printing Office's website (http://www.access.gpo.gov/). Since references are meant to help readers locate texts, Nuts and Bolts recommends including link information to public documents accessible through the official GPO website (not private third-party sites). Such link information is likely to become a standard part of references to public documents.

For general help with Internet citations, consult the guidelines below.

23. The United States Constitution

Cite by article or amendment, section, and clause (as needed). Abbreviations and Arabic numerals are customary.

Footnote/endnote

Note: this is the general format for citing the Constitution. Citations in predominantly legal works follow different guidelines: 23. US Const, Amend XIV, § 1. See the Chicago Manual (15.312) for more details, or consult a guide like the University of Chicago Manual of Legal Citation.

Page numbers or bibliographic information for printed texts of the Constitution are not given.

Bibliographic entry. The Constitution is not listed in the bibliography.

24. Congressional documents

Documents include the Congressional Record; committee reports, hearings, and prints; bills and statues; and other documents. Publication information (city, publisher) is not necessary.

Many documents issue from Congressional committees. Use the full committee name even when a sub-committee is identified as the document author. For other congressional documents, include the number and session of Congress, the house (S. stands for Senate, H. and H.R. for House of Representatives), and the type and number of the publication. Types of congressional publications include public laws (P.L. 106-11), bills (S 87, H.R. 213), resolutions (S. Res. 14, H. Res. 29), reports (S. Rept. 106-109, H. Rept. 103), and documents (S. Doc. 144, H. Doc. 282).

Congressional Record

Since 1873 the Congressional Record (often abbreviated as Cong. Rec. in notes) has served as a daily record of congressional activities and debates. Cite the permanent bound version when possible, and identify daily or biweekly editions (which are likely to have different pagination) when citing them.

If, as will usually be the case, the body of your paper identifies the speaker and the subject of a speech recorded in the Congressional Record, the note and reference may take this form:

Footnote/endnote. You may include a year, year and date, or skip this information altogether, as the volume and page will locate the source.

Bibliographic entry

If speaker or subject are not clear from your use of the material, include this information in the note and reference:

Footnote/endnote. The date may be included.

Bibliographic entry

Reports and documents

Reports and documents of the Senate and the House are numbered and bound in the serial set. The abbreviations Rept. (Report), Doc. (Document), S. (Senate) and H. (House of Representatives) are used.

Footnote/endnote. The specific page reference is included if appropriate.

Bibliographic entry

Hearings

Footnote/endnote. The specific page reference is included if appropriate.

Bibliographic entry

Committee prints

Footnote/endnote. Include page reference if appropriate.

Bibliographic entry

Bills (and resolutions)

Congressional bills are proposed laws. Bills and resolutions are cited in notes but not usually not included in the bibliography. Initially, bills are published as pamphlets.

Footnote/endnote

Or, if the title of the bill appears in the text, it may be left out of the note:

Bibliographic entry

As noted, bills and resolutions are not usually included in the bibliography. If you do list one, the bibliographic entry should include the title:

25. Statutes or laws

Statutes are published in several different sources, and the particular source must be specified. Statutes may be included in the bibliography, but they are often cited only in notes. Be consistent.

Public laws

Statutes are first published separately, being referred to as slip laws or public laws.

Footnote/endnote. Include page reference(s) if appropriate.

Bibliographic entry

Statutes at Large

After individual publication, laws are collected in bound volumes entitled United States Statutes at Large.

Footnote/endnote. Include specific page reference(s) if appropriate.

Bibliographic entry

U.S. Code

Eventually laws are incorporated into the United States Code.

Footnote/endnote. Include particular section reference(s) if appropriate.

Bibliographic entry

26. Presidential documents

These include executive orders, addresses, and public papers, and other documents. These are published in The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents the Federal Register, which is also available in microfiche (and, Nuts and Bolts adds, online), and in the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States.

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

27. Executive department, administrative agency, and government commission documents

Discretion is allowed in how to refer to an issuing body. Census Bureau publications, for instance, need not list the Department of Commerce as a parent organization. In general, familiar agencies or bureaus may be cited as the issuing body; citations of less-familiar ones should include the parent department. Sub-units within agencies often issue documents, and these should be listed in top-down order.

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

28. Federal and state court decisions

Court decisions are usually not included in the bibliography.

Supreme Court

Supreme Court decisions are published officially in the United States Supreme Court Reports (abbreviated U.S.). They are also published in the Supreme Court Reporter (Sup. Ct.). Citations should preferably be to U.S., though Sup. Ct. may be used if necessary, or both sources may be cited.

Footnote/endnote. Include page reference if pertinent.

Federal Court

Lower federal court decisions are published officially in the Federal Reporter (abbreviated F.). If the decision is in a supplement (Supp.) or a series (2d, 3rd, etc.) other than the first, this should be noted. The court and date are identified at the end of the citation.

Footnote/endnote

State Court

Similar format: the case name, reporter reference, state, and year.

Footnote/endnote

In general, subsequent citations of court decisions may be shortened to case titles: Adarand Constructor, Inc. v. Pena, 47.

29. A magazine article

Some periodicals may use different titles for articles on the contents page and at the beginning of the article itself. In such cases, use the title from the contents page.

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

30. An anonymous magazine article

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

32. An unsigned article or editorial

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

33. A pamphlet

Treat a pamphlet like a book.

34. Multiple citations in one note

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends avoiding excessive notes when possible. If a sentence has several cited texts, it is generally wise to gather the citations in one note at the end of the sentence.

Footnote/endnote

Likewise, a paragraph containing several short quotations need not give a citation for each of them, especially if they are from the same text. Avoid confusion by matching the number and order of citations to the number and order of quoted passages.

Bibliographic entry. Each work, of course, is entered in the bibliography separately.

35. A translation

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

36. A second or subsequent edition

Footnote/endnote. As usual.

Bibliographic entry

The name of an editor, translator, or compiler (if any) is placed before the edition.

37. Indirect source

Footnote/endnote. Include as much information as you can about the original source.

Bibliographic entry. If you use a text only indirectly, don't include it in the bibliography.

38. Abbreviations for frequently cited works

The Chicago Manual of Style allows in-text parenthetical citations of frequently cited works. This is common, for instance, in extended studies of an author. A note attached to the first citation from the author explains the abbreviations used.

If ten or more abbreviations are used, these should be gathered together in a list and placed nears the endnotes (or bibliography). If the list is brief (a half-page or less), it is placed after the heading "Notes" and before the notes themselves.. If the list is long, it is placed on a page or pages preceding the notes or bibliography, with the heading "Abbreviations" in the same style as the Notes. The list is prefaced with a brief explanation, and arranged in two columns: abbreviations on the left, and full bibliographic references on the right. You may use whatever abbreviations are convenient (usually acronyms or the first letter of a text).

39. Missing bibliographic information

Use the following abbreviations for information you can't supply.

If both place and publisher information is lacking, use just one n.p. Put the abbreviation where the information would customarily go.

Kiefer, Frederick. Fortune and Elizabethan Tragedy. N.p.: Huntington Library, 1983.

If the missing information is known but not given, it may be included in brackets.

If you're uncertain about the accuracy of the information, use a question mark. If a date is approximate, precede it with c. for circa ("about").

Especially for old works (pre-1900), missing publication information may simply be omitted.

Chicago Internet notes and references

The 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, published in 2003, contains a considerable amount of information about citing electronic materials, but no documentation style can fully account for the variety of sources available on the Internet. Below you’ll find some specific guidelines for citing things like web sites and online publications, but at times, you’ll encounter a source that simply defies categorization. In those cases, evaluate the source carefully to make sure that it’s legitimate, and then use common sense (and the knowledge you’ve gained here about Chicago style documentation) to format your citation in a way that includes as much information about your source as possible.

Fortunately, you’ll most often find that Internet sources provide you with several key bits of information: an author’s name or a sponsoring organization, a title, a date when the information was posted, and a specific URL or web address. Collect as much of this information as possible when you begin to format a citation. You may also want to include the date on which you accessed the source online (see below for examples of this). Chicago style doesn’t always require an access date in citations, but including one is generally a good idea.

Whatever the case, be aware that it is usually NOT sufficient to identify a web source by its URL alone (as in www.hoovers.com). Such citations are apt to leave your reader with too many questions: What part of the web site are you referencing? How do we know that the information is coming from a trustworthy source? When did you access the site? Providing this information usually isn't all that difficult.

The page problem

One complication of online documents is that they usually lack page numbers, so it's not easy to point readers to particular passages. In order to direct readers as closely as possible to the right source passage, use whatever divisions the work is formatted in. If you are citing a single web page that is contained on a larger web site, give both page and site titles, just as you would for a chapter or essay from an edited collection. Otherwise, look for division numbers, section titles or for words like Introduction and Conclusion. If you feel it will be helpful to your readers, you can include a brief descriptive phrase to identify which part of a website you're referring to.

What's your source?

Another source of confusion with online documents is the profusion of copies of texts. With the way the Internet works, anyone can post any document, accurate or not, for public access. In general, make sure that if you're quoting from a text you try to track down the copyright holder or other responsible organization, rather than taking the text and URL from a personal page or other idiosyncratic source. For instance, cite government documents from the Government Printing Office's website (http://www.access.gpo.gov/) or similar source. Doing so increases the chances you'll get an accurate copy, and it reassures readers about your scholarly care. For more on online research, see the Nuts and Bolts section on Research and the Internet.

Here are the types of electronic sources detailed below:

E1. Web site with an individual author

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

Since the web site being referenced here has no specific title, the descriptive phrase "Home page" is sufficient. It's also worth noting that personal web sites are often not listed in the bibliography.

E2. Organizational or corporate web site

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

E3. Short work from a larger website

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

E4. Online book

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

E5. Article in an online journal or magazine

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

E6. Article accessed through an online database

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

E7. Government publication

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

For other kinds of public documents, apply these Internet elements—the URL and retrieval date—to the formats for public documents above.

E8. Other web materials

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry

E9. Forum or conference posting

Footnote/endnote

Use of the source material in the body of the essay should clarify the nature of the source.

Bibliographic entry. Postings not accessible to the public are generally not included in the bibliography. Public postings may be included.

E10. Email

Footnote/endnote

Bibliographic entry. Following CMS style for personal communications, email is generally not listed in the bibliography (CMS 15.269).

Substantive notes

Sometimes a writer wants to discuss a topic or mention something that doesn't really fit in the body of the paper: a discussion of sources, for instance, that seems too narrow to fit in the body. For such instances one may use substantive, or discursive, notes. These generally follow the same format and share the numbering of other endnotes or footnotes in the paper, though lengthy works with very extensive documentation (unlikely for undergraduate writing) may put bibliographic in endnotes and substantive notes in footnotes.

Here are some typical kinds of comments that might go in notes.

An acknowledgment or thanks, numbered "1" and attached to the title or first sentence of the essay.

A note on method, attached to the first use of pertinent material.

A note that mentions or evaluates sources.

This kind of substantive note requires special handling. If a text mentioned here has already been cited in full earlier in the work, it may receive a short reference here:

If a work is being cited for the first time in a substantive note, the bibliographic reference is supplied in the note. It may be given in parentheses, worked into the text, or supplied at the end of the note. If it is given in parentheses, then brackets [] are used to enclose the publication facts (city, publisher, year).

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