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Citation Help and Avoiding Plagiarism

Help with citation styles, citation tools, integrating sources into text, and plagiarism.

Chicago & Turbian

Chicago Style (sometimes referred to as Turabian) is primarily used by History, Humanities, Business, Economics, Religion, Fine Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences.

Chicago Style has two formats, so check with your instructor to be sure which one is required:

  • Notes and Bibliography uses endnotes or footnotes at either the end of a chapter/paper or bottom of the page.
    • Citations are included in a "Bibliography" page. 
    • Usually used in literature, history, and the arts, especially for longer works.
  • Author-Date parenthetically cites sources in-text with the author's last name and year of publication.
    • Citations are included in a "References" page.
    • Usually used in the sciences and social sciences, often for shorter works.
    • Substantive or discursive end- or footnotes providing additional context can sometime be used in conjunction with the parenthetical citations.

Accessing the Chicago Manual of Style print and eBooks

Print books
  • Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 17th edition (Print Book)
    • Find the Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition at Clemens or Alcuin
      • Call Number Z253 .U69 2017
    • Includes formatting and style instructions that can help you write your paper, and examples for Bibliography/Reference pages
      • For example, how to write numbers, or when to hyphenate.
  • Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) 18th edition (Print Book)
    • Find the Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition at Clemens or Alcuin
      • Call Number Z253 .U69 2024
    • Includes formatting and style instructions that can help you write your paper, and examples for Bibliography/Reference pages
      • For example, how to write numbers, or when to hyphenate.
Turabian is a simpler format of Chicago Style. Turabian 9th edition also uses the Chicago 17th edition for citation examples.

Here is a citation quick guide for Turabian/Chicago Notes and Bibliography and Author-Date Style

Note: Many of the Libraries' resources (such as the "Cite" button on databases and the library catalog) do NOT support the new CMOS (18th edition) style yet. Continue using guidelines from the 17th edition unless your instructor asks you to use the 18th edition instead. Always edit your citations if your are using "Cite" tools.

Chicago Style: Common Examples

Chicago 17th edition

N: Footnote citations : set of phrases set off by COMMAS, parentheses
B: Bibliography citations : indirect : set off by PERIODS

3 formats
N: Foot/endnotes
Shortened notes (for second mention)
B: Bibliography page (alphabetical order, hanging indent).

Book

N: 3 Ehrhard Bahr, Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 190.

Shortened note: 5 Bahr, Weimar on the Pacific, 190.

B: Bahr, Ehrhard. Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism.  Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

Journal

N: 2 Eamonn O'Keeffe, "Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793-1815," Historical Research 97, no. 275 (2024): 109, https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad027.

Shortened note: 4 O'Keeffe, “Military Music,” 109.

B: O’Keeffe, Eamonn. “Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793–1815.” Historical Research 97, no. 275 (2024): 108–28. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad027.

Website Page

N: Firstname Lastname OR Publisher, “Title of Web Page,” Name of Website, Publishing Organization, revision/updated date, accessed date, URL.

Shortened note: 4 Lastname OR Publisher, “Title of Web Page.”

B: Lastname, Firstname OR Publisher. “Title of Web Page.” Name of Website. Publishing organization, Revised/Updated date. OR Accessed date. URL .

Chicago 17th edition Author-Date

In-Text (Narrative) citations and a Reference Llst 

Three kinds of information are included for in-text/narrative citations:

  1. Author's last name
  2. Publication date of work cited
  3. Page number for the reference

Example from CMOS 15.5:

"Like many other cultural fields, the video game industry is one that rewards novelty, especially when it is packaged in terms that are recognizable to consumers and critics (Lampel, Lant, and Shamsie 2000; Hutter 2011). . . . But the forefront of the industry finds continuous experimentation with the singular challenge of video gaming: how to create a convincing form of narrative storytelling that is nonetheless animated, perhaps uniquely so, by the actions of the users (Bissell 2011)."

Reference list entries

The reference list entries for the above in-text/narrative citations are below. They are alphabetically arranged and use a hanging indent.  Use dois when available in the format of https://doi.#########.

Book

Bissell, Tom. 2011. Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. New York: Vintage Books.

Edited Book

Hutter, Michael. 2011. “Infinite Surprises: Value in the Creative Industries.” In The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy, edited by Jens Beckert and Patrick Aspers, 201–20. New York: Oxford University Press.

Journal

Lampel, Joseph, Theresa Lant, and Jamal Shamsie. 2000. “Balancing Act: Learning from Organizing Practices in Cultural Industries.” Organization Science 11 (3): 263–69.

Chicago 18th edition

N: Footnote citations : set of phrases set off by COMMAS, parentheses
B: Bibliography citations : indirect : set off by PERIODS

3 formats
N: Foot/endnotes
Shortened notes (for second mention)
B: Bibliography page (alphabetical order)

Book

Book

N: 3 Ehrhard Bahr, Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism (University of California Press, 2007), 190.

Shortened note: 5 Bahr, Weimar on the Pacific, 190.

B: Bahr, Ehrhard. Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis of Modernism. University of California Press, 2007.

Journal

N: 2 Eamonn O'Keeffe, "Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793-1815," Historical Research 97, no. 275 (2024): 109, https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad027.

Shortened note: 4 O'Keeffe, “Military Music,” 109.

B: O’Keeffe, Eamonn. “Military Music and Society during the French Wars, 1793–1815.” Historical Research 97, no. 275 (2024): 108–28. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad027.

Website Pages

N: Firstname Lastname OR Publisher, “Title of Web Page,” Name of Website, Publishing Organization, revised/updated date, OR accessed date, URL.

Shortened note: 4 Lastname OR Publisher, “Title of Web Page.”

B: Lastname, Firstname OR Publisher. “Title of Web Page.” Name of Website. Publishing organization, Revised/Updated date. OR Accessed date. URL .

How to Insert Footnotes in MS Word

Inserting (Adding) Foonotes in MS Word

MS Word top ribbon menu

AS YOU WRITE your paper, be sure to add your footnotes immediately. Use a temporary, shortened version of your choice, but be sure to note the page number in the footnote as well as the title of the source. Once you complete your bibliography, you can go back and format the footnotes. The first footnote is always longer than those that follow - so until your paper is finished, you may rearrange the content order and not be concerned with the format. MS Word will automatically change the footnote number as you move content around.
Using Microsoft Word to create footnotes:

  • First, go to the top tabs where "Home" is, then go over to "References" and select it. 
  • Go to the end of the sentence in your document where you want the footnote inserted (Note: this should be AFTER the period).
  • Go back up to the top and select "Insert Footnote."
  • The page will take you to the bottom by the footnote number, where you can insert the resource information. 
  • Your numbered footnote is now connected to the end of the sentence in your text. 
  • As you add footnotes before and after the first one, MS Word will automatically update to the appropriate numbers.

How to Change Bibliography entries into Footnotes

From Bibliography to Footnote

Create a working bibliography as soon as you start research for your paper. Keep track of your paper's footnotes using the short citation form. Once you have your bibliography formatted, you can begin to format your footnotes. 
To reformat to a footnote, you will:

  • Reverse the order of the author's name
  • Change the punctuation from periods to commas or eliminate in certain places.
  • Add parentheses to the publisher information.
  • Add page number information.

For example, here's the bibliography entry in Chicago 17th edition format: 

Goldmark, Daniel. Tunes for ‘Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520236172.001.0001.

The first footnote for a resource is longer than any subsequent notes. For example, the book from the sample looks like this as a footnote:

1. Daniel Goldmark, Tunes for ‘Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 95, https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520236172.001.0001.
The second footnote for the same book would look like this:

2. Goldmark, Tunes for ‘Toons, 95. 

Be sure to check CMOS for each resource format.

Chicago 17th to 18th changes

New in Chicago 18th edition citation formats:

(Not a complete list, just the most widely used)

  • The page range for a cited chapter in an edited book is no longer required in a bibliography or reference list entry (though a page range is still required for most journal articles).
  • A place of publication is no longer required in citations of books.
  • Museum accession numbers should be included in citations of artworks when they are available.
  • Books consulted in a fixed-page format that matches a printed counterpart can be cited without naming the format (as if it were print).
  • Up to six authors are now listed in a bibliography or reference list entry; if more than six, only the first three are listed, followed by “et al.” In a shortened note or an author-date text citation, up to two authors are now listed; if more than two, only the first is listed, followed by “et al.”
  • Information about a cited presentation is no longer enclosed in parentheses in a note.
  • A month or season can now usually be omitted in citations of journal articles.
  • Chicago now prefers repeating the name of the author(s) rather than using a 3-em dash to stand in for repeated names in bibliographies or reference lists.

If you would like to see all the differences between Chicago 17th and Chicago 18th editions, they are listed in entirety in the pdf below.