Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition (CMS) is a widely used citation method for the humanities, particularly history. This style uses footnotes and endnotes rather than in-line citations.
**Information is pulled from the Purdue OWL webpage. Click here to find more details on CMS citations and formatting.
Footnotes: Citations are placed at the bottom of the page
Endnotes: Citations are placed at the end of the paper on a separate page
General Format
Sections of Your Paper
Footnotes
Citing a Book
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, Title of Book (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page number.
1. William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 271.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom!. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Visit this link for more information on how to cite books with more than one author, books with an editor, and more.
Citing a Journal
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, "Article Title," Journal Title in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information.
-Bibliography entry
Lastname, Firstname. "Article Title." Journal Title in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information.
Citing an Electronic Journal
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, "Article Title," Journal in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information, accessed date Month Day, Year. URL or DOI.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. "Article Title." Journal in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information, accessed date Month Day, Year. URL or DOI.
Citing a Newspaper Article
-Footnote or endnote
1. First Name Last Name of Author, "Article Title," Name of Newspaper (omit the word "The" if a paper starts with it) (City, State), Month Day, Year.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. "Article Title." Name of Newspaper (omit the word "The" if a paper starts with it) (City, State), Month Day, Year.
Citing a Website
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, "Title of Web Page," Publishing Organization or Name of Website in Italics, publication date and/or access date if available. URL.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. "Title of Web Page." Publishing Organization or Name of Website in Italics, publication date and/or access date if available. URL.
**Much of this material was taken directly from the Purdue OWL webpage. All credit is given to this organization.
**Information is pulled from the Purdue OWL webpage. Click here to find more details on CMS citations and formatting.
Footnotes: Citations are placed at the bottom of the page
Endnotes: Citations are placed at the end of the paper on a separate page
General Format
- Margins should be set at no less than 1" and no greater than 1.5"
- Use of appropriate font, such as Times New Roman. Font should be no less than size 10, but size 12 is preferred
- Text should be double-spaced, except for a few exceptions:
- Block quotes, table titles, and figure captions should be single-spaced.
- A prose quotation of five or more lines should be blocked
- A blocked quotation does not get enclosed in quotation marks
- An extra line space should immediately precede and follow a blocked quotation
- Blocked quotations should be indented .5" as a whole
- Block quotes, table titles, and figure captions should be single-spaced.
- Notes and bibliographies should be single-spaced internally; however, leave an extra line space between note and bibliographic entries.
- Page numbers begin in the header of the first page of text with Arabic number 1
- Subheadings should be used for longer papers.
- Put an extra line space before and after subheadings, and avoid ending them with periods
Sections of Your Paper
- Title Page
- Title should be centered a third of the way down the page.
- Your name and class information should follow several lines later
- For subtitles, end the title line with a colon and place the subtitle on the line below the title
- Subtitles could be the class the paper is being written for, as well as the due date
- Main Body
- References
- Label the first page of your back matter, and your comprehensive list of sources, "Bibliography" (for Notes and Bibliography style) or "References" (for Author Date style).
- Leave two blank lines between "Bibliography" or "References" header and your first entry.
- Leave one blank line between remaining entries
- List entries in alphabetical order according to the first word in each entry
- Use "and," not an ampersand (&), for multi-author entries
- For two to three authors, write out all names
- For four to ten authors, write out all names in the bibliography but only the first author's name plus "et al." in notes and parenthetical citations
- When a source has no identifiable author, cite it by its title, both on the references page and in shortened form (up to four keywords from that title) in parenthetical citations throughout the text
- Write out publishers' names in full
- Do not use access dates unless publication dates are unavailable
- If you cannot ascertain the publication date of a printed work, use the abbreviation "n.d."
- Provide DOIs instead of URLS whenever possible
Footnotes
- Note numbers should begin with "1" and follow consecutively throughout a given paper.
- In the text, note numbers are superscripted
- Note numbers should be placed at the end of the clause or sentence to which they refer and should be placed after any and all punctuation
- In the notes themselves, note numbers are full-sized, not raised, and followed by a period (superscripting note numbers in the notes themselves is also acceptable).
- The first line of a footnote is indented .5" from the left margin
- Subsequent lines within a footnote should be formatted flush left
- Leave an extra space between footnotes
- Place commentary after documentation when a footnote contains both, separated by a period
- In parenthetical citation, separate documentation from brief commentary with a semicolon
- Do not repeat the hundreds digit in a page range if it does not change from the beginning to the end of the range
Citing a Book
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, Title of Book (Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication), page number.
1. William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 271.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom!. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Visit this link for more information on how to cite books with more than one author, books with an editor, and more.
Citing a Journal
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, "Article Title," Journal Title in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information.
-Bibliography entry
Lastname, Firstname. "Article Title." Journal Title in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information.
Citing an Electronic Journal
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, "Article Title," Journal in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information, accessed date Month Day, Year. URL or DOI.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. "Article Title." Journal in Italics volume #, issue number (indicated by no. #) (publication year): page information, accessed date Month Day, Year. URL or DOI.
Citing a Newspaper Article
-Footnote or endnote
1. First Name Last Name of Author, "Article Title," Name of Newspaper (omit the word "The" if a paper starts with it) (City, State), Month Day, Year.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. "Article Title." Name of Newspaper (omit the word "The" if a paper starts with it) (City, State), Month Day, Year.
Citing a Website
-Footnote or endnote
1. First name Last name, "Title of Web Page," Publishing Organization or Name of Website in Italics, publication date and/or access date if available. URL.
-Bibliography entry
Last name, First name. "Title of Web Page." Publishing Organization or Name of Website in Italics, publication date and/or access date if available. URL.
**Much of this material was taken directly from the Purdue OWL webpage. All credit is given to this organization.