Chicago Citation Guide.

What is Chicago style?

The Chicago manual of style at time abbreviated as CMOS or CMS was published by the university of Chicago press in the year 1906 as a style guide for American English. It is commonly used and highly valued in the United States.

Chicago style is primarily intended to be a style guide for published works rather than college essays and papers. Chicago guidelines is always supplemented by information from Kate L. Turabians’s Manual for Writers of Research Paper, Theses, and Dissertations which is based on CMOS.

Chicago style does not insist on a specific font size but rather emphasizes using something simple and readable with the use of margins of at least one inch on all sides of the page. The main text should be double spaced with the new paragraph beginning with a half inch indent. The main text must be left aligned and the right margin should look ragged. Numbering in Chicago style of the pages is placed in the bottom center or top right corner of the page.

Below are the general guidelines for writing under Chicago style;

The text ought to be double spaced in the entire body with the exception of notes, figure in the case of longer captions, block quotation, bibliography entries, and table tittles.
Numbering of pages are either on the top right corner or bottom center as the header and footer respectively in Arabic numbers.
In the case of extracts or block quotations,
A quotation with more than one hundred words or more than five sentences must be blocked.
Quotation marks are not used to enclose a blocked quotation.
Blocked quotation must begin in a new line.
Office word indention tools are used to indent blocked lines.
In the case of longer papers with more than five thousand words, it is recommended to use subheadings.
Font size of the letters should not be below 10pt but 12pt is more convenient.
At least a one inch margin space is recommended.
Times New Roman is the most ideal theme font but any other readable typeface such as Courier are also accepted.

Why use Chicago format?

Table of Contents

Chicago format of writing and citation is a popular format in the field of business, historical research and fine arts. Using footnotes rather than parenthetical information gives the reader a room to concentrate on the evidences and he or she is not disturbed by the publication information in it.

Chicago format is a very flexible style and basically unites two main referencing styles i.e. author year system and footnotes or endnotes citations as long as the outcome is clear and consistent. Endnotes are used to reference the pieces of essay. Utilizing the content notes offers information about in text citation by page number or by year of publication.

Chicago format of writing has been taken up by many writers as it gives a clear citation as compared to other formatting styles. The unique character of notes and biography in Chicago writing has made it more outshining to other styles.

Who should use Chicago?

Many publishers across the globe have accepted Chicago formatting style theirs. It is used in some social science publications, historical journals, business journals, trade publishers, and the writers and editors who are required to use the format.

Scholars, newsrooms and students also use the Chicago writing format as it show the source of the information to the reader without straining too much. Chicago in text format has attracted many.

Chicago writing and formatting style

Chicago writing style has two formats, Author date style and The Notes and the bibliography style. The Notes-Bibliography system is utilized mostly by those in the field of literature writing, history and arts but the author date style is much applied by those working in the social science due to its slight difference in form.

Both the author date and the notes and bibliography styles gives all the significant information about the background. The two classes differ a bit little as soon as it comes to the way they direct the person who reads to the bases and the lay out terms they use.

The two Chicago formatting styles has two parts that are very much crucial;

Notation within the manuscript – this shows that the instant preceding information was from another source.
Full citation – it is located in another location preferable the rear sheet.

The Author-date Chicago formatting style.

Under the author date style as proposed by the name, the obtained text, section, or sentence is selected parenthetically with the writer’s surname or names and the time of journal without any punctuation between them. For example, the statistics shows that majority of the youths in most African countries especially third world nations are jobless (Blueboi 2019).

In a situation where the page information are to be included, they are selected along with the writer’s last title and the date of publication after a comma. For example, the statistics shows that majority of the youths in most African countries particularly third world nations are jobless (Blueboi 2019, 97).

In a scenario were the writers name has been mentioned in the manuscript, only the year of publication is the one to be cited beside the text with or without page number. For example, the statistics from research done by Blueboi shows that majority of the youths in most African countries particularly third world nations are jobless (2019).

When using in-text references, they are usually put inside a punctuation mark except for block quotes where reference is placed outside the punctuation. At the last page of the dissertation or academic writing, the full citation is located there. Since the year of publication is important in the author-date style, it appears after the author(s) name(s). For example, Robert M. Salah and Brian Blueboi. 2019. “Challenges facing the modern Africa and the third world nations.”

The Notes and Bibliography Chicago formatting style.

The NB formatting style is more useful in the field of humanities since it offers writers a chance to referencing their tasks using footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography. Efficiency in the use of notes and bibliography helps the writer in recognizing the source material, as well as protecting the writers from being suspect of copying.

In this particular type of formatting style, the obtained manuscript or sentence is shown by a superscripted reminder number that is similar to a full reference at the end of the page as footnote or at the end of main body manuscript as an endnote. Under the footnote or the endnote style, at the end of the manuscript material, the writer’s last names are listed in alphabetical order and placed in a bibliography as the citation.

It is not always necessary to give full publication details in notes if bibliography is used in the entire text, but if bibliography is not being used in the document, the very first note (of every source) need to have all the required information of where the text is sourced from i.e. writer’s full names, tittle of the newsletter or book, and publication details. Most writers thus find it ideal to use bibliography.

In the scenario where a writer is required to cite a source more than once, the surname of the author, a shortened name of the book or journal tittle, and the page number are only details to give in the note as in the case where bibliography is used. It is important though to state the full citation even if repeated but in a new chapter and the bibliography is not utilized. Bibliography thus gives much merits to the writers.

When citing a text from the same source and page two or more times sequentially, the writer may use the word ‘lbid’ (a Latin word which means in the same place) as the previous note. But if the corresponding text is from a different page but the same book or journal, the next not will use the same word ‘lbid’ comma then the page number. As usual footnotes and endnotes starts with full sized number, next period and a space.

Chicago citation footnote format

Notes and bibliography formatting style require footnotes or endnotes each time a text is obtained from a convinced ground or file. Footnotes are located at the conclusion of the sheet on which the source is cited while end notes are positioned at the end of the entire manuscript. In both footnote and endnote, a superscript number matching to the note is placed beside text for the bibliographic information of that specific book or file.

Footnotes are commonly used as compared to the endnotes as they have more merits. Footnote allows the reader of the text or article to check the references as they read all lengthways but with a lot of footnotes references they can be much disturbing and carry’s much space. Endnotes are found at the finish of the manuscript prior to the bibliography, they decrease disruptions to the person who reads and inhabit less space in the page, but they are not as much nearby as the reader has to flip over the pages.

A Chicago footnote always has the number of reference, followed by the date, and the reference by itself. The citation always comprises of the biographers or writers name, the tittle of the manuscript or the journal, and the time of publication and the page number or range, sheet number can be omitted however. In the case where the title of the manuscript or newsletter is very long with more than four words, it can be shortened retaining the key words of the headings.

Never place several footnotes in the same point of a text but when a need to cite several sources in one sentence or paragraph, the references are then pooled into one footnote and separated by a semicolon.

For the instance where the source of the text has binary or triple writers, one is mandated to include all the names. When the authors are four or more than four, the word “et al” a Latin word meaning ‘and others’ is used after the first author’s name.

If one of the bases or grounds which the writer thinks they are very significant to note down lacks sheet numbers but still required, words like paragraph can be shortened into “par.” and chapter into “chap.” and be used as sheet numbers.

If the writer’s source lacks the publication date, period or year, and in Chicago writing format this happens to be crucial, the writer should use the abbreviation “n.d.” meaning ‘no date.’

If the author’s name is not the text, the institute or the institution that published it can take the credit as the author. Under this situation, when the site title is used as the author there is no necessity to state the website’s name in its usual place as it already exists.

Chicago style format citation example

The short notes are often alike without considering the basis and entails the biographer’s name, name of the book, and the page in the book but the material in the full note may differ depending on the origin. There are very many examples of Chicago style format citation but they are categorized into the following categories;

Chicago manuscript citation – the book name is put in italics, if the book has other editions one is required to indicate them and lastly the URL page.
Footnote or endnote layout – Biographer first and last name, name of the book (where published: name of the publisher, year), number of the page.
Short note format – Last author’s name, book tittle, time.
Bibliography format – Biographer’s surname name, first name. Name of the book. Place of publication: Publisher’s name, time.
In text citation layout – Writer last name, year, and page number.
Reference list layout – Writers surname, first name. Time. Name of the manuscript. Publisher’s place: publisher of the book.
Chicago book chapter reference – at times it can be more appropriate and ideal to cite the episode of a manuscript or a dissertation rather than the whole dissertation. Here the episode tittle is bounded in citation marks and the name of the manuscript is put in italics and the short note has only the name of the chapter. The editor is listed only on the footnote but not on the short note.
Full note layout – author first name, last name, “episode, name,” in book tittle, ed publishing supervisor first name, last name (where published: name of publisher, time), page number.
Short note format – author last name, “shortened episode name,” sheet numbers.
Chicago journal article reference – the article name is bounded with quotation marks and the journal heading is in italics. A digital object identifier (DOI) is very reliable in citing a journal rather than the URL.
Footnote or endnote layout – Biographer both names starting with first then last name, “name of editorial,” name of newsletter volume, no. issue, page number. DOI.
Short note layout – first name of the author, name of the journal, and page number.
Bibliography layout – biographer both last name and first name, “The name of the editorial.” heading of the newsletter volume, no. issue. Page range. DOI.
In text reference – writer surname, time, and number of page.
Reference list layout – writer bot surname, first name. Time. “Name of the editorial.” heading of newsletter volume, no. issue: number of the page. DOI
Chicago website reference – the site name is bounded in punctuation marks and the site is not in italics. If the printing day is unidentified, one can indicate the time they opened the site.
Footnote or endnote layout – “name of page,” website, accessed month, date, year, URL.
Short note – “name of the page.”
Bibliography style – Site. “Tittle of the page.” Retrieved month, day, year. URL.
In text citation style – (website, n.d.)
Reference list style – Site, n.d. “name of the page.” Retrieved month, day, year. URL.
Chicago newspaper citation.
Chicago YouTube citation.