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How To Write a Bibliography (Plus Printable Guide With Examples)

Give credit where credit is due.

Writing a research paper involves a lot of work. Students need to consult a variety of sources to gather reliable information and ensure their points are well supported. Research papers include a bibliography, which can be a little tricky for students. Learn how to write a bibliography in multiple styles and find basic examples below.

Plus grab our printable Bibliography Writing Guide with examples from all three major style guides: APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), or The Chicago Manual of Style . Just fill out the form on this page.

IMPORTANT: Each style guide has its own very specific rules, and they often conflict with one another. Additionally, each type of reference material has many possible formats, depending on a variety of factors. The overviews shown here are meant to guide students in writing basic bibliographies, but this information is by no means complete. Students should always refer directly to the preferred style guide to ensure they’re using the most up-to-date formats and styles.

What is a bibliography?

When you’re researching a paper, you’ll likely consult a wide variety of sources. You may quote some of these directly in your work, summarize some of the points they make, or simply use them to further the knowledge you need to write your paper. Since these ideas are not your own, it’s vital to give credit to the authors who originally wrote them. This list of sources, organized alphabetically, is called a bibliography.

A bibliography should include all the materials you consulted in your research, even if you don’t quote directly from them in your paper. These resources could include (but aren’t limited to):

• Books and e-books
• Periodicals like magazines or newspapers
• Online articles or websites
• Primary source documents like letters or official records

Bibliography vs. References

These two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but they actually have different meanings. As noted above, a bibliography includes all the materials you used while researching your paper, whether or not you quote from them or refer to them directly in your writing.

A list of references only includes the materials you cite throughout your work. You might use direct quotes or summarize the information for the reader. Either way, you must ensure you give credit to the original author or document. This section can be titled “List of Works Cited” or simply “References.”

Your teacher may specify whether you should include a bibliography or a reference list. If they don’t, consider choosing a bibliography, to show all the works you used in researching your paper. This can help the reader see that your points are well supported, and allow them to do further reading on their own if they’re interested.

Bibliography vs. Citations

Citations refer to direct quotations from a text that are woven into your own writing. There are a variety of ways to write citations, including footnotes and endnotes. These are generally shorter than the entries in a reference list or bibliography. Learn more about writing citations here.

What does a bibliography entry include?

Depending on the reference material, bibliography entries include a variety of information intended to help a reader locate the material if they want to refer to it themselves. These entries are listed in alphabetical order and may include:

• Author/s or creator/s
• Publication date
• Volume and issue numbers
• Publisher and publication city
• Website URL

These entries don’t generally need to include specific page numbers or locations within the work (except for print magazine or journal articles). That type of information is usually only needed in a footnote or endnote citation.

What are the different bibliography styles?

In most cases, writers use one of three major style guides: APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), or The Chicago Manual of Style . There are many others as well, but these three are the most common choices for K–12 students.

Many teachers will state their preference for one style guide over another. If they don’t, you can choose your own preferred style. However, you should also use that guide for your entire paper, following their recommendations for punctuation, grammar, and more. This will ensure you are consistent throughout.

Below, you’ll learn how to write a simple bibliography using each of the three major style guides. We’ve included details for books and e-books, periodicals, and electronic sources like websites and videos. If the reference material type you need to include isn’t shown here, refer directly to the style guide you’re using.

APA Style Bibliography and Examples

Technically, APA style calls for a list of references instead of a bibliography. If your teacher requires you to use the APA style guide , you can limit your reference list to only items you cite throughout your work.

How To Write a Bibliography (References) Using APA Style

Here are some general notes on writing an APA reference list:

• Title your bibliography section “References” and center the title on the top line of the page.
• Do not center your references; they should be left-aligned. For longer items, subsequent lines should use a hanging indent of 1/2 inch.
• Include all types of resources in the same list.
• Alphabetize your list by author or creator, last name first.
• Do not spell out the author/creator’s first or middle name—only use their initials.
• If there are multiple authors/creators, use an ampersand (&) before the final author/creator.
• Place the date in parentheses.
• Capitalize only the first word of the title and subtitle, unless the word would otherwise be capitalized (proper names, etc.).
• Italicize the titles of books, periodicals, or videos.
• For websites, include the full site information, including the http:// or https:// at the beginning.

Books and E-Books APA Bibliography Examples

For books, APA reference list entries use this format (only include the publisher’s website for e-books):

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Publication date). Title with only first word capitalized (unless there’s proper name/noun) . Publisher. Publisher’s website

• Wynn, S. (2020). City of London at war 1939–45 . Pen & Sword Military. https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/City-of-London-at-War-193945-Paperback/p/17299

Periodical APA Bibliography Examples

For journal or magazine articles, use the following format. If you viewed the article online, include the URL at the end of the citation.

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Publication date). Title of article. Magazine or Journal Title (Volume number) Issue number, page numbers. URL

• Bell, A. (2009). Landscapes of fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945. Journal of British Studies (48) 1, 153–175. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25482966

Here’s the format for newspapers. For print editions, include the page number/s. For online articles, include the full URL:

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year, Month Date) Title of article. Newspaper title. Page number/s. URL

• Blakemore, E. (2022, November 12) Researchers track down two copies of fossil destroyed by the Nazis.  The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/12/ichthyosaur-fossil-images-discovered/

Electronic APA Bibliography Examples

For articles with a specific author on a website, use this format:

Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year, Month Date). Title . Site name. URL

• Wukovits, J. (2023, January 30). A World War II survivor recalls the London Blitz . British Heritage . https://britishheritage.com/history/world-war-ii-survivor-london-blitz

When an online article doesn’t include a specific author or date, list it like this:

Title . (Year, Month Date). Site name. Retrieved Month Date, Year, from URL

• Growing up in the Second World War . (n.d.). Imperial War Museums. Retrieved May 12, 2023, from https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/growing-up-in-the-second-world-war

When you need to list a YouTube video, use the name of the account that uploaded the video, and format it like this:

Name of Account. (Upload year, month day). Title [Video]. YouTube. URL

• War Stories. (2023, January 15). How did London survive the Blitz during WW2? | Cities at war: London | War stories [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/uwY6JlCvbxc

For more information on writing APA bibliographies, see the APA Style Guide website.

APA Bibliography (Reference List) Example Pages

MLA Style Bibliography Examples

MLA style calls for a Works Cited section, which includes all materials quoted or referred to in your paper. You may also include a Works Consulted section, including other reference sources you reviewed but didn’t directly cite. Together, these constitute a bibliography. If your teacher requests an MLA Style Guide bibliography, ask if you should include Works Consulted as well as Works Cited.

How To Write a Bibliography (Works Cited and Works Consulted) in MLA Style

For both MLA Works Cited and Works Consulted sections, use these general guidelines:

• Start your Works Cited list on a new page. If you include a Works Consulted list, start that on its own new page after the Works Cited section.
• Center the title (Works Cited or Works Consulted) in the middle of the line at the top of the page.
• Align the start of each source to the left margin, and use a hanging indent (1/2 inch) for the following lines of each source.
• Alphabetize your sources using the first word of the citation, usually the author’s last name.
• Include the author’s full name as listed, last name first.
• Capitalize titles using the standard MLA format.
• Leave off the http:// or https:// at the beginning of a URL.

Books and E-Books MLA Bibliography Examples

For books, MLA reference list entries use the following format. Add the URL at the end for e-books.

Last Name, First Name Middle Name. Title . Publisher, Date. URL

• Wynn, Stephen. City of London at War 1939–45 . Pen & Sword Military, 2020. www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/City-of-London-at-War-193945-Paperback/p/17299

Periodical MLA Bibliography Examples

Here’s the MLA style format for magazines, journals, and newspapers. For online articles, add the URL at the end of the listing:

For magazines and journals:

Last Name, First Name. “Title: Subtitle.” Name of Journal , volume number, issue number, Date of Publication, First Page Number–Last Page Number.

• Bell, Amy. “Landscapes of Fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945.” Journal of British Studies , vol. 48, no. 1, January 2009, pp. 153–175. www.jstor.org/stable/25482966

When citing newspapers, include the page number/s for print editions or the URL for online articles:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of article.” Newspaper title. Page number/s. Year, month day. Page number or URL

• Blakemore, Erin. “Researchers Track Down Two Copies of Fossil Destroyed by the Nazis.” The Washington Post. 2022, Nov. 12. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/12/ichthyosaur-fossil-images-discovered/

Electronic MLA Bibliography Examples

Last Name, First Name. Year. “Title.” Month Day, Year published. URL

• Wukovits, John. 2023. “A World War II Survivor Recalls the London Blitz.” January 30,   2023. https://britishheritage.com/history/world-war-ii-survivor-london-blitz

Website. n.d. “Title.” Accessed Day Month Year. URL.

• Imperial War Museum. n.d. “Growing Up in the Second World War.” Accessed May 9, 2023. www.iwm.org.uk/history/growing-up-in-the-second-world-war.

Here’s how to list YouTube and other online videos:

Creator, if available. “Title of Video.” Website. Uploaded by Username, Day Month Year. URL.

• “How did London survive the Blitz during WW2? | Cities at war: London | War stories.” YouTube . Uploaded by War Stories, 15 Jan. 2023. youtu.be/uwY6JlCvbxc.

For more information on writing MLA style bibliographies, see the MLA Style website.

MLA Bibliography (Works Cited) Example Pages

Chicago Manual of Style Bibliography Examples

The Chicago Manual of Style (sometimes called “Turabian”) actually has two options for citing reference material: Notes and Bibliography and Author-Date. Regardless of which you use, you’ll need a complete detailed list of reference items at the end of your paper. The examples below demonstrate how to write that list.

How To Write a Bibliography Using The Chicago Manual of Style

Here are some general notes on writing a Chicago -style bibliography:

• You may title it “Bibliography” or “References.” Center this title at the top of the page and add two blank lines before the first entry.
• Left-align each entry, with a hanging half-inch indent for subsequent lines of each entry.
• Single-space each entry, with a blank line between entries.
• Include the “http://” or “https://” at the beginning of URLs.

Books and E-Books Chicago Manual of Style Bibliography Examples

For books, Chicago -style reference list entries use the following format. (For print books, leave off the information about how the book was accessed.)

Last Name, First Name Middle Name. Title . City of Publication: Publisher, Date. How e-book was accessed.

• Wynn, Stephen. City of London at War 1939–45 . Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military, 2020. Kindle edition.

Periodical Chicago Manual of Style Bibliography Examples

Here’s the style format for magazines, journals, and newspapers. For online articles, add the URL at the end of the listing.

For journal and magazine articles, use this format:

Last Name, First Name. Year of Publication. “Title: Subtitle.” Name of Journal , Volume Number, issue number, First Page Number–Last Page Number. URL.

• Bell, Amy. 2009. “Landscapes of Fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945.” Journal of British Studies, 48 no. 1, 153–175. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25482966.

When citing newspapers, include the URL for online articles:

Last Name, First Name. Year of Publication. “Title: Subtitle.” Name of Newspaper , Month day, year. URL.

• Blakemore, Erin. 2022. “Researchers Track Down Two Copies of Fossil Destroyed by the Nazis.” The Washington Post , November 12, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/12/ichthyosaur-fossil-images-discovered/.

Electronic Chicago Manual of Style Bibliography Examples

Last Name, First Name Middle Name. “Title.” Site Name . Year, Month Day. URL.

• Wukovits, John. “A World War II Survivor Recalls the London Blitz.” British Heritage. 2023, Jan. 30. britishheritage.com/history/world-war-ii-survivor-london-blitz.

“Title.” Site Name . URL. Accessed Day Month Year.

• “Growing Up in the Second World War.” Imperial War Museums . www.iwm.org.uk/history/growing-up-in-the-second-world-war. Accessed May 9, 2023.

Creator or Username. “Title of Video.” Website video, length. Month Day, Year. URL.

• War Stories. “How Did London Survive the Blitz During WW2? | Cities at War: London | War Stories.” YouTube video, 51:25. January 15, 2023. https://youtu.be/uwY6JlCvbxc.

For more information on writing Chicago -style bibliographies, see the Chicago Manual of Style website.

Chicago Manual of Style Bibliography Example Pages

Get Your Free Printable Bibliography Style Guide

Just fill out the form on this page to grab our printable Bibliography Writing Guide with examples from all three major style guides: APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), or The Chicago Manual of Style .

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / MLA Format / Creating an MLA Bibliography

Creating an MLA Bibliography

If you write a research paper in MLA format, then you will need to include a Works Cited page according to the current 9th edition of the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines. Along with citing your sources within the body of your paper, you also need to include full citations of all sources at the end of your paper. The references in a bibliography are formatted in the same way as they would be in a Works Cited page. However, a bibliography refers to all works that you have consulted in your research, even if you did not use their information directly in your paper.

When you use the correct MLA bibliography format, it shows the reader what sources you consulted, makes finding your sources easier for the reader, and gives credibility to your work as a researcher and writer. This MLA sample paper will show you how the bibliography is incorporated into the rest of your paper. We also have a guide on APA reference pages , if you are following APA style in your paper.

Works cited or bibliography?

You may be wondering, what is a bibliography, and how is it different from a Works Cited page? The difference between the two is that while a bibliography refers to any source you consulted to write your research paper, a Works Cited page only includes full citations of the sources you quoted or paraphrased within your paper.

Typically, when someone says, “MLA bibliography” they really mean a Works Cited page, since the MLA format usually uses a Works Cited page instead of a bibliography.

A bibliography in MLA format may also refer to a Works Consulted page. If you used other sources that you did not directly quote or paraphrase within the paper, you will need to create a Works Consulted/Additional Resources page. A Works Consulted page starts on a separate page and follows the Works Cited page. It follows the same formatting guidelines as a Works Cited page, but you will use Works Consulted (or Additional Resources) as the title.

If you’re unsure of what to include in your citations list (works cited, works consulted, or both), ask your instructor. For the rest of this article, we will refer to this page as the MLA bibliography.

MLA bibliography formatting guidelines

These are the formatting rules you need to follow to create your bibliography according to MLA’s current edition guidelines. Your first page(s) will be your Works Cited page(s) and include the references that you directly refer to in your paper. Usually, this is all that is needed. If your instructor wants you to also include the works you consulted but did not include in your paper (more like a bibliography), then add Works Consulted or Additional Resources page for these sources.

• Your MLA Works Cited (and Works Consulted or Additional Resources pages) should begin on a separate page or pages at the end of your essay.
• Your essay should have a header on every page that includes your last name and the page number.
• The last name/page number header should be on the top right of each page with a ½ inch margin from the top of the page.
• One-inch margins.
• Title the page Works Cited (no italicization or quotation marks) unless otherwise instructed. Center the title. The top should look like this:

• Only center the Works Cited title; all citations should be left-justified.
• Double-space citations.
• Do not add an additional space between citations.
• After the first line, use a hanging indent of ½ inch on all additional lines of a citation. The hanging indent should look like this:

• Typically, this is the author’s last name, but sometimes it could be the title of the source if the author’s name is not available.

If you have a Works Consulted or Additional Resources page after your Works Cited page, format it in the same way, but with the title of Works Consulted or Additional Resources instead of Works Cited. Alternatively, your instructor may require a bibliography. If this is the case, all your sources, whether they are cited in your paper are not, are listed on the same page.

MLA citation guidelines

These are the rules you need to follow to create citations for an MLA bibliography. This section contains information on how to correctly use author names, punctuation, capitalization, fonts, page numbers, DOIs, and URLS in the citations on your MLA bibliography.

Author names

After the title Works Cited, the last name of the author of a source should be the first thing to appear on your page.

List the author’s last name followed by a comma, then the first name followed by the middle name or middle initial if applicable, without a comma separating the first and middle names. Add a period after the name.

Rowling, J.K.

Smith, Alexander McCall.

• Do not include titles such as Dr., Mrs., etc. or professional qualifications such as PhD, M.S., etc. with author names.
• Include suffixes such as Jr. or III after the author’s first name. Separate the first name and the suffix by a comma unless the suffix is a numeral. For example, to cite an author named John Smith, Jr., you would type Smith, John, Jr.

Sources with two authors

For a source with two authors, list the author names in your citation in the order they appear on the source, not alphabetically.

Type the last name of the first author listed on the source followed by a comma, then the first author’s first name followed by a comma. Then type the word “and” then list the second author’s first name and last name in the standard order. Follow the second name with a period.

Include middle names or initials and suffixes when applicable according to the guidelines for one author as listed above.

1st Author’s Last Name, First Name, and 2nd Author’s First Name Last Name.

Lutz, Lisa, and David Hayward.

Clark, Mary Higgins, and Alafair Burke.

Sources with three or more authors

For a source with three or more authors, only type the last and first name of the first author listed in the source, followed by a comma and the phrase et al., which is Latin for “and others.” Be sure to always place a period after the al in et al. but never after the et.

1st Author’s Last Name, First Name, et al.

Charaipotra, Sona, et al.

Williams, Beatriz, et al. All the Ways We Said Goodbye . HarperLuxe, 2020.

Organizations and corporations as authors

For sources with organizations or corporations listed as the author, type the name of the corporation in place of an author’s name. If the organization begins with an article like a, an, or the, it should be excluded in the Works Cited entry.

Modern Language Association of America. MLA Handbook . 2016.

*Note: If the organization is listed as both the author and the publisher, begin the citation with the title and include the organization’s name within the publisher field instead. 

For a source with no author listed, simply omit the author’s name and begin the citation with the title of the source. Use the first letter of the title when considering alphabetical order in your MLA bibliography.

Capitalization

Use MLA title case when citing titles of sources.

• Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and subordinating conjunctions should be capitalized.
• Articles, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions should not be capitalized.

Font formatting

• Italicize the titles of larger works such as magazines and books. Also, italicize database and website names.
• Instead of italicization, use quotation marks around titles of shorter works such as poems, short stories, and articles.
• End all bibliography citations with a period.

Page numbers

Include page numbers in your full citations whenever possible. This helps the reader find the information you cited more quickly than if you just cited the entire source and lends more credibility to your argument. If you cite different pages from the same source within your paper, you should cite the entire source on your MLA bibliography instead of listing all of the page numbers you used.

When including page numbers in a citation, use the abbreviation p. to cite one page and the abbreviation pp. to cite multiple pages with a hyphen between the page numbers.

p. 25 or pp. 16-37

When citing page numbers in MLA, omit the first set of repeated digits.

pp. 365-69, not pp. 365-369

DOIs and URLs

A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is used to locate and identify an online source. While URLs may change or web pages might be edited or updated, a DOI is permanent and therefore more useful in a source citation.

• Use a DOI (digital object identifier) whenever possible. Otherwise use a permalink or URL.
• DOIs should be formatted with “https://doi.org/” before the DOI number.
• Do not include “http://” or “https://” in your URLs.
• As either one will be the last part of your citation, place a period after the DOI or URL. (Note that this period is not part of the DOI or URL.)

Butarbutar, R, et al. “Analyzing of Puzzle Local Culture-Based in Teaching English for Young Learners.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science , vol. 343, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/343/1/012208.

Accessed dates

Since the previous 8th edition of the MLA Handbook was published, you do NOT need to list an accessed date for a stable source (e.g., online newspaper article, journal article, photograph, etc.). However, including an access date is good to include when a source does not have a publishing date, and some instructors will request that accessed dates be included for all sources.

If you do include an access date, here’s how to format it:

• Place it at the end of the citation without “http://” or “https://”.
• Write “Accessed” first, followed by the date accessed.
• The date accessed should be formatted as Day Month (abbreviated) Year.

Butarbutar, R, et al. “IOPscience.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science , IOP Publishing, 1 Oct. 2019, iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/343/1/012208/meta. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.

Note: If you choose to list an accessed date after a DOI, the accessed date part of the citation will follow the period after the DOI and will end with a period at the end of the citation

Butarbutar, R, et al. “Analyzing of Puzzle Local Culture-Based in Teaching English for Young Learners.” IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science , vol. 343, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/343/1/012208. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.

MLA 8 th edition vs MLA 9 th edition

The 9 th edition of the MLA handbook re-introduces guidelines regarding paper formatting (which were not present in the 8 th edition). The guidance in the 9 th addition is consistent with the guidance in previous editions and expands on the formatting of tables, figures/illustrations, and lists. The 9 th edition also offers new guidance in areas like annotated bibliographies, inclusive language, and footnotes/endnotes.

Many of the differences between the 8 th edition and 9 th edition have to do with the formatting of the core elements in reference list entries. Some of the main changes include:

Written by Grace Turney , freelance writer and artist. Grace is a former librarian and has a Master’s degree in Library Science and Information Technology. 

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

Annotated Bibliography

Bibliography

• Block Quotes
• et al Usage
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• Page Numbers
• Sample Paper
• Works Cited
• MLA 8 Updates
• MLA 9 Updates
• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

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An MLA bibliography is similar to the Works Cited list that you include at the end of your paper. The only difference between a Works Cited list and a bibliography is that for the former, you need to include the entries for only the sources you cited in the text, whereas for the latter you can also include the sources you consulted to write your paper but didn’t directly cite in your writing. MLA generally prefers Works Cited lists to bibliographies.

If your instructor advises you to create an MLA bibliography, follow the same guidelines you would follow for creating an MLA Works Cited list.

The bibliography list appears at the end of the paper, after any endnotes if they are present.

All margins (top, bottom, left, and right) should be set at 1 inch.

Write the running head in the top right of the page at 0.5 inch from the top. Use the running head “Surname Page #.”

The font should be clear enough to read. Use Times New Roman font of size 12 points.

Entries should be double-spaced. If any entry runs over more than a line, indent the subsequent lines of the entry 0.5 inch from the left margin.

Bibliographic entries are arranged alphabetically according to the first item in each entry.

Title your bibliography as “Bibliography.”

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman . Polity, 2013.

Brisini, Travis. “Phytomorphizing Performance: Plant Performance in an Expanded Field.” Text and Performance Quarterly , vol. 39, 2019,            pp. 1–2.

Riccio, Thomas. “Reimagining Yup’ik and Inupiat Performance.” Northwest Theatre Review , vol. 12, no. 1, 1999, pp. 1–30.

General rules for creating an annotated bibliography

The annotation is given after the source entry and is generally about 100-150 words in length. The annotation should be indented 1 inch from the left margin to distinguish it from the hanging indent within the citation entry.

The annotation, in general, should be written as short phrases. However, you may use full sentences as well.

The annotation for each source is usually no longer than one paragraph. However, if multiple paragraphs are included, indent the second and subsequent paragraphs without any extra line space between them.

The annotation provides basic information about the source, but does not include details about the source, quotes from the author, etc. The information can be descriptive (by generally describing what the source covers) or evaluative (by evaluating the source’s usefulness to the argument in your paper).

Example annotated bibliography

The below is an example of an annotated bibliography:

Morritt, Robert D. Beringia: Archaic Migrations into North America . Cambridge Scholars Pub, 2011.

The author studies the migration of cultures from Asia to North America. The connection between the North American Athabaskan language family and Siberia is presented, together with comparisons and examinations of the implications of linguistics from anthropological, archaeological, and folklore perspectives. This book explores the origins of the earliest people in the Americas, including Siberian, Dene, and Navajo Creation myths; linguistic comparisons between Siberian Ket Navajo and Western Apache; and comparisons between indigenous groups that appear to share the same origin.

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Citation Guide

• What is a Citation?
• Citation Generator
• Chicago/Turabian Style
• Paraphrasing and Quoting
• Examples of Plagiarism

What is a Bibliography?

What is an annotated bibliography, introduction to the annotated bibliography.

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• the authors' names
• the titles of the works
• the names and locations of the companies that published your copies of the sources
• the dates your copies were published
• the page numbers of your sources (if they are part of multi-source volumes)

Ok, so what's an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is the same as a bibliography with one important difference: in an annotated bibliography, the bibliographic information is followed by a brief description of the content, quality, and usefulness of the source. For more, see the section at the bottom of this page.

What are Footnotes?

Footnotes are notes placed at the bottom of a page. They cite references or comment on a designated part of the text above it. For example, say you want to add an interesting comment to a sentence you have written, but the comment is not directly related to the argument of your paragraph. In this case, you could add the symbol for a footnote. Then, at the bottom of the page you could reprint the symbol and insert your comment. Here is an example:

This is an illustration of a footnote. 1 The number “1” at the end of the previous sentence corresponds with the note below. See how it fits in the body of the text? 1 At the bottom of the page you can insert your comments about the sentence preceding the footnote.

When your reader comes across the footnote in the main text of your paper, he or she could look down at your comments right away, or else continue reading the paragraph and read your comments at the end. Because this makes it convenient for your reader, most citation styles require that you use either footnotes or endnotes in your paper. Some, however, allow you to make parenthetical references (author, date) in the body of your work.

Footnotes are not just for interesting comments, however. Sometimes they simply refer to relevant sources -- they let your reader know where certain material came from, or where they can look for other sources on the subject. To decide whether you should cite your sources in footnotes or in the body of your paper, you should ask your instructor or see our section on citation styles.

Where does the little footnote mark go?

Whenever possible, put the footnote at the end of a sentence, immediately following the period or whatever punctuation mark completes that sentence. Skip two spaces after the footnote before you begin the next sentence. If you must include the footnote in the middle of a sentence for the sake of clarity, or because the sentence has more than one footnote (try to avoid this!), try to put it at the end of the most relevant phrase, after a comma or other punctuation mark. Otherwise, put it right at the end of the most relevant word. If the footnote is not at the end of a sentence, skip only one space after it.

What's the difference between Footnotes and Endnotes?

The only real difference is placement -- footnotes appear at the bottom of the relevant page, while endnotes all appear at the end of your document. If you want your reader to read your notes right away, footnotes are more likely to get your reader's attention. Endnotes, on the other hand, are less intrusive and will not interrupt the flow of your paper.

If I cite sources in the Footnotes (or Endnotes), how's that different from a Bibliography?

Sometimes you may be asked to include these -- especially if you have used a parenthetical style of citation. A "works cited" page is a list of all the works from which you have borrowed material. Your reader may find this more convenient than footnotes or endnotes because he or she will not have to wade through all of the comments and other information in order to see the sources from which you drew your material. A "works consulted" page is a complement to a "works cited" page, listing all of the works you used, whether they were useful or not.

Isn't a "works consulted" page the same as a "bibliography," then?

Well, yes. The title is different because "works consulted" pages are meant to complement "works cited" pages, and bibliographies may list other relevant sources in addition to those mentioned in footnotes or endnotes. Choosing to title your bibliography "Works Consulted" or "Selected Bibliography" may help specify the relevance of the sources listed.

This information has been freely provided by plagiarism.org and can be reproduced without the need to obtain any further permission as long as the URL of the original article/information is cited. 

How Do I Cite Sources? (n.d.) Retrieved October 19, 2009, from http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_how_do_i_cite_sources.html

The Importance of an Annotated Bibliography

An Annotated Bibliography is a collection of annotated citations. These annotations contain your executive notes on a source. Use the annotated bibliography to help remind you of later of the important parts of an article or book. Putting the effort into making good notes will pay dividends when it comes to writing a paper!

Good Summary

Being an executive summary, the annotated citation should be fairly brief, usually no more than one page, double spaced.

• Focus on summarizing the source in your own words.
• Avoid direct quotations from the source, at least those longer than a few words. However, if you do quote, remember to use quotation marks. You don't want to forget later on what is your own summary and what is a direct quotation!
• If an author uses a particular term or phrase that is important to the article, use that phrase within quotation marks. Remember that whenever you quote, you must explain the meaning and context of the quoted word or text. 

Common Elements of an Annotated Citation

• Summary of an Article or Book's thesis or most important points (Usually two to four sentences)
• Summary of a source's methodological approach. That is, what is the source? How does it go about proving its point(s)? Is it mostly opinion based? If it is a scholarly source, describe the research method (study, etc.) that the author used. (Usually two to five sentences)
• Your own notes and observations on the source beyond the summary. Include your initial analysis here. For example, how will you use this source? Perhaps you would write something like, "I will use this source to support my point about . . . "
• Formatting Annotated Bibliographies This guide from Purdue OWL provides examples of an annotated citation in MLA and APA formats.

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MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics

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Guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text using MLA style are covered throughout the  MLA Handbook  and in chapter 7 of the  MLA Style Manual . Both books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.

Basic in-text citation rules

In MLA Style, referring to the works of others in your text is done using parenthetical citations . This method involves providing relevant source information in parentheses whenever a sentence uses a quotation or paraphrase. Usually, the simplest way to do this is to put all of the source information in parentheses at the end of the sentence (i.e., just before the period). However, as the examples below will illustrate, there are situations where it makes sense to put the parenthetical elsewhere in the sentence, or even to leave information out.

General Guidelines

• The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1) upon the source medium (e.g. print, web, DVD) and (2) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited page.
• Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

In-text citations: Author-page style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads . Oxford UP, 1967.

In-text citations for print sources with known author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry on the Works Cited page:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . University of California Press, 1966.

In-text citations for print sources by a corporate author

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

In-text citations for sources with non-standard labeling systems

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

The speaker makes an ardent call for the exploration of the connection between the violence of nature and the divinity of creation. “In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes," they ask in reference to the tiger as they attempt to reconcile their intimidation with their relationship to creationism (lines 5-6).

Longer labels, such as chapters (ch.) and scenes (sc.), should be abbreviated.

In-text citations for print sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name, following these guidelines.

Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

Titles longer than a standard noun phrase should be shortened into a noun phrase by excluding articles. For example, To the Lighthouse would be shortened to Lighthouse .

If the title cannot be easily shortened into a noun phrase, the title should be cut after the first clause, phrase, or punctuation:

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title appears in the parenthetical citation, and the full title of the article appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry on the Works Cited page. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs . 1999. www.climatehotmap.org/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

If the title of the work begins with a quotation mark, such as a title that refers to another work, that quote or quoted title can be used as the shortened title. The single quotation marks must be included in the parenthetical, rather than the double quotation.

Parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages, used in conjunction, allow readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own scholarly work.

Author-page citation for classic and literary works with multiple editions

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's  The Communist Manifesto . In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

Author-page citation for works in an anthology, periodical, or collection

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the  internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in  Nature  in 1921, you might write something like this:

See also our page on documenting periodicals in the Works Cited .

Citing authors with same last names

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:

Citing a work by multiple authors

For a source with two authors, list the authors’ last names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:

Corresponding Works Cited entry:

Best, David, and Sharon Marcus. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations , vol. 108, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 1-21. JSTOR, doi:10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.1

For a source with three or more authors, list only the first author’s last name, and replace the additional names with et al.

Franck, Caroline, et al. “Agricultural Subsidies and the American Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine , vol. 45, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 327-333.

Citing multiple works by the same author

If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.

Citing two articles by the same author :

Citing two books by the same author :

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, and, when appropriate, the page number(s):

Citing multivolume works

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)

Citing the Bible

In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter, and verse. For example:

If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation:

John of Patmos echoes this passage when describing his vision (Rev. 4.6-8).

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited within another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

Citing transcripts, plays, or screenplays

Sources that take the form of a dialogue involving two or more participants have special guidelines for their quotation and citation. Each line of dialogue should begin with the speaker's name written in all capitals and indented half an inch. A period follows the name (e.g., JAMES.) . After the period, write the dialogue. Each successive line after the first should receive an additional indentation. When another person begins speaking, start a new line with that person's name indented only half an inch. Repeat this pattern each time the speaker changes. You can include stage directions in the quote if they appear in the original source.

Conclude with a parenthetical that explains where to find the excerpt in the source. Usually, the author and title of the source can be given in a signal phrase before quoting the excerpt, so the concluding parenthetical will often just contain location information like page numbers or act/scene indicators.

Here is an example from O'Neill's  The Iceman Cometh.

WILLIE. (Pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was all right. God, I need a drink.

ROCKY. Den grab it. It's right under your nose.

WILLIE. (Avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big swallows.) (1.1)

Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work published on the Internet, you may have to cite sources you found in digital environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's  Evaluating Sources of Information  resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source on your Works Cited page.

Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers. However, these sorts of entries often do not require a page number in the parenthetical citation. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• Do not provide paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
• Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like  CNN.com  or  Forbes.com,  as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

Miscellaneous non-print sources

Two types of non-print sources you may encounter are films and lectures/presentations:

In the two examples above “Herzog” (a film’s director) and “Yates” (a presentor) lead the reader to the first item in each citation’s respective entry on the Works Cited page:

Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo . Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982.

Yates, Jane. "Invention in Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Address.

Electronic sources

Electronic sources may include web pages and online news or magazine articles:

In the first example (an online magazine article), the writer has chosen not to include the author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below).

In the second example (a web page), a parenthetical citation is not necessary because the page does not list an author, and the title of the article, “MLA Formatting and Style Guide,” is used as a signal phrase within the sentence. If the title of the article was not named in the sentence, an abbreviated version would appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as follows:

Taylor, Rumsey. "Fitzcarraldo." Slant , 13 Jun. 2003, www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/fitzcarraldo/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2009. 

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL , 2 Aug. 2016, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. Accessed 2 April 2018.

Multiple citations

To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:

Time-based media sources

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

When a citation is not needed

Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations, or common knowledge (For example, it is expected that U.S. citizens know that George Washington was the first President.). Remember that citing sources is a rhetorical task, and, as such, can vary based on your audience. If you’re writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example, you may need to deal with expectations of what constitutes “common knowledge” that differ from common norms.

Other Sources

The MLA Handbook describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the handbook does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of MLA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard MLA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite.

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the MLA Handbook . In cases like this, however, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.

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Chicago Manual of Style -- Notes and Bibliography

• Bibliography: Basic structure
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Basic structure of a bibliography entry

        The entries in a bibliography are listed alphabetically, beginning with author's name ( last name first ). For works with multiple authors, o nly the first author's name is inverted. Elements are separated by periods.  In the following structure and examples, pay attention to every detail, including letter case, italicization, punctuation, space, and the hanging indent. If the source has no author(s), check " Sources with no author/title " on the left column.

For articles

          These nouns -- "editor", "translator", "volume" and "edition", are abbreviated. But verbs "edited by" and "translated by" are spelled out in a bibliography (in a note, though, they are abbreviated).See examples in " Books ".

          If the source does not have author's name, check the left column for more information.

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Current Students

How to write a bibliography

How to write a bibiliography.

A bibliography is not just “works cited.” It is  all  the relevant material you drew upon to write the paper the reader holds.

Do I need a bibliography?

If you read any articles or books in preparing your paper, you need a bibliography or footnotes.

• If you cite the arguments of “critics” and “supporters,” even if you don’t name them or quote them directly, you are likely referring to information you read in books or articles as opposed to information you’ve gathered firsthand, like a news reporter, and so you need a bibliography.
• If you quote sources and put some of the reference information in the text, you still need a bibliography, so that readers can track down the source material for themselves.
• If you use footnotes to identify the source of your material or the authors of every quote, you DO NOT need a bibliography, UNLESS there are materials to which you do not refer directly (or if you refer to additional sections of the materials you already referenced) that also helped you reach your conclusions. In any event, your footnotes need to follow the formatting guidelines below.

These guidelines follow those of the  American Psychological Association and may be slightly different than what you’re used to, but we will stick with them for the sake of consistency.

Notice the use of punctuation. Publication titles may be either  italicized  or underlined, but not both.

Books are the bibliography format with which you’re probably most familiar. Books follow this pattern:

Author Last Name, Author First Name. (Publication Year)  Title . Publisher’s City: Publisher. Page numbers.

Alexander, Carol. (2001)  Market Models: A Guide to Financial Data Analysis.  New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 200-220.

Periodicals

Periodicals remove the publisher city and name and add the title of the article and the volume or issue number of the periodical. Notice article titles are put in quotation marks and only the publication title is italicized or underlined.

Author Last Name, Author First Name. (Publication Date—could be more than a year) “Article Title.” Publication   Title, Vol. # . (Issue #), Page numbers.

Salman, William A. (July-August 1997) “How to Write a Great Business Plan.”  Harvard Business Review  74. pp. 98-108.

Web versions of printed material

Because web sources are time-sensitive, meaning that web content can change day by day, it is important to include the day of retrieval and the URL from which you quoted the material. You include this in a retrieval statement.

The format for online versions of print publications should basically follow the same format as above, meaning if you’re referencing an online book, you should follow the book format with the addition of the retrieval statement. If you’re referencing an online periodical, you should follow the periodical format with the addition of the retrieval statement.

Note that you should not break the Internet address of the link, even if it requires its own line. Very long URLs, such as those that occur when using an online database, can be shortened by removing the retrieval code. (The retrieval code usually consists of a long string of unintelligible letters and numbers following the end point “htm” or “html.” Remove everything that occurs after that point to shorten.)

Author. (Date of Internet Publication—could be more than a year) “Document Title.”  Title of Publication . Retrieved on: Date from Full Web Address, starting with http://

Grant, Linda. (January 13, 1997) “Can Fisher Focus Kodak?”  Fortune . Retrieved on August 22, 2020 from (insert full web address here)

The above is just one example of citing online sources. There are more extensive bibliographic guidelines at www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite6.html .

How to cite sources in the text

In-text citations alert readers to cited material and tell them exactly where to go and look. These citations work in conjunction with a bibliography.

• Usually, an in-text citation is a combination of a name (usually the author’s) and a number (either a year, a page number, or both).
• For Internet sources, use the original publication date, not your retrieval date.
• Internet sources also do not have page numbers, so use your discretion in the format that will direct the reader closest to the relevant section. You can number the paragraphs (abbreviate “par.”) or chapters (abbreviate “chap.”) or sections (abbreviate “sec.”).
• If there is no author listed, the document’s title should be used in place of the author’s name. Use the entire title but not the subtitle. Subtitles are anything appearing after a colon (:).

Use a signal phrase

A signal phrase alerts the reader to the fact that you are citing another source for the information he or she is about to read.

Myers (1997) reported that “structured decision aids, as a factor in a more structured audit approach, are designed to focus the auditor on relevant information to improve effectiveness, and to improve audit efficiency, by eliminating the time needed to develop or organize individual approaches to the audit problems.” (sec. 1, “Introduction”)

Note that the date goes with the author, directions within the document go with the quote.

Later on, same source, different section:

According to one study (Myers, 1997), inexperienced auditors from a structured firm will demonstrate higher audit effectiveness in the typical audit situation than inexperienced auditors from an unstructured firm. (sec. 2, “Structure and Audit Effectiveness”)

Full parenthetical citation after the material cited

Another method is to end the quote with the full citation:

The primary controversies surrounding the issue of accounting for stock-based compensation include whether these instruments represent an expense that should be recognized in the income statement and, if so, when they should be recognized and how they should be measured. (Martin and Duchac, 1997, Sec. 3, “Theoretical Justification for Expense Recognition”)

For long quotes, use a previewing sentence and a parenthetical citation

Long quotes are 40 words or longer and should be single-spaced even in double-spaced papers. The previewing sentence tells the reader what to look for in the quotes (and helps the reader change gears from you to another author).

Martin and Duchac (1997) reiterate the problems with stock-based compensation and accounting issues:

While it is true these estimates generate uncertainties about value and the costs to be recognized, cost recognition should be the fundamental objective and information based on estimates can be useful just as it is with defined benefit pension plans. Given the similarities between stock based compensation and defined benefit pension costs, an expense should be recognized for employee stock options just as pension costs are recognized for defined benefit pension plans. The FASB agreed with this assessment in their exposure draft on stock based compensation, noting that nonrecognition of employee stock option costs produces financial statements that are neither credible nor representationally faithful. (sec. 2.1, “Recognition of Compensation Cost”)

Note the consistent indentation and the paragraph break inside the quote. Also note that the parenthetical citation falls outside the closing period.

Source-reflective statements

Sometimes, summarizing arguments from your sources can leave the reader in doubt as to whose opinion he or she is seeing. If the language is too close to the original source’s, you can leave yourself open to charges of low-level plagiarism or “word borrowing.” Using a source-reflective statement can clarify this problem, allowing you the freedom to assert your voice and opinion without causing confusion. For example:

Myers (1997) reported that “structured decision aids, as a factor in a more structured audit approach, are designed to focus the auditor on relevant information to improve effectiveness, and to improve audit efficiency, by eliminating the time needed to develop or organize individual approaches to the audit problems.” (sec. 1, “Introduction”) Thus, audit pricing by firms with a structured audit approach is lower, on average, than firms with an intermediate or unstructured audit approach.

Is the observation in the last sentence Myers’s or the author’s? We aren’t sure. So insert a source-reflective statement to avoid confusion.

Myers (1997) reported that “structured decision aids, as a factor in a more structured audit approach, are designed to focus the auditor on relevant information to improve effectiveness, and to improve audit efficiency, by eliminating the time needed to develop or organize individual approaches to the audit problems.” (sec. 1, “Introduction”)  Myers’s observation suggests that  audit pricing by firms with a structured audit approach is lower, on average, than firms with an intermediate or unstructured audit approach.

When and how to use footnotes

You may decide to substitute footnotes for in-text citations and a bibliography. Footnotes are thorough, like entries in the bibliography, and yet specific, like in-text citations. However, depending on the thoroughness of your use of footnotes, you may also need a bibliography.

If you decide to use footnotes, you should follow the format outlined above for the information to include in your entries and should number each footnote separately (1, 2, 3, etc.). You should NOT use the same number twice, even when referencing the same document. Check out guidelines such as those in the  Chicago Manual of Style  or the  MLA Handbook  for more information about how to number your footnote entries.

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General rules – chicago bibliography.

• Bibliography : Create the bibliography page at the end of your paper on a new page. Label this page bibliography at the top middle of the page. Do not underline, bold, enlarge or use quotes for the word Bibliography. The bibliography should include all sources cited within the work and may sometimes include other relevant sources that were not cited but provide further reading.
• Capitalization: Capitalize the first and last words in titles and subtitles, and capitalize all other major words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and some conjunctions. English-language book titles and subtitles are capitalized headline-style. In headline style, the first and last words of title and subtitle and all other major words are capitalized.
• Electronic sources: DOI or URL Include a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) if the publication or book lists one. A DOI is a permanent ID that, when appended to http://dx.doi.org/ in the address bar of an Internet browser, will lead to the source. If no DOI is available, list a URL.
• ed. or eds. = editor(s)
• ed. = edition
• Order: List the sources in alphabetical order by the authors' last names. Ignore "A," "And," and "The" when alphabetizing by title if an author is not listed.
• Indentation: Do not indent the first line in the citation; however, you must indent any additional lines 1/2". One way to do this is with a hanging indent.
• Italics or quotation marks: Titles of books, journals and websites are italicized. Titles of articles, chapters, webpages, etc. are placed in quotation marks.
• Punctuation: In a bibliography, all major elements are separated by periods.
• Spacing: Entries should be single-spaced, but there should be a blank line between each entry.

Chicago Format & Citation Style: Notes and Bibliography, 17th Edition

• Chicago Style
• Why & When to Cite

Footnotes: General Guidelines

Bibliography: general guidelines, main differences.

• Primary Sources
• Websites, Blogs, Social Media, & AI
• Audiovisual & Multimedia
• Report an Error / Question

Footnotes should follow these general guidelines:

• An in-text citation is noted with a superscript Arabic numeral. 
• The superscript number is placed at the end of the sentence or paragraph of borrowed information.
• The superscript number follows punctuation marks.
• Footnotes should be arranged in numerical order at the foot of each page.
• A footnote must begin at the bottom of the page on which it is referenced, although it may extend to the bottom of the following page if the note is long.
• In footnotes, indent the first line of the citation information which includes the author, title, publication info, and relevant page numbers.
• Titles of books and journals appear in italics.
• Article titles and titles of book chapters, essays, and short stories appear in "quotation marks."
• The first time a work is mentioned in a footnote, the entry should include all of the publication information necessary for a complete citation.
• Subsequent references to a source should be in shortened form, which generally consists of the last name of the author, a shortened version of the main title, and pages cited.
• Though a footnote includes all relevant bibliographic information, a bibliography is still required.

A bibliography is a list of all the works that you have cited in your paper, as well as any other relevant materials that you used to develop the content of your paper, even if you did not cite them directly. Though the bibliography may contain a lot of the same information found in your footnotes, the bibliography puts everything together to show the entire breadth of your research and to identify sources for readers doing their own research.

A bibliography should follow these general rules and guidelines:

• A bibliography is located at the end of your paper.
• Title your page Bibliography.
• In a research paper, citations are single-spaced, with a double space between entries.
• The first line of a bibliography entry is left justified (flush left), and all subsequent lines are indented five spaces. This is called a "hanging indent."
• Titles of books and journals appear in italics. Article titles and titles of book chapters, essays, and short stories appear in "quotation marks."
• Page numbers are only given when the item is a part of a whole work, such as a chapter in a book or an article in a journal.
• Entries are arranged in alphabetical order by author's last name (unless your instructor provides different instructions.
• If there is no author/editor given, alphabetize using the next element in the citation - generally the title.
• List all authors, no matter how many (do not use et al. in a bibliography).
• If there are two or more works by the same author, arrange those citations alphabetically by name first, then by the title (excluding articles a, an, the, etc.). Type the author's name for the first entry but replace subsequent entries for that author with a long dash called a 3-em dash.

Some of the major differences between the Note and Bibliography formats are:

• Indentation: The first line of a footnote is indented, while subsequent lines are not.  Conversely, the first line of a bibliographic citation is not indented, while subsequent lines are.
• Name Order: Footnotes list author as first name last name, whereas bibliographic citations list author as last name, first name.
• Punctuation: Footnotes use more commas and bibliographic citations use more periods.  
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Helpful Tools for Online Research/Study : Create Footnotes from BIbliography Entries

• Help with Creating Citations
• Create Footnotes from BIbliography Entries

Using Bibliographies to Create Footnotes

The first tab in this guide, "Help with Creating Citations," explains how to create Turabian-style bibliographic entries. Now that you have the bibliographic entry for a book, journal article, book chapter, etc. The point of finding these resources is to use them in your papers. That requires footnotes that you use to tell the reader the place inside the book, article, etc., that you are using for what you just wrote in your paper. How do you go from that bibliographic entry into a footnote? This page explains that process.

How to Turn a BIbliographic Entry into a Footnote

Punctuation changes between bibliographic entries and footnotes. While looking at the examples below, think of footnotes as informal. These use lots of commas where the more formal bibliographic entry uses periods.

Handling Page Numbers between Books and Articles

Page numbers are different for articles than for books.

• Footnote: The page number(s) are used in the footnotes for books
• Bibliography: Page numbers are usually not used in the bibliography.

Journal Article

• Footnote: The page number(s) actually used in the paper are listed in the footnote. The entire page range of the article does not go in the footnote unless the footnote is citing the entire article rather than a statement or idea on a specific page.
• Bibliography: The bibliographic entry has the entire range of the pages for the entire article

Follow an Example!

It is often helpful to follow an example. We have numerous examples for footnotes and bibliographies for books, journal articles, dictionaries, Bible software, and more. This is in the Turabian section of our website.

• GS Turabian Examples 9th ed. Footnote and bibliographic examples for most sources used in papers.

Historical Theology by Geoffrey Bromiley

Clicking the “cite” button for this title and selecting “Chicago (notes – bibliography)” generates this citation:

Bromiley, G. W. Historical Theology: An Introduction . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

This can be pasted into your paper’s bibliography but you need to delete the extra space before the colon. Now, assume that you use a quotation from page 85 in your paper. To create the footnote,

1. Reverse the order of the author’s name. The order last name first in a bibliographic entry and first name first in a footnote. So, the author’s initial’s or first name go first.

          G. W. Bromiley

2. Change the period after the author’s name to a comma.

          G. W. Bromiley,

3. Put the book title after the comma

          G. W. Bromiley, Historical Theology: An Introduction

4. Delete the period after the book title. Switch from italics back to normal type and add a pair of parentheses.

          G. W. Bromiley, Historical Theology: An Introduction ()

5. Copy and paste the publisher’s location, a colon, the publisher’s name, a comma and the year of publication inside the parentheses.

            G. W. Bromiley, Historical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978)

6. Add a comma after the right parenthesis, a space, the page number, and a period:

2 G. W. Bromiley, Historical Theology: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 85.

To go from a footnote to a bibliographic entry, simply do the reverse of these steps.

Journal Articles

Doing a search in Atla Religion Plus on Luke 13:1 (library.gs.edu->Journal Database->Atla Religion Plus->Scriptures->SR "Luke 13:1") brought up the article,

“The growth of the kingdom in light of Israel's rejection of Jesus: structure and theology in Luke 13:1-35”

Clicking “cite” and choosing “Chicago/Turabian: Humanities” yields

Shirock, Robert J. “The Growth of the Kingdom in Light of Israel’s Rejection of Jesus: Structure and Theology in Luke 13:1-35.” Novum Testamentum 35, no. 1 (January 1993): 15–29. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0000861929&site=ehost-live.

1. Like a book, turn the author’s name around and change the period after it to a comma

Robert J. Shirock,

Change the comma at the end of the title inside the quotation marks into a comma.

Robert J. Shirock, “The Growth of the Kingdom in Light of Israel’s Rejection of Jesus: Structure and Theology in Luke 13:1-35,”

2. Copy the journal name and paste it after the title of the journal. The journal title, but not the article title, must be in italics.

Robert J. Shirock, “The Growth of the Kingdom in Light of Israel’s Rejection of Jesus: Structure and Theology in Luke 13:1-35,” Novum Testamentum

3. Add the volume number, a comma, and any issue number. Not all journals have issue numbers and, in that case, you would not list anything for the issue number and omit the comma after the volume number.

Robert J. Shirock, “The Growth of the Kingdom in Light of Israel’s Rejection of Jesus: Structure and Theology in Luke 13:1-35,” Novum Testamentum 35, no. 1

4. Add the year in parentheses, followed by a colon, a space, the page number(s) that you referenced for your quotation or other use of the article, and a period. It is unnecessary to list the month with the year.

Robert J. Shirock, “The Growth of the Kingdom in Light of Israel’s Rejection of Jesus: Structure and Theology in Luke 13:1-35,” Novum Testamentum 35, no. 1 (1993): 21.

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Notes-Bibliography

The notes-bibliography method employs footnotes or endnotes along with a bibliography organized in alphabetical order. Often your instructor or publisher will specify whether they prefer that you use footnotes or endnotes.

Citing Sources in the Text

Notes come at the bottom of each page, separated from the text with a typed line, 1 and 1/2 inches long. Some instructors will allow you to (or prefer that you) place notes, instead, as endnotes on a separate page (titled Notes) at the end of your paper, after any appendices. To acknowledge a source in your paper, place a superscript number (raised slightly above the line) immediately after the end punctuation of a sentence containing the quotation, paraphrase, or summary–as, for example, at the end of this sentence. 1 Do not put any punctuation after the number.

In the footnote or endnote itself, use the same number, but do not raise or superscript it; put a period and one space after the number. The first line of each note is indented five spaces from the left margin. Publishers often prefer notes to be double spaced.

If a single paragraph of your paper contains several references from the same author, it is permissible to use one number after the last quotation, paraphrase, or summary to indicate the source for all of the material used in that paragraph.

Generally, there is no need to use the abbreviations “p.” and “pp.” before page numbers; simply list the appropriate numbers as the last piece of information in the note.

What follows is a sample set of footnotes/endnotes. Please notice the order of the items in each note as well as the punctuation. The first time a work is cited, full information is given (author, title, volume, publication information, page, etc.).

Sample Notes (First References)

Book by a Single Author, First Edition

Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8.

Author First name Last name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number.

Book by a Singe Author, Later Edition

Paul S. Boyer, Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age , 2nd ed. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 24.

Author First name Middle initial. Last name, Book title , number ed. (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number.

Book by a Single Author, Reprinted

Leonora Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950-1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; repr., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 101.

Author First name Last name, Book title (Original publisher city: Original publisher, original year; repr., Reprint publisher city, Reprint publisher, reprint year), page number. 

Book by Two Authors

Gerald Marwell and Pamela Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 104.

First author first name Last name and Second author first name Last name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Book by Three Authors

Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (New York: Knopf, 1961), 23.

First author first name Last name, Second author first name Last name, and Third author first name Last name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Book by More Than Three Authors

Anne Ellen Geller et al., The Everyday Writing Center (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2007), 52.

First author first name Last name et al., Book title (Publisher city, State initials: Publisher, year), page number. 

An Anthology with no Known Author

O: A Presidential Novel , (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), 3.

Anthology title , (Publisher city: Publisher, year) page number. 

[If the author of an anonymously published book has been revealed, you can put that name in brackets at the beginning of the note. If the author is unknown but a particular writer is strongly suspected, you can put a question mark after the bracketed name.]

Book with Organization as Author

Central Intelligence Agency, CIA World Factbook (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009), 64.

Organization name, Book title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number.

[Since the CIA is the organization that both authored and published this book, it is referenced twice in this citation.]

An Anthology with Editors in Place of Authors

Henry Louis Gates and Nellie Y. McKay, eds., The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (New York: Norton, 1997), 172.

First editor first name Middle name Last name and Second editor first name Middle initial. Last name, eds., Anthology title (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Chapter in an Edited Collection

Colleen Dunlavy, “Why Did American Businesses Get So Big?” in Major Problems in American Business History , ed. Regina Blaszczyk and Philip Scranton (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006), 260.

Chapter Author First name Last name, “Chapter title” in Edited collection title , ed. First editor first name Last name and Second editor first name Last name (Publisher city: Publisher, year), page number. 

Article in a Journal

Raúl Sánchez, “Outside the Text: Retheorizing Empiricism and Identity,” College English 74 (2012): 243.

Author First name Last name, “Article title,” Journal title volume number (year): page number. 

[If a journal continues pagination across issues in a volume, you do NOT need to include the issue #.]

Book Review

Nancy Rose Marshall, review of Joseph Crawhill, 1861-1913: One of the Glasgow Boys , by Vivian Hamilton, Victorian Studies 42 (1999/2000): 359.

Reviewer first name Middle name Last name, review of Reviewed work , by Author of reviewed work first name Last name, Journal in which review appears volume number (year): page number.

Newspaper Article

Tyler Marshall, “200th Birthday of Grimms Celebrated,” Los Angeles Times , March 15, 1985, sec. 1A.

Article author first name Last name, “Article title,” Newspaper name , Month day, year, sec. number. 

[Since prominent newspapers may have several different daily or regional editions, you don’t need to include the page number in this note.]

Encyclopedia Entry

• John Morris-Jones, “Wales,” in Encyclopedia Britannica , 11th ed. (1911), 260.
• Author of entry first name Last name, “Title of entry,” in Encyclopedia title , number ed.  (year), page number. 
• Wikipedia , s.v. “Charles R. Van Hise,” last modified April 30, 2018, 15:21, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Van_Hise.
• Encyclopedia name , s.v. “Title of entry,” last modified Month day, year, hour:minute, url. 

[“s.v.” is an abbreviation of “sub verbo” which is Latin for “under the word”]

Interview by Writer of Research Paper

Richard Davidson, interview by author, Madison, WI, April 20, 2012.

Interviewee first name Last name, interview by Interviewer name, City, State initials, Month day, year of interview. 

[Bibliographies only rarely include entries for personal interviews.]

Secondary Source

Coie et al., “The Science of Prevention: A Conceptual Framework and Some Directions for a National Research Program,” American Psychologist 48 (1993): 1022, quoted in Mark T. Greenberg, Celene Domitrovich, and Brian Bumbarger, “The Prevention of Mental Disorders in School-Age Children: Current State of the Field,” Prevention and Treatment 4 (2001): 5.

First author Last name et al., “Title of secondary source,” Journal containing secondary source volume number (year): page number, quoted in First author firt name Middle initial. Last name, Second author First name Last name, and Third author First name Last name, “Title of Primary source,” Journal containing primary source volume number (year): page number. 

[This indicates that you found the Coie et al. information in the Greenberg, Domitrovich, and Bumbarger article, not in the original article by Coie et al. In the bibliography, you would only cite the Greenberg, Domitrovich, and Bumbarger text.]

Performances

William Shakespeare, Othello , dir. Mark Clements, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Milwaukee, April 20, 2012.

Author of work performed, Title , dir. Director First name Last name, Performing company, City of performance, Month day, year of performance. 

[Live performances are not usually included in bibliographies. This is because, unless it has been recorded, a live performance cannot be located and reviewed by the reader.]

A Dissertation

Sara M. Lindberg, “Gender-Role Identity Development During Adolescence: Individual, Familial, and Social Contextual Predictors of Gender Intensification” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin- Madison, 2008), 24.

Dissertation author first name Middle initial. Last name, “Dissertation title” (Ph. D. diss, University, year), page number. 

Class Lecture

Morris Young, “What Is Asian American? What is Asian American Literature?” (lecture, Survey of Asian American Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 22, 2013).

Lecturer First name Last name, “Lecture title.” (lecture, Course title, University, Month day, year of lecture). 

Paper Presented at a Conference

Mary Louise Roberts, “The Public Practice of History in and for a Digital Age” (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, New Orleans, January 3, 2013).

Author first name Middle name Last name, “Paper title” (paper presented at the Conference, Conference city, Month day, year of presentation).

Government Documents

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 794 (2010).

Document title, Pub. L. No. numbers, volume number Stat. number (year).

Notes: Pub. L. is an abbreviation for “public law.” Stat. is an abbreviation for “statue.”

Steven Soderbergh, dir., Che: Part One , (2008; New York: IFC Films), DVD.

Director first name Last name, dir., DVD Title , (year of release; City of production: Producer), DVD. 

An Online Source That is Identical to a Print Source

Lee Palmer Wandel, “Setting the Lutheran Eucharist,” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (1998): 133-34, doi: 10.1163/157006598X00135.

Author First name Middle name Last name, “Article title,” Journal titler : volume number (year): page numbers, doi: number. 

[The Chicago Manual recommends including a DOI (digital object identifier) or a URL to indicate that you consulted this source online. If there’s a DOI, you should use that rather than a URL. If there is no DOI, use the URL, including “http://.” There’s no need to include an access date if the online source includes a publication or revision date.]

An Online Newspaper

Kirk Johnson, “Health Care Is Spread Thin on Alaskan Frontier,” New York Times , May 28, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/us/health-care-in-vast-alaska-frontier-is-spread-thin.html.\

Article author first name Last name, “Title of article,” Newspaper , Month day, year issued. 

“Human Rights,” The United Nations, accessed August 5, 2018, http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/.

“Title of webpage,” Website moderator, Month day, year of access, url. 

[If a website has a publication or revision date, use that instead of an accessed date.]

Sample Notes (Second or Subsequent References)

When a source is used a second time, its reference is given in a shorter form. The Chicago Manual and Turabian suggest two ways to shorten second references. Either plan is acceptable, but you must remain consistent throughout your paper.

Method A: Shortened Form

For the second and all subsequent references to a work, use an abbreviated form. If the work and the author remain the same and if you are using only one book or article by that author, simply give the author’s last name and page reference. The following example has been shortened from the full information provided in note #3 above:

• Neville, 92.

If, however, you are using two or more works by that author, you must indicate which of the works you are citing. Use the last name, a shortened title, and page reference. The following example is shortened from the full information provided in note #1 above:

• Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell, 121.

If you use two authors with the same last name, give the full name in the shortened reference.

Method B: Latin Abbreviations

When referring to the same work as in the citation immediately preceding, use the abbreviation “Ibid.” for the second reference. “Ibid.” is an abbreviation for the Latin word “ibidem” which means “in the same place.” The abbreviation “Ibid.” is followed by a page number if the page from which the second reference is taken is different from the first. If the pages are the same, no number is necessary. As an example, here is how you would cite the first reference to a work:

• Eliza G. Wilkins, The Delphic Maxims in Literature (Chicago: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1929), 12.

If you continue drawing from the same page of the same source, your next reference would look like this:

If you continue drawing from the same source but the information comes from a different page, then your note would look like this:

Citing Sources at the End of the Text

The bibliography (as it is called in the note-bibliography system) is placed at the end of your paper, is a double-spaced alphabetized list of books, articles, and other sources used in writing the paper. This list provides all of the information someone would need to locate the source you’re referencing. (NOTE: This list titled “Bibliography” in the note-bibliography system and “References” in the author-date system. Otherwise, both follow the same format.)

The bibliographic form differs from notes in these ways:

• Sources are alphabetized. The author’s last name appears first (Smith, Betty) in a bibliography.
• While notes use commas and parentheses to separate items, a bibliography uses periods.
• While notes use two spaces after a period, a bibliography uses only one space after a period.
• While notes usually indicate specific pages from which you took information; a bibliography lists entire books or a complete chapter to which you referred.
• The first line of a bibliographic entry begins at the left margin and all the other lines are indented 1/2”. This is called a “hanging indent.”

If the author’s name or the title (or other item) is missing, simply go on to the next item as it should appear. When alphabetizing, use the author’s last name for your entry; if it is not given, simply go on to the next item in order (the title of the book or article, for example) and use that to alphabetize the entry.

A sample bibliography follows. Notice the form and order of the entries as well as the punctuation and arrangement within the entries. The sourced referenced are the same as those used in the notes citations above.

Bibliography

Boyer, Paul S. Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age . 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.

Author last name, First name Middle initial. Book title , number ed. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Central Intelligence Agency. CIA World Factbook . Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.

Organization name, Book title .  Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Child, Julia, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. Mastering the Art of French Cooking. New York: Knopf, 1961.

First author last name First name, Second author first name Last name, and Third author first name Last name. Book title . Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Dunlavy, Colleen. “Social Conceptions of the Corporation: Insights from the History of Shareholder Voting Rights.” Wash. And Lee L. Rev 63 (2006a): 1347-1388.

Author last name, First name. “Article title.” Journal title volume number (year published): page numbers.

—. “Why Did American Businesses Get So Big?” In Major Problems in American Business History , edited by Regina Blaszczyk and Philip Scranton, 257-63. New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2006b.

–. “Chapter title.” In Edited collection title , edited by First editor first name Last name and Second editor first name Last name, page numbers. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Note: –. is used when the author is the same as the citation above.

Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature . New York: Norton, 1997.

First editor last name, First name Middle name, and Second editor first name Middle initial. Last name, eds., Anthology title. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Geller, Anne Ellen, Michele Eodice, Frankie Condon, Meg Carroll, and Elizabeth H. Boquet. The Everyday Writing Center . Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2007.

First author last name, First name Middle name, Second author First name Last name, Third author First name Last name, Fourth author First name Last name, and Fifth author First name Middle initial. Last name. Book title . Publisher city, State initials: Publisher, year. 

Greenberg, Mark T., Celene Domitrovich, and Brian Bumbarger. “The Prevention of Mental Disorders in School-Age Children: Current State of the Field.” Prevention and Treatment 4 (2001): 1-62.

First author last name, First name Middle initial., Second author first name Last name, and Third author first name, Last name. “Article title.” Journal title Volume number (year): page numbers. 

Johnson, Kirk. “Health Care Is Spread Thin on Alaskan Frontier.” New York Times , May 28, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/us/health-care-in-vast-alaska-frontier-is-spread-thin.html.

Article author last name, First name. “Title of article,” Newspaper , Month day, year issued. Url. 

Lindberg, Sara M. “Gender-Role Identity Development During Adolescence: Individual, Familial, and Social Contextual Predictors of Gender Intensification.” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin- Madison, 2008.

Dissertation author last name, First name Middle initial. “Dissertation title.” Ph. D. diss, University, year.

Marshall, Nancy Rose. Review of Joseph Crawhill, 1861-1913, One of the Glasgow Boys , by Vivian Hamilton. Victorian Studies 42 (1999/2000): 358-60.

Reviewer last name, First name Middle name. Review of Reviewed work , by Author of reviewed work first name Last name, Journal in which review appears volume number (year): page number.

Marshall, Tyler. “200th Birthday of Grimms Celebrated.” Los Angeles Times , 15 March 1985, sec. 1A.

Article author Last name, First name. “Article title.” Newspaper name , day Month year, sec. number.

Marwell, Gerald, and Pamela Oliver. The Critical Mass in Collective Action . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

First author last name, First name, and Second author first name Last name. Book title . Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Morris-Jones, John. “Wales.” In Encyclopedia Britannica , 11th ed. 29 vols. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica Corporation, 1911. 258-70.

Author of entry Last name, First name, “Title of entry.” In Encyclopedia title , number ed. Number vols. City: Publisher, year. pages.

Nadler, Steven. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

Author last name, First name. Book title. Publisher city: Publisher, year.

Neville, Leonora. Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 950-1100 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Reprinted. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Author Last name, First name. Book title . Original publisher city: Original publisher, original year. Reprinted. Reprint publisher city: Reprint publisher, reprint year.

O: A Presidential Novel . New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011.

Anthology title . Publisher city: Publisher, year. 

Sánchez, Raúl. “Outside the Text: Retheorizing Empiricism and Identity.” College English 74 (2012): 234-46.

Author Last name, First name. “Article title,” Journal title volume number (year): page number.

Soderbergh, Steven, dir. Che: Part One . 2008; New York: IFC Films. DVD.

Director Last name, First name, dir. DVD Title , Year of release; City of production: Producer. DVD. 

United Nations. “Human Rights.” Accessed August 5, 2018. http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/.

Website moderator. “Title of webpage.” Accessed Month day, year of access. Url. 

Wandel, Lee Palmer. “Setting the Lutheran Eucharist.” Journal of Early Modern History 17 (1998): 124-55. doi: 10.1163/157006598X00135.

Author Last name, First name Middle name. “Article title.” Journal title volume number (year): page numbers. doi: number. 

Wikipedia . S.v. “Charles R. Van Hise.” Last modified April 30, 2018, 15:21, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Charles_R._Van_Hise.

Encyclopedia name . S.v. “Title of entry.” Last modified Month day, year, hour:minute, url. 

Young, Morris. “What Is Asian American? What is Asian American Literature?” Lecture at University of Wisconsin-Madison, January 22, 2013.

Lecturer last name, First name. “Lecture title.” Lecture at University, Month day, year of lecture. 

Chicago/Turabian Documentation

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Chicago/Turabian Table of Contents

Author-Date

Lisa Stokes Heritage Research

Helping Others Make Family History Connections

Source Citations: Punctuation Basics

Using proper punctuation in genealogical source citations.

Punctuation conventions such as italics, parentheses, quotations marks, semicolons, and colons add meaning to a citation and shouldn’t be used haphazardly.

Let’s review some essential punctuation rules to keep in mind when writing a genealogy source citation. Knowing and understanding these rules will add credibility and professionalism to your source citations. Additionally, knowing punctuation rules helps you make good decisions when crafting a reference note, therefore, simplifying the process.

Full Reference Note:

Most genealogical reports and projects use a full reference note also known as a “source citation” or a “footnote citation.” A reference note supports the facts or data addressed in a report or project. Full reference notes can also be shortened after being used previously in the report. See the footnote section at the bottom of this blog post for examples of a subsequently shortened citation. Details about structuring reference notes can be found in the CMOS . 3

A full reference note or source citation is like a sentence:

• It begins with a capital
• It ends with a period
• Commas separate all elements
• Semicolons separate larger sections or a citation within a citation

Source List Entry:

A source list entry is used to create a “bibliography” or a “resource list” at the end of a book chapter, presentation syllabus, published article, etc. It documents the resources accessed to create the work. These citations are not used to cite specific facts or data within a report. 4 I view a resource list citation as a paragraph, with each element being a sentence ending with a period. Each “sentence” is then combined into a paragraph. See the resource list at the bottom of this blog post for examples.

Italics denote the title of a published source. 5 Examples: Publication titles of books, journals, and websites Note: The newest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style states that websites that were not previously published in print material are not considered published works and are not italicized. 6 I’ve talked to a few genealogists who feel this means websites shouldn’t be italicized in genealogical source citations. However, most professional genealogists, including those published in the NGSQ , are still italicizing websites. Therefore, I’m continuing to italicize websites in my source citations. 7

Quotation Marks:

“Quotation Marks” denote the named parts of a published work such as a chapter in a book, a database or collection at a website, an article in a journal, a page at a website, etc. 8

“Quotation Marks” are also used for titled, but unpublished material. 9 Note: Use your own words, without italics or quotation marks, to describe a work that is untitled and unpublished, such as an untitled family group sheet, letter, interview, etc.

Parentheses:

(Parentheses) surround the word or phrase that refers to or restates the previous word or group of words. 10 A comma is not inserted between the focus word or phrase and the opening parenthesis. Notice there is no comma between Ancestry.com and the opening parenthesis below. Example:   Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 April 2022).

(Parentheses) also surround the year of a journal publication and can include the capitalized month or season or the exact date. The year/month/season in parentheses follow the volume and number of the journal. 11 Example: Loretta Evans, “Finding Wesley Steward’s Family Through Land Records,” Crossroads 17:1 (Winter 2022), 12-17.

Commas, Colons & Semicolons:

• A comma (,) separates items in a series. Note that commas and other punctuation always reside inside of quotation marks, if present. Punctuation follows a closing parenthesis, such as a comma when the page number is listed after publication information.
• A colon (:) announces the word(s) or list that follows, connects the place of publication and the publisher, connects the volume and page number in a periodical or other work, and is used between the URL and the access date with one extra space before the colon.
• A semicolon (;) groups together related sections and separates them from the rest of the citation. In other words, a semicolon separates sub-elements in a citation, or it separates layered citations (a citation within a citation).

Citation Punctuation Example #1

This example of a published book citation demonstrates several punctuation rules :

• The citation begins with a capital letter and ends with a period.
• Notice that the word compilers is in parentheses to show the two people listed compiled the book. No comma is used between the names and the opening parenthesis.
• The title of the published work is in italics.
• Parentheses are also used around the publication information for this specific book to indicate that this information refers to this particular book. Again, there is no comma between the title of the book and the opening parenthesis.
• Commas separate the three major elements: the names of the compilers, the title of the publication, and the page number.
• In the publication information found within parentheses, the place of publication and the publisher are separated by a colon. The year of publication is separated by a comma.

Citation Punctuation Example #2

This example of a database citation demonstrates additional punctuation rules :

• The title of the database, part of the website, is within quotation marks.
• The comma after the database title is inside of the quotation marks.
• The title of the website, a published work, is in italics.
• Parentheses are used around the website access information to show it is referring to the Ancestry website. Notice there is no comma between the subject and the opening parenthesis.
• Commas are used between each element and between each entry detail.
• Semicolons separate the three sections of this citation: the source information, the access information, and the citing information.

Thanks for joining me to learn citation punctuation basics!

~Lisa Stokes, AG®

Resource List

• Graham, Paul K. “Cite Anything: A Unified Approach to Crafting Citations.” APGQ 35:3 (September 2020), 10-17.
• Jones, Thomas W. ​ Mastering Genealogical Documentation . ​Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2017.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown. ​ Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace​ . Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2015.
• Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Evidence Explained: Historical Analysis, Citation & Source Usage . Website. https://www.evidenceexplained.com/index.php/ .
• University of Chicago Press. Chicago Manual of Style , 17 th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
• University of Chigaco Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 17 th Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).
• Thomas W. Jones,  Mastering Genealogical Documentation ( Arlington, Virginia: National Genealogical Society, 2017), 49-62.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 751-752.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 751-752, 895.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 791, 845.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style, 791, 845.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 791.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 851.
• Thomas W. Jones, Mastering Genealogical Documentation , 58.
• University of Chicago Press, Chicago Manual of Style , 830.

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