Guide to Turabian's A Manual for Writers

Format of the Paper:

1. Use Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (5th edition) for
unanswered questions.
2. Check with your professor to see whether endnotes or footnotes should be used.
3. A complete citation (such as the following for a book -- author, title, place of publication, publisher, date
of publication, and page(s)), as outlined in Turabian, should be used for the first citation of each individual
source. The author's name and the new page citation will suffice for subsequent citations of the same
source unless you also cite another source by the same author. In that case, the author's name and a
short title must be used. The first full citation should be followed by a sentence where you explain how
you will short title it (e.g. Hereafter cited as Poe, Tale Heart).
4. The pages of your paper should be numbered, including the bibliography pages. The first page of the
text should be numbered at the bottom center of the page and subsequent pages in the upper right-hand
corner.
5. Your text should be double-spaced with the appropriate margins (1") on both the sides and at the top
and bottom of your pages. Quotations of five lines or more are considered BLOCK QUOTATIONS and
should be indented and single-spaced. Block quotations in the text should also be separated from the rest
of the text by a blank line before and after the quotation.
6. Both the notes and the bibliography entries should be single-spaced within each entry and doublespaced between entries.
7. Begin each paper with a title page that includes the title of your paper, your name, the department
name and course number [History 308 (or whatever is the correct number)] and the date of submission.
The title page should also be followed by a blank sheet of paper. (See Turabian, Section 1.6 for details.)
8. When typing your paper on a word processor do NOT use right-hand justification. DO USE the
superscript key for inserting your footnote numbers into the text.
9. Know the difference between primary and secondary sources, and try to use as many primary sources
as possible.
10. Remember that periodicals can be divided into at least three categories -- newspapers, magazines,
and scholarly journals. Learn how to use the indexes to get into the information in these three types of
periodicals.
11. Spell out numbers under one-hundred and those that begin a sentence.
Preparing Footnotes/Endnotes
1. Notes should be arranged in numerical order either at the foot of each page (footnotes) or at the end of
the paper as a whole (endnotes). 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 (See Turabian,
sample 14.43).
2. In the text both footnotes and endnotes should be marked with an Arabic numeral typed slightly above
the line (superscript).
3. Note that numbers preceding footnotes themselves are also typed above the line. However, with
endnotes, numbers may be either superscript, or typed on the line followed by a period and two spaces.
4. The note numbers, either footnotes or endnotes, should always directly follow the passage to which it
refers.
5. The first time a work is mentioned in a note, the entry should include: the author's full name, the title of
the work, the specific reference (i.e. volume, if any, and page number), and facts of publication (i.e. place
of publication, publisher, date of publication). Subsequent references to the work should be in shortened
form.
6. The shortened form includes: a shortened title or, where appropriate, the Latin abbreviation "ibid." and
the page number, if needed, should be used. Ibid. is only used if the current note is in the same work as
the previous note.
7. If the reference has already been cited, but not in the reference immediately preceding, then there are
two options:
A. author's family name, title of book or article, and the specific page reference
B. author's family name and specific page reference, and lists the title of the book or article only when two
or more works by the same author are cited.
Examples of Notes:
Note: All numbers in bold font should be typed as superscript
Book-1 John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams: A Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1985), 54.
Editor-2 Robert von Hallberg, ed., Canons (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 225.
Article in a Journal-3 Richard Jackson, "Running Down the Up-Escalator: Regional Inequality in Papua New
Guinea," Australian Geographer 14 (May 1979): 180.
For other examples, see pages 177-203 in Turabian. All note entries are marked with "N".

Bibliographies
1. Most bibliography entries are arranged in alphabetical order.
2. Unlike the note entries which indented the first line, the bibliography entries are flush left, and all
subsequent lines are indented five spaces.
3. Bibliography entries also place the family name first followed by a comma and then the first name (i.e.
Doe, John).
4. Whereas commas and parentheses are used in a note, periods are used in a bibliographical entry at
the end of each main part -- author's name, title of work, and facts of publication. Periodical
bibliographical entries due retain the parentheses around the dates of publication when these follow a
volume number.
5. Page numbers are only given when the item is a part of a whole work -- a chapter in a book or an
article in a periodical.
Examples of Bibliography Entries
Book-Franklin, John Hope. George Washington Williams: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1985.
Editor-von Hallberg, Robert, ed. Canons. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Article in a Journal-Jackson, Richard. "Running Down the Up-Escalator: Regional Inequality in Papua New
Guinea." Australian Geographer 14 (May 1979): 175-184.
Remember in your bibliography the entries would not be divided into types, and they would be listed
alphabetically. For more examples, see pages 177-203 in Turabian. Bibliography entries are marked with
"B".

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