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Cite Your Sources: Chicago Style

CMOS

Chicago Manual of Style

About Chicago Style: Fast Facts

The Chicago Manual of Style offers two distinct documentation methods, one for the humanities (Notes and Bibliography system) and one for the sciences (Author-Date system). This guide presumes you're using the Notes & Bibliography format, which is common for Lone Star College classes.

  • There is no particular required font, but stick with Times New Roman size 12, as you would for other essays.
  • Footnote numbers are consecutive throughout the whole paper. If you re-use a source, it will get a new footnote number each time. 
  • Most of your paper will be double-spaced.
  • Footnote entries & bibliography entries will be single-spaced. Footnotes will also use a "first line indent," making them look like a regular paragraph. Bibliography entries at the end of the paper will use a hanging indent like you've probably used in MLA and APA.

 

Basic Chicago Citation Anatomy

In-Text (Footnote):

The first time you use a source, you'll use the full version of the footnote citation:

1. Barbara Erhlich White, "Renoir's Trip to Italy," Art Bulletin 51, no. 4 (1969): 341, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048651

Every subsequent time you use a source, you'll use the shortened note form of the citation, which contains the author's last time, part of the source title, and whatever page number is relevant.

4. White, "Renoir's Trip," 347.
Bibliography:

Your bibliography citations will look very similar to your full-length footnotes and will be listed alphabetically according to the first word in each citation.

White, Barbara Ehrlich. "Renoir's Trip to Italy." Art Bulletin 51, no. 4 (1969): 333-51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3048651.

Shortened (Concise) Notes

The second (or subsequent) time a resource is referenced, use a shortened form of the citation.  The short form should include the last name of the author, a brief form of the title (formatted with italics or quotation marks as needed), and the page number.  For example:

      95. Miller, Quest, 81.

Note: Older versions of Chicago used Ibid. for consecutive references to the same source. This is no longer preferred, as of the 17th edition. You will use shortened notes for all footnote citations after your initial use of a source.

Other Citation Guides

Additional CMOS Resources