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Cite Your Sources: In-Text Citations

Adding Footnotes in Word

Unlike MLA and APA, you'll be using footnotes to add your in-text documentation. (There is a version of Chicago which uses parenthetical citations -- Author-Date format -- but you're more likely to use Notes-Bibliography, which this guide focuses on.)

To add footnotes to your paper, just click the "Insert Footnote" option in Word (under References) wherever you'd normally be adding a parenthetical citation. Word will take care of all the spacing and footnote numbering for you.

Screenshot of References tab in Word, with a red arrow pointing at the "Insert Footnote" button


You will need to do some slight reformatting to your footnotes to make them fit Chicago Style. Footnotes should be single-spaced (with an empty line separating each footnote) and use a first line indent.

Screenshot comparing the default Word footnotes to footnotes adjusted to have a larger font and use first-line indentation


Our document template has already been formatted to Chicago style.

Template for Chicago Style paper

This Word doc is already set up for the notes-bibliography version of Chicago style. Just add content!