Chicago Manual of Style (Notes-Bibliography System)

Citing your sources is a way to demonstrate academic honesty and is a way to avoid plagiarism.

Citing your work shows that you have:

• Completed quality research by listing the sources that you used to get your information.
• Are a responsible scholar by giving credit to other researchers and acknowledging their ideas.
• Provided a way for your reader to easily find the sources that have you used by citing them accurately in your paper using a bibliography, works cited page or reference list.

Chicago Style is commonly used to format papers and cite sources within history, art history and other humanities. 

Although there are thousands of citation styles to choose from, they may vary with disciplines, with publishers, etc. You may need to speak with your professor about what style you should use for your assignment but remember to be consistent with your style and only use one style throughout your assignment. Explore this guide to learn more about how to cite using Chicago Style.

When to Cite Sources

When you are writing your research paper, any information you quote, summarize or paraphrase must be cited and documented. You must document all of your sources to avoid plagiarism.

How to Document Your Sources

The Chicago Manual of Style requires two components:

1. Notes (footnotes or endnotes) – These are numbered and correspond to the super scripted numbers in the body of the text.
    
2. A “Bibliography” page – A list of citations of all sources used at the very end of the paper. 

Website Titles - If the website has a print counterpart (such as a newspaper), put the website name in italics. If not, use plain text.

Ibid. - The use of ibid. for repeated citations is no longer preferred. If the citation is the same as the one immediately preceding it, use a shortened citation that includes the author’s last name and relevant pages numbers.

Email - The preferred spelling is now email with no hyphen.

Generic Internet Terms- Do not capitalize generic internet terms such as web, internet or wireless network.

"They" as a Singular Pronoun - If the gender has been identified, “he” or “she” needs to be used appropriately. If the gender has not been identified, “they” should be used. So the following is now correct: Someone has left their student ID at the desk.

Accessed date - Accessed date is only required when citing a web resource that does not have a publication or last updated date available; however, you should check with your instructor to clarify expectations on documenting the date you accessed an information resource.