General Notes on Chicago Style
This guide follows the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (Z 253 U69 2017) and provides examples of endnotes/footnotes and bibliography entries for citing the types of sources most commonly used by students in the Humanities.
Endnotes/Footnotes
- With Chicago’s notes and bibliography system, source information (and commentary on the sources cited) is provided in notes, preferably supplemented by a bibliography.
- Footnotes are placed at the bottom of a page. Endnotes are listed on a separate page at the end of a report, following the text and any appendixes and preceding the bibliography, if there is one.
- In the text of the report, notes are numbered consecutively, beginning with the arabic number 1.
- A note number (superscript) should generally be placed at the end of a sentence or at the end of a clause. The number follows any punctuation mark except for the dash, which it precedes.
- Each in-text note number corresponds to an endnote/footnote that provides bibliographic information and page number(s) cited for each source.
Short Form Notes (Shortened Citations)
- To reduce the bulk of documentation, shortening recurring notes is strongly recommended (while the use of ibid. is discouraged).
- When citing the same source after first cited in full, use a short form that consists of: the last name of the author (or corporate author), the main title of the source (usually shortened if more than four words), and the specific page(s), if any.
- To avoid repetition, the title of a source just cited may be omitted. However, a page reference must be repeated even if it is the same as the last cited. If a source has two or three authors, give the last name of each; for more than three, the last name of the first author followed by et al.
1. Vaughn Palmer, “As Politicians Endlessly Plan, Ride-Sharing Services Move In,” Vancouver Sun, January 11, 2018, Canadian Major Dailies.
2. Kwabena G. Boakye, Charles Blankson, and Victor R. Prybutok, “The Battle for Customer Loyalty: An Examination of Customer Loyalty in the Goods and Services Domain,” Quality Management Journal 24, no. 4 (October 2017): 27, Business Source Complete.
3. Darren Henderson et al., Navigating Risks on the Road to Cannabis Legalization, PwC Canada, 2017, 11, https://www.pwc.com/ca/en/risk-opportunity/publications/navigating-risks-on-the-road-to-cannabis-legalization.pdf.
4. Palmer, “As Politicians Endlessly Plan.”
5. Boakye, Blankson, and Prybutok, “Battle for Customer Loyalty,” 31.
6. Boakye, Blankson, and Prybutok, 22.
7. Boakye, Blankson, and Prybutok, 22.
8. Henderson et al., Navigating Risks, 5.
Bibliography
- A bibliography is a list of all the sources cited in the notes. It is included at the end of a report, following the endnotes.
- The entries are arranged alphabetically by author’s last name (or by title, if no author is given).
- List the first author of each source with the last name first. List additional authors’ first-name first.
Examples of Citations
You may not always find guidelines or examples specific to the kind of source you want to cite. Keep in mind that the intent of the notes/bibliography of your report is to give enough information for the reader to locate the works. Do the best you can and make sure the format of all your citations is consistent. When in doubt, it is best to include more rather than fewer details.
