The Chicago Style Manual is a style guide that has been in print since 1906. What is so peculiar about it compared to APA or MLA? The thing is, Chicago style format (otherwise known as Turabian format) doesn’t have any official status, but is, in fact, used by the majority of scholars as the manual of the American English grammar, punctuation, and style.
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, more commonly known as the Turabian Style, is a set of rules published by the University of Chicago Press (the same that publishes Chicago Style Manual). It is widely accepted as a guide for formatting research papers, most notably their citation system and bibliographies.
Here are the most remarkable features you must pay attention to when writing a Chicago Turabian style paper:
- They use foot- and endnotes. Footnotes are located at the foot of the page and are placed in numerical order. Endnotes are written at the end of the whole text and are arranged in the same way.
- Reference to the notes follows the passage where the quotation is used and is marked by an Arabic figure written in superscript.
- When the note is mentioned for the first time, it contains the full bibliographical information: name of the author, title of the text (in italics), place of publication, name of the publisher, publication date (all three in brackets), page number.
- The bibliography contains only the sources quoted or referred to in the paper, arranged in alphabetical order by the author’s last name and contain full bibliographical information (as above).
- If there are two authors, the names of them both are mentioned.
- If there are three or more authors, only the name of the first one is given (in the foot- and endnotes) or all of them are listed (in the bibliography)
- If only the editor or compiler is known, mark his or her name with “ed.” abbreviation.
- In case of electronic documents, write the date when it was accessed and the web-address you have used for it.
As you may see, Chicago/Turabian format styles are mostly concerned with citation and bibliography formatting. There are, of course, a number of other situations, which are not mentioned here; we recommend you to consult the corresponding manuals for additional reference and more specific information on how to write properly in rarer instances of the styles’ usage.
When only starting to work on your paper, don’t forget to make sure that you need to use particularly Turabian essay format, for it differs rather considerably from other formatting variants, and last-minute alterations may become a real nuisance.
Remember, it is better to use correct formatting from the stage of writing drafts. It is also recommended to write down all the information considering sources you take as a basis at the stage of literature research so as not to forget some important details.
If you still aren’t confident enough about formatting a paper in Chicago style on your own, we can offer professional essays help online. Our writers or editors will bring your piece in line with all the necessary requirements.
