Turabian Citation Guide — Student Chicago Style for Research Papers

In this guide

Turabian vs Chicago Two systems Notes-Bibliography: footnotes N-B: Book examples N-B: Journal article N-B: Website Author-Date system Paper formatting rules Common mistakes

Turabian vs Chicago — what's the difference?

Turabian style is formally titled A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, first authored by Kate L. Turabian (a longtime University of Chicago dissertation secretary) and now in its 9th edition (2018). It is essentially a student-oriented adaptation of the Chicago Manual of Style, with additional guidance on formatting research papers and dissertations.

For citation formatting, Turabian and Chicago are nearly identical. The main differences are practical: Turabian includes more guidance on paper structure, title pages, margins, and how to present a student research paper — details that the full Chicago Manual addresses only for professional publications.

When to use Turabian vs Chicago

Your instructor says "Chicago" or "Turabian" — use either; they are effectively the same for citations
Turabian adds paper formatting rules (title page, margins, table of contents) that Chicago doesn't cover for student papers
If your institution has a Turabian-specific style guide or template, follow that over this guide

Two citation systems

Like Chicago, Turabian offers two citation systems. Choose one and use it consistently throughout the paper — never mix them:

Notes-Bibliography (N-B): For humanities — history, literature, arts. Uses numbered footnotes or endnotes + bibliography.
Author-Date (A-D): For social and natural sciences. Uses parenthetical in-text citations + reference list.

Notes-Bibliography: footnotes

In the N-B system, a superscript number appears in the text after the cited material. The full citation is in the footnote (at the bottom of the page) or endnote (at the end of the paper). A bibliography lists all sources alphabetically at the very end.

In-text with footnote marker

The emergence of the railway transformed conceptions of time and space across Victorian Britain.¹

Footnote 1 at the bottom of the page provides the full citation.

N-B: Book

Book — Footnote (first citation)

N. First Last, Title of Book (Place: Publisher, Year), page.

1. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 35.

Book — Bibliography

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Note: Surname-first in bibliography; First-name-first in footnote.

Shortened note (subsequent citations)

3. Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey, 78.

N-B: Journal article

Footnote format

N. First Last, "Title of Article," Journal Name Volume, no. Issue (Year): page. DOI or URL.

2. Carolyn Steedman, "Enforced Narratives: Stories of Another Self," in Feminism and Autobiography, ed. Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury, and Penny Summerfield (London: Routledge, 2000): 45. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203185506

Bibliography format

Steedman, Carolyn. "Enforced Narratives: Stories of Another Self." In Feminism and Autobiography, edited by Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury, and Penny Summerfield, 40–58. London: Routledge, 2000.

N-B: Website

Footnote format

N. First Last or Organisation, "Title of Page," Website Name, Month Day, Year, URL.

4. Library of Congress, "The Railroad: A History in Photographs," Library of Congress Digital Collections, accessed February 10, 2024, https://www.loc.gov/collections/railroad-maps/.

Author-Date system

The Author-Date system places the author surname and year in parentheses in the text. Full details are in a numbered Reference List at the end.

In-text citation

The railway fundamentally altered Victorian perception of landscape (Schivelbusch 1986, 52).

Format: (Surname Year, page). No comma between author and year in Turabian/Chicago Author-Date.

Reference list — Book

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. 1986. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Year moves to immediately after the author name — the main A-D reference list difference from N-B bibliography.

Reference list — Journal article

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. 1977. "Railroad Space and Railroad Time." New German Critique 14: 31–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/487860.

Paper formatting rules (Turabian-specific)

Margins: 1 inch on all sides (some thesis requirements specify 1.5 inch left margin)
Font: 12-point serif (Times New Roman or similar) for body text; 10-point for footnotes
Spacing: Double-space body text; single-space footnotes with double-space between entries
Title page: Title centred, one-third down the page; author name centred below; course, instructor, date centred at the bottom
Page numbers: Top right corner; start numbering from the first page of text (not the title page)
First-line indent: 0.5 inch indent for each new paragraph
Bibliography: Hanging indent; "Bibliography" centred at the top (N-B system) or "References" (A-D system)

Common Turabian mistakes

Using the bibliography format (Last, First) in footnotes — footnotes use First Last
Forgetting the pinpoint page number in footnotes — always include the specific page cited
Omitting the publisher city — Turabian/Chicago books include Place: Publisher (unlike APA 7th, which dropped the city)
Using ibid. after a non-consecutive footnote — ibid. only follows when the immediately preceding note cites the same source
Mixing N-B and A-D systems in the same paper
In Author-Date: writing (Smith, 2020) with a comma — Chicago/Turabian A-D uses no comma: (Smith 2020)

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Turabian Style — Complete Citation Guide