Citing, References and Documentation according to the Chicago Manual of Style
Notes without Bibliography*

In this style, sources are identified using footnotes (or endnotes). The footnote reference number is put at the end of the sentence, outside the quotation marks and after the full stop or other punctuation.
Izzard suggests that “all this is true.”1
For clarity's sake, however, the reference number may be placed within the sentence. In this case, it follows any punctuation except a dash.
While Izzard suggested that all that was true,2 it was questionable whether...
When citing for the first time, you need to give all details of publication (examples to follow). When citing for the second or subsequent time, however, only the author's name and the page number need to be given:
8 Sanders, 345.
If more works are used by the same author, an abbreviated version of the title may be included:
8 Sanders, Essay, 345.
If you refer to lines of poetry often and from the same poem, you may place line numbers in parentheses (MLA style) to avoid an excess of footnotes. In this case, the reference comes after the quotation mark, but before the punctuation. Use "l." for "line", and "ll." for "lines".
... life to thee” (l. 14).
At the first occurrence of such a reference, include a similar note:
14 All parenthesized references are to ...

Examples of full references

  • Book
    2 William Saunders, A Guide to Cooking (Cambridge, Mass.: River Press, 1871), 41.
  • Article in a journal
    2 Anthony Berg, “The Echo in Poetry,” Modern Critical Review 138.2 (Fall 1999): 201-212.
  • Work in an anthology or collection
    2 Ann Righte, “Hillside,” in The Anglo-French Anthology of Verse, ed. Gerard Ville (Paris, Mason, 1995), 84-86.
  • Article in dictionary, encyclopedia, or other reference work: use
    s.v. “carrot.”
    (meaning "sub verbo" = "see under the word") instead of page numbers
  • Translated book
    2 Celine Gaston, The Fire on the Page, trans. George T. Tillmann (New York: Vertigo, 1975), 20.
  • Work on the Internet
    2 Ralph G. Williams, “Neverwhere in The Adventures of Tilk,” updated 23 April 2005, <http://iamreading.blogspot.com/neverwhere.html> (cited 12 December 2007), para 2.
  • Lecture, or speech
    2 Howard Garrett, lecture on William Shakespeare, English 108b, Harvard College, Cambridge, MA., 1 February 2005.
For more examples, see the notes (preceded by "N:") on The Chicago Manual of Style Online homepage.

Further points to note

If there is some information missing, use "n.p." (no publisher, no place) or "n.d." (no date).

If you encounter a source quoted in another work, give all publication data of both works and join the citings with "quoted in" or "cited in".


* All examples on this page are fictional. Formats are based on Gordon Harvey, Writing with Sources: A Guide for Harvard Students (Indianapolis / Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 1998) and The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).