Chicago footnotes, and when to use author-date.

How footnotes work

• The number is a superscript after the punctuation at the end of the clause or sentence, except a dash, which it goes before.
• The note at the bottom of the page starts with the same number. Notes are numbered through the whole paper, not page by page.
• The first note for a source is full. Later notes are short: last name, short title, page.
• Turabian layout for class papers: notes single-spaced, a blank line between notes, the first line indented half an inch.

Short notes, not ibid.

Chicago 18 discourages “ibid.” and recommends the short note even when the same source is cited twice in a row. Ibid. is still allowed if your instructor wants it; it stands for the source in the note just before, with a page if it changes: Ibid., 114.

Author-date instead

In author-date, the citation goes in parentheses in the text and the list at the end is called References. The year comes right after the author in each entry, and there is no comma between name and year in the citation.

• Notes-bibliographyHistory, literature, arts, religion, philosophy.
• Author-dateSocial and natural sciences, and any class whose instructor prefers it.

Common mistakes

1. The note number before the comma. It goes after: ...as Walker argues,¹ not ...argues¹,
2. A full note every time. After the first, use the short note.
3. Mixing the two systems. Pick notes-bibliography or author-date for the whole paper.

Questions