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Referencing style - Chicago: Information on Notes (Footnotes)

A guide to using the Chicago 17th referencing style for footnotes and reference lists.

Creating footnotes using Microsoft Word

The 3-Em Dash

The 3-em dash followed by a full stop is used for successive entries by the same author or editor and replaces the name after the first apperance in the bibliography. 

 e.g. 

Crowley, John. E.  The invention of comfort: sensibilities and design in early modern Britain and early America.  Baltimore, Md:  Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

— — —.  Imperial landscapes:  Britain's global visual culture, 1745-1820.  New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2011.

Notes (footnotes) explained

Each time you use a source, whether through a direct quote or through a paraphrase or summary you must cite your source by using a Note. Notes are always listed together in sequential order at the end of the page on which the reference appears. 

Each foot note citation consists of two parts: a superscript number within the text following the end of the sentence or clause in which the source is referenced and a corresponding full-sized number at the start of the footnote with details of the source. 

Text

Example text.1 Example text. 2
Footnote
  1.     Erica Gies, Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge (University of Chicago Press, 2022), 8, 27.
  2.     Gies, Water Always Wins, 209.10

 

The first Note for each source should include all relevant information about the source: author’s full name, source title, and facts of publication. The bibliograhy at the end of your document will contain all of the citation information in full, whereas the note can contains a shorter citation.

If you cite the same source consequentively you can use a further shortened note citation, as per the example above. 

See Chapter 13 of The Chicago Manual of Style -Online (17th Ed.) for an overview of Notes and Bibliography conventions. 

Bibliography

In the NB system, the bibliography provides an alphabetical list of all sources used in a given work. The bibliography, is usually placed at the end of the work and should include all sources cited within the work and may sometimes include other relevant sources that were not cited but provide further reading and act as an indication to the reader of the breadth and depth of an author's research.

All included sources (books, articles, websites, etc.) in the bibliography are arranged alphabetically by author’s last name. If no author or editor is listed, the title may be used instead.

All entries in the bibliography will include the author (or editor, compiler, translator), title, and facts of publication.

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