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Citing Sources: Turabian 9th ed.

This guide offers resources to help you document the sources you're citing in your research papers and projects.

Turabian Style Overview

The Turabian citation style is typically used by scholars and students within the fields Humanities and Social Sciences, particularly in disciplines of Classics, Fine Arts, History, Philosophy, Politics and Theology. Turabian is "Chicago Style" for students.
Hover over the Turabian 9th ed. tab above to see specific instructions for Notes/Bibliography or Author/Date styles.

How to Format Your Paper

Turabian Style refers to "A Manual of Style" written by Kate Turabian, and is based on the Chicago Manual of Style. However, whereas the Chicago style is designed for professional publications, Turabian style is designed for students of college-level research papers, theses, and dissertations. 

Turabian Style offers two different methods for formatting papers: Notes/Bibliography and Author/Date.

  • The Notes/Bibliography or NB format is most often used within the Humanities disciplines. This system uses numbers in the text that correspond to numbered footnotes or endnotes. Sources cited in the notes are also listed together in a separate bibliography at the end of the work.
  • The Author/Date or AD format is most often used within the Social Sciences disciplines. Instead of note numbers and notes, this system uses parenthetical references in the text that correspond directly to a list of sources at the end of the work.

Be sure to check with your course instructor, and pick one style to use consistently throughout your paper. If your professor mentions using Footnotes, they are referring the Notes/Bibliography format.

 

You can use these Paper Templates to get you started with Turabian Style formatting. Or, if you would like to start from scratch in your preferred word processing program, you can use the guidelines in the Note/Bibliography and Author/Date pages of this Guide (hover over the Turabian tab up top to access them). 

Paper Templates