INTRODUCTION
Chicago Style is the standard format for writing and citing in history and is expected of you in your history papers here at IMSA. Besides pulling together examples relevant to your IMSA papers, students are also directed to the page on Fair Use and intellectual property (a link to that page is directly above this introduction). You will be expected to understand the difference between un-attributed references and writing (i.e. plagiarism) and attributed intellectually honest writing.
TYPES OF CITATIONS
There are actually several different formats of Chicago Style, depending on to what use your references will be applied. This website will offer only two of those: end notes and bibliographies. All of these formats are based on a formula of specific to general except in the case of page numbers and dates, which always go at the end. End notes will be used in your research papers and are distinct in that they appear at the bottom of the page of the information they refer to. BIBLIOGRAPHIES are for group projects or other assignments that require a list of works cited but not within the body of a paper. The formats for each are different. In particular, since bibliographies list works in alphabetical order, they also list last name first for authors. End notes and footnotes do not.
WRITING WITH ATTRIBUTIONS
Because the body of your essays will require the use of either primary sources (historical documents) or secondary sources (the work of others who have already studied your topic) every paragraph of your essay's body will probably have a end notes. You may cite specific sentences, especially when direct quotes are used.
Example of proper attributions:
This propaganda was being produced precisely at a point in the late thirties when there was a watershed for both the advent of public opinion polling and for “a tremendous outpouring of studies of propaganda and the manipulation of the mass media. The Institute for Propaganda Analysis was founded in 1937 by a number of liberal sociologists and issued a series of studies.”14 In 1935, Leonard W. Doob, Yale professor of psychology, insisted that “the word ‘propaganda' has a bad odor. It is associated with the war and with other evil practices.” Consequently, Doob was critical of Edward Bernays, who coined the term, for his advocacy of propaganda. Doob hoped that his work, by labeling “something propaganda and someone a propagandist,” would offer “insight into the fundamental nature of the process of propaganda,” thereby rendering “many kinds of propaganda less effective.”15 Propaganda, he insisted, could not be abolished. It could only be understood.
FURTHER EXAMPLES
In addition to this website see more examples at: http://library.jscc.edu/researchhelp/turabian_citations.pdf
COMMON PROBLEMS
Rule #1 before all else: always include page numbers (where they exist) in your citations. Never cite a book or article without including the appropriate page numbers.
Be careful to assure pronoun-antecedent agreement. Example:
China has always been a key producer in tea for thousands of years. They gradually became experts in perfecting the process that includes selecting, drying and brewing the leaves into the much enjoyed hot beverage. Trying to quench their increased consumption of the product, the British tried to negotiate with trade a more favorable trading system. However, the Chinese had the upper hand since it did not favor any of the British imports.
Should read:
The Chinese were key producers in tea for thousands of years. They gradually became experts in perfecting the process that includes selecting, drying and brewing the leaves into the much enjoyed hot beverage. Trying to quench their increased consumption of the product, the British tried to negotiate with trade a more favorable trading system. However, the Chinese had the upper hand since that system did not favor any of the British imports.
Example 2:
Thus the British resorted to using all the silver it had acquired from the New World to buy Chinese tea.
Should read:
Thus Britain resorted to using all the silver it had acquired from the New World to buy Chinese tea.
MAKING WRITING FORMAL
says = asserts, claims, argues, insists, suggests, indicates, implies, explains, puts it this way, describes, writes that, etc.
Making English American:punctuation, o and ou, amid and amidst , among and amongst
Watch for: pronoun-antecedent agreement, use of colloquial language, end notes (especially putting them at the ends of sentences), formal language, as well as tenses (and the use of “led” for past of lead), and the overuse of semicolons, as well as the way to use summaries prior toquotes (they should not be paraphrased).