A Chicago style term paper depends on the Chicago Manual of Style for its method of citing research sources. The Chicago style has two different methods: the author-date style, largely used in the sciences, and the humanities method, largely used in disciplines such as history and theology. The student should ascertain immediately which type of documentation the instructor requires for Chicago style term papers for that course.
In the author-date method, the student uses parenthetical citations to alert the reader which source provided the information. As one may guess, the parenthetical citations contain the author and copyright date of the source without a comma between them, such as "(Jones 1992)." The student then provides a full citation, which includes author, copyright date, title, place of publication, and publisher, in an alphabetized bibliography at the end of the Chicago style term paper.
The humanities method uses footnotes or endnotes to cite sources. When a student cites a source for the first time, he or she should include full identifying information in the footnote or endnote, including a page reference; thereafter, footnotes for that source may sufficiently contain only the author and page number (and possibly part of the title, if the paper cites more than one source by that author). The student also provides full identifying information in an alphabetized bibliography.
One benefit to Chicago style term papers that use the humanities method is that the footnotes or endnotes may contain additional information that does not fit in the argumentative flow of the text. For example, one may use an idea from a certain source, cite that source in a footnote, and then follow the citation with a sentence or two about how the source draws different conclusions about the implications of that idea.
As with all term papers, students should carefully consult the style manual before assuming they know how to cite research sources appropriately. The great majority of the task is to provide the correct identifying information and to organize the information in proper sequence.
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