Turabian style gives you two citation systems to choose from: Notes-Bibliography and Author-Date. The one you use depends on your discipline and, often, your professor’s preference. Both systems follow the same core logic as Chicago style but are tailored for student papers rather than professional publications. Here’s how each system works, with specific formatting examples you can follow.
Pick the Right System First
The Notes-Bibliography system is the default for humanities courses like history, literature, and the arts. It uses numbered footnotes or endnotes in the text, paired with a bibliography at the end of your paper. The Author-Date system is more common in the sciences and social sciences. It uses parenthetical citations in the text, paired with a reference list at the end.
If your instructor hasn’t specified which to use, check your department’s guidelines. Use one system consistently throughout the paper. Don’t mix footnotes with parenthetical citations.
How Notes-Bibliography Works
Every time you quote, paraphrase, or reference a source, you place a superscript number at the end of the relevant sentence. That number corresponds to a footnote at the bottom of the page (or an endnote at the end of the paper) containing the full citation details. At the end of the paper, you also include a bibliography listing every source in alphabetical order by the author’s last name.
The first time you cite a source, the footnote includes the full citation. Every time after that, you use a shortened form with just the author’s last name, a shortened title, and the page number. Here’s what that looks like in practice for the most common source types.
Books
A full footnote for a book lists the author’s name in normal order, the title in italics, publication details in parentheses, and the page number:
1. Katie Kitamura, A Separation (New York: Riverhead Books, 2017), 25.
The shortened note for the same book on a later citation drops the publication details:
3. Kitamura, Separation, 91–92.
The bibliography entry flips the author’s name (last name first), removes the parentheses around the publication information, and drops the specific page number:
Kitamura, Katie. A Separation. New York: Riverhead Books, 2017.
Notice the punctuation differences. Footnotes use commas to separate elements and put publication details in parentheses. Bibliography entries use periods between major elements and no parentheses.
Journal Articles
Journal article footnotes include the article title in quotation marks, the journal name in italics, the volume, issue number, date, and the specific page you’re citing:
1. Ashley Hope Pérez, “Material Morality and the Logic of Degrees in Diderot’s Le neveu de Rameau,” Modern Philology 114, no. 4 (May 2017): 874, https://doi.org/10.1086/689836.
The shortened form keeps just the author, a short title, and the page:
4. Pérez, “Material Morality,” 880–81.
In the bibliography, list the full page range of the article instead of the single page you cited:
Pérez, Ashley Hope. “Material Morality and the Logic of Degrees in Diderot’s Le neveu de Rameau.” Modern Philology 114, no. 4 (May 2017): 872–98. https://doi.org/10.1086/689836.
For articles you accessed online, include a DOI (a permanent link starting with https://doi.org/) if one is available. A DOI is more stable than the URL in your browser’s address bar. If there’s no DOI, use the database name or the direct URL instead.
Websites
Website citations list the page title in quotes, the section or site name, the organization or author, the date, and the URL:
1. “Privacy Policy,” Privacy & Terms, Google, last modified April 17, 2017, https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
Shortened note:
3. Google, “Privacy Policy.”
Bibliography entry:
Google. “Privacy Policy.” Privacy & Terms. Last modified April 17, 2017. https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
If the source doesn’t list a publication date, posting date, or revision date, include the date you accessed it instead (for example, “Accessed June 10, 2025”).
How Author-Date Works
Instead of footnotes, you place a parenthetical citation directly in the text. The basic format is the author’s last name, the year of publication, and the page number, all in parentheses: (Kitamura 2017, 25). At the end of the paper, a reference list gives the full details for every source, organized alphabetically.
In-Text Citation Formats
The format shifts slightly depending on the number of authors:
- One author: (Kitamura 2017, 25)
- Two authors: (Sassler and Miller 2017, 114)
- Four or more authors: Use the first author’s last name followed by “et al.” in the text, as in (Weber et al. 2017, 45). List up to ten authors in the reference list entry.
When a source doesn’t have fixed page numbers, cite a chapter number or section title instead: (Austen 2007, chap. 3). For personal communications like emails, text messages, or interviews, cite them in the text only and skip the reference list: (Sam Gomez, Facebook message to author, August 1, 2017).
Reference List Entries
Reference list entries in the Author-Date system look similar to bibliography entries but place the year right after the author’s name. For a book:
Kitamura, Katie. 2017. A Separation. New York: Riverhead Books.
For a chapter in an edited book, include the page range and the editor’s name:
Rowlandson, Mary. 2016. “The Narrative of My Captivity.” In The Making of the American Essay, edited by John D’Agata, 19–56. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.
For edited books cited as a whole, put “ed.” after the editor’s name:
D’Agata, John, ed. 2016. The Making of the American Essay. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press.
Journal articles and online sources follow the same DOI and URL rules described in the Notes-Bibliography section. Include a DOI when one exists, and fall back to a database name or URL when it doesn’t.
Page Layout and Formatting
Beyond citations themselves, Turabian has specific requirements for your paper’s appearance. Use one-inch margins on all sides and a readable font, with Times New Roman in 12-point being the standard choice. Double-space the body of the paper, but single-space block quotations, footnotes, bibliography entries, and reference list entries. Add one blank line before and after these single-spaced elements to separate them from the surrounding text.
Your title page counts as page one but should not display a page number. If you have front matter like a table of contents, number those pages with lowercase Roman numerals (ii, iii) centered at the bottom, starting with ii to account for the title page. The body of the paper switches to Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) in the top-right corner, beginning with page 1.
Shortened Notes Save You Time
One detail that trips up many students: you only need to write the full footnote the first time you cite a source. Every subsequent citation of the same source uses the shortened form, which includes just the author’s last name, a short version of the title, and the page number. This keeps your footnotes from becoming unwieldy in a long paper. The bibliography at the end still contains the full citation for every source, so your reader can always find the complete details there.
If you cite the same source twice in a row with no other citation in between, you can use “Ibid.” followed by a page number if it’s different from the previous note. Some instructors discourage “Ibid.” in favor of always using shortened notes, so check your assignment guidelines.
Formatting the Bibliography or Reference List
Both systems require an alphabetized list at the end of your paper. In Notes-Bibliography, it’s called a “Bibliography.” In Author-Date, it’s called a “Reference List.” Either way, the formatting follows a hanging indent: the first line of each entry is flush with the left margin, and every subsequent line is indented half an inch. Single-space within each entry, and add a blank line between entries. Entries are sorted alphabetically by the first author’s last name, and if you cite multiple works by the same author, list them in chronological order.