Style Guides

• The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and documentation, and as such, it has been lovingly dubbed the "editor's bible."
• Notes-Bibliography System (NB)


  Used by those working in literature, history, and the arts
• Author-Date System


  Nearly identical in content but slightly different in form, preferred by those working in the social sciences
• The Notes and Bibliography (NB) system is often used in the humanities to provide writers with a system for referencing their sources through the use of footnotes, endnotes, and through the use of a bibliography.
• Notes and Bibliography (NB) system


  • Offers writers a flexible option for citation and provides an outlet for commenting on those sources, if needed
  • Builds a writer's credibility by demonstrating their accountability to source material
  • Can protect writers from accusations of plagiarism
• Using notes in the NB system

  1. Include a note (endnote or footnote) each time you use a source, whether through a direct quote, paraphrase, or summary

  2. Place a superscript number corresponding to a note, along with the bibliographic information for that source, in the text following the end of the sentence or clause in which the source is referenced
• Shortened citations


  In a work with a bibliography, the first reference should use a shortened citation which includes the author's name, the source title, and the page number(s), and consecutive references to the same work may omit the source title and simply include the author and page number
• Ibid.


  (from the Latin ibidem, which means "in the same place") can be used if you cite the same source and page number(s) from a single source two or more times consecutively
• Creating a bibliography in the NB system

  1. Provides an alphabetical list of all sources used in a given work

  2. Includes all sources cited within the work and may sometimes include other relevant sources that were not cited but provide further reading

  3. Arranged alphabetically by author's last name
• A bibliography is not required in works that provide full bibliographic information in the notes.
• Elements in a bibliography entry

  • Author (or editor, compiler, translator)
  • Title
  • Publication information
• In a bibliography, all major elements are separated by periods.