DOCUMENTATION

TURABIAN STYLE

SHORT FORMS FOR NOTES

The following information is adopted from A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, 7th edition, 2007, but Kate L. Turabian. This handout only covers the use of short forms for notes. For assistance with full Turabian style, see the Turabian style handout.

Introduction

Some fields and instructors will allow students to use shortened forms of note citations. This practice is not universal and should not be adopted by the student unless he or she has been directed to do so by the instructor or has consulted the instructor.

A shortened note should include enough information for readers to find the full citation in your bibliography or in an earlier note. The two main choices are author-only and author-title notes. In many fields, writers use the author-title form for all shortened notes; in others, writers use the author-only form for most shortened notes, but the author-title form when they cite more than one work by the same author. If a source does not have an author (or editor), you can use a title-only note. These forms should only be used if the shortened note that is being used to refer to an original citation does not directly follow the original citation. If the shortened note does directly follow the original citation, then the ibid. form should be used. Use ibid. to shorten a citation to a work whose bibliographical data appear in the immediately previous note.

EXAMPLE:

  1. Philip Ball, Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 140.
  2. Nancy L. Green, “Politics of Exit: Reversing the Immigration Paradigm,” Journal of Modern History 77 (June 2005): 275.
  3. Ball, 204. (author-only form) ----or---- Ball, Bright Earth, 204 (author-title form)
  4. Green, 276. ----or---- Green, “Politics of Exit,” 276.
  5. Ibid., 277.
  6. Ibid.
  7. John Demos, “Real Lives and Other Fictions: Reconsidering Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose,” in Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America’s Past (and Each Other), ed. Mark C. Carnes (New York: Simon Schuster, 2001), 135.
  8. Ibid., 136.[Rus, this highlighted portion needs to be sectioned off from the page in a mock page. In addition, will you check the manual to see if the ibid. needs to be in italics when it is used in a note. If possible, please try to keep the page count to two pages.]

The above example demonstrates the appearance of a list of endnotes. Note 3 and 4 demonstrate the appearance of shortened notes using both the author-only and author-title forms. Note 5 indicates that the writer is referring to Green’s article, page 277. Note 6 indicates that the writer is referring to Green’s article again, using the same page number. The use of ibid. in note 8 indicates that the writer is referring to Demos’ essay, page 136.

Templates for shortened notes

Author-only notes:

Single author:

Note number. Author’s Last Name, XX-XX.

  1. Diamond, 85-90.

Editor or translator: Use the editor or translator in place of the author only if there is no author. Do not add ed. or trans., as in the full note.

Note number. Editor’s or Translator’s Last Name, XX-XX.

  1. Noll, 15.

Authors with the same last name: If more than one author has the same last name, distinguish them by adding first names.

Note number. Author’s First and Last Names, XX-XX.

  1. Philip Smith, 212-213.

Two, three, or four or more authors:

Note Number. Author 1’s Last Name and Author 2’s Last Name, XX-XX.

7. Bird and Sherwin, 88-89.

Note Number. Author 1’s Last Name, Author 2’s Last Name, and Author 3’s Last Name, X-XX.

4. Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob, 140.

Note Number. Author 1’s Last Name et al., XX-XX.

  1. Hall et al., 91-93.

Author-Title Notes:

Books: Use the above patterns for books that have two, three, or four or more authors.

Note Number. Author’s Last Name, Shortened Title, XX-XX.

  1. Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, 85-90.

Articles: Use the above patterns for articles that have two, three, or four or more authors.

Note Number. Author’s Last Name, “Shortened Title,” XX-XX.

  1. Nayar, “Marvelous Excesses,” 225.

Title-only Notes:

Books without an author:

Note Number. Shortened Title, XX-XX.

  1. Account of Operations, 252.

Articles without an author:

Note Number. “Shortened Title,” XX-XX.

  1. “Great Trigonometrical Survey,” 26-27.