Notation Styles

For most of your papers, you will be asked to follow the footnote/bibliography format of the Chicago Manual of Style. We will briefly look at this style later. First we will look at a parenthetical notation style that some professors will ask you to follow on some shorter assignments, especially when all of your references will be to one or two texts.

This simple parenthetical style is a local hybrid, so you need to follow the specific instructions of the professor who asks you to use it, for there are some small variations among the faculty. Some of the common features of this style are the following:

  • The title and author of the text(s) which will be cited are named in the introduction of the essay.
  • No bibliography or works cited sheet is included.
  • For each citation, the author's last name, followed by a comma and the page number, is placed in parentheses after the last word of a sentence but before the final punctuation.

Example:

Nonetheless, the Church was largely secularized during this period; and for most, grace "was to be had at low cost"(Bonhoeffer, 49).

  • If there is more than one work by an author, or if the professor requests it, a shortened form of the title is also included.

Example:

Nonetheless, the Church was largely secularized during this period; and for most, grace "was to be had at low cost"(Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 49).

For the Chicago footnote/bibliography style, you must carefully follow either Turabian or Form and Style. This style is very different from APA and MLA. If you are unfamiliar with this style, you should carefully read chapter seven of Form and Style before you attempt to use it. Keep in mind that footnotes look different from bibliographic entries:

Footnotes are in numeric order at the bottom of the page. They are indented, with the author's first name first. Commas are used between items and publication information is in parentheses. Page number is included.

Example:

     1Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. H. Fuller, (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1949; Macmillan Publishing Company, 1963), 46.

Bibliographic entries are in alphabetical order at the end of the essay under the heading, "bibliography." They have a hanging indentation with the primary author's last name first. Periods are used between items and publication information is not in parentheses. For most book entries, no page number is given.

Example:

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. Trans. H. Fuller. Munich: Chr.
     Kaiser Verlag, 1949; Macmillan Publishing Company, 1963.

Keep in mind that punctuation and form have a purpose in notes and bibliographic entries, so creativity is not appreciated. See Turabian chapters eleven through nineteen or Form and Style chapter seven for abundant examples.