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Chicago Style

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• Purdue OWL Help with Footnotes & Endnotes

Footnotes contain the same information as the bibliographic citation, but with slight differences.[1]   Note that the authors are in normal order, not inverted.[2] The author is followed by a comma and the publication information is now in parentheses.[3]   In the footnote you will give the page number of the quote or information you have used.[4]

In Microsoft Word, select References / Insert Footnote to create automatically placed and numbered footnotes.[5]   Select the default values: they specify that footnotes will be at the bottom of the page and numbered 1, 2, 3 etc.   Footnotes are created by the automatic program in 10-pt. type. If you copy and paste them from a list, you must change them to 10-pt. type.

The first footnote contains the full citation. Subsequent footnotes from the same item can be shortened to the author or author and title.

   Use the same rules for footnotes for online sources. Use a shortened form for the second footnote.   Include the name of the database, the date you viewed it, and the URL.

These examples are for commonly found types of materials. If your material does not fit with any of these examples, look at the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers . There are copies at the Reference Desk and in the circulating collection.   There are online guides to help you with citations at http://libraryweb.utep.edu/db/citing.cfm .

[1]  Discovering the Music of Africa . DVD. Directed by Bernard Wilets. (Huntsville, Tex.: Educational Video Network, 2004).

[2] David M. Guion. The Trombone: Its History and Music, 1697-1811 .   (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1988): 25.

[3] National Early Music Association Conference. “From Renaissance to Baroque: Change in Instruments and Instrumental Music in the Seventeenth Century.”   (Aldershot, England: Ashgate,2005) 65.

[4] Guion, The Trombone , 76.

[5] “From Renaissance to Baroque,” 92.

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Purdue Owl: MLA Formatting & Style Guide

Developed by the Purdue Online Writing Lab.  MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

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APA Style Help & Tools

{{page_title}}, best bet: apa's academic writer.

Academic Writer is the only authoritative and complete online environment for teaching, writing, and publishing in APA Style®, now updated to the 7th Edition. Designed to help users develop their writing and professional research skills, Academic Writer combines sophisticated learning and teaching tools, advanced writing and content management technology, and full integration of APA’s best-selling Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association® to create an unparalleled web-based suite of integrated services and tools.

Access Academic Writer anytime with this link:

library.purdueglobal.edu/academicwriter

Using Academic Writer's Writing Tools

Academic Writer contains a Writing section where you can create and write a full APA-formatted paper.  You can write the entire paper in Academic Writer or just use it to setup the title page, headings, and references.  Export your work at any time to a Microsoft Word document.  Below are documents from Academic Writer about the essential features of their Writing tools.  

• Setting up the Title Page
• Adding References to Papers (PDF)
• Adding In-Text Citations (PDF)
• Adding Tables (PDF)
• Exporting Papers (PDF)

Featured Items from Academic Writer

Basics of APA Style

Learn the basics of APA Style, including how to format a manuscript, understand the form and function of common manuscript parts, organize and express your thoughts clearly and precisely, employ the mechanics of style, use graphic elements effectively, credit sources and acknowledge the contributions of others, and construct a comprehensive and reliable reference list.

Academic Writer

© 2020 American Psychological Association.

How to Avoid Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism

Learn how to avoid plagiarism and self-plagiarism, including how to identify plagiarism, understand its risks and consequences, cite sources properly, and develop sound writing practices.

Learn how to set up the title page of an APA Style paper, including the page header and running head, title, author name and affiliation, and author note.

Paper Template: ("Merenda" Sample Student Paper)

This sample response paper presents a university student's personal reaction to an article about whether medication is prescribed too often to young children to treat psychological disorders. The title page demonstrates the simple default layout for a student paper. The paper has a simple setup with only a title page, body of text, and references. No "running head"! Response papers typically do not include author notes or abstracts, though this may vary by assignment.

Academic Writer Documentation & Tips

The below links lead to more information, tips, and training about the basics of using Academic Writer.

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Visit the Writing Center

Need writing help?  Visit the Writing Center to contact a tutor, submit your paper for review and feedback, or ask APA Style-related questions, as well as access dozens of writing tutorials, videos, webinars, and other instructional resources.

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eBook on APA Style 7th Edition

Zotero: Free Reference Management Tool

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. This tool is especially popular for heavy researchers at the grad level and above.

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Citing Sources

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Chicago/Turabian

Style by Discipline

Key characteristics, chicago/turabian guides & examples, chicago / turabian examples, how to cite in chicago/turabian (video).

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Chicago style is usually used in the Humanities, History, and other fields. It includes several different versions for notes, bibliography entries, and shortened citations.

Turabian style is a simplified version of Chicago style with some modifications for the needs of student writers. It includes a notes-bibliography style and a parenthetical citations-reference list style.

There are several versions of Chicago style, including Turabian style, which is a simplified version keyed toward students. Humanities disciplines frequently make use of the Notes and Bibliography system (NB) , which allows writers to make footnotes and other commentary. Social sciences disciplines tend to use the Author-Date system .

The Notes and Bibliography system requires that each in-text reference includes a number corresponding to a footnote.

From the Purdue Owl site :

• Note numbers should begin with “1” and follow consecutively throughout a given paper.  
• Note numbers should be placed at the end of the clause or sentence to which they refer and should be placed after any and all punctuation.  
• In the notes themselves, note numbers are full-sized, not raised, and followed by a period (superscripting note numbers in the notes themselves is also acceptable).  
• The first line of a footnote is indented .5” from the left margin.  
• Subsequent lines within a footnote should be formatted flush left.  
• Leave an extra line space between footnotes.  
• In parenthetical citation, separate documentation from brief commentary with a semicolon.  
• Do not repeat the hundreds digit in a page range if it does not change from the beginning to the end of the range.  

More information on the Notes Bibliography system (OWL Purdue).

In the Author-Date system , citations are placed into parentheses in the text in this order: author last name year of publication, page number, and then fully cited in the References section.

• Example: (Mueller 2014, 19)
• Multiple authors may be listed, or acknowledged with et al.
• Example: (Bennett, Sanders, and Lee 1998, 238)
• Example: (Bennett et al. 1998, 238)

More information on Author Date system (OWL Purdue).

More information on Author Date system (Trinity University).

• Notes and Bibliography references list should be named "Bibliography;" Author-Date style references should be named "References."
• Bibliographies / Reference lists should be in alphabetical order by the first letter in the first word of each entry.
• Write out names of first 3 authors.
• First author's name is inverted.
• If there are more than three but up to ten authors, write out the names of each author in the reference entry, but use First Author name et al in the in-text citations.
• Titles are headling style (title case); important words are capitalized and less important words are lower-case.
• Larger works e.g. book or journal are italicized .
• Smaller works e.g. book chapter, journal article are placed in "quotation marks".
• Use DOIs instead of URLs, if possible.
• Make DOIs active. See book examples from The Chicago Manual of Style Online . (VPN needed)

Basic Format for a Book in a Bibliography

Last name, First name. Title . Place of publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

See examples at Notes and bibliography - examples and variation (CMoS)

Basic Format for a Journal Article in a Bibliography

See Access dates for journal articles (CMoS) for an example. Access dates are not required.

• Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) Online Connect to VPN to access the manual.
• Turabian Quick Guide
• Purdue Owl Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition
• Trinity University Chicago (Notes-Bibliography Style), 17th ed.
• Trinity University Chicago (Author-Date Style), 17th ed.
• Trinity University Turabian (Notes-Bibliography Style), 9th ed.
• Trinity University Turabian (Author-Date Style), 9th ed.

Examples are for Bibliography, using Notes-Bibliography style. See references to the left for more information on other styles in Chicago.

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What Are Footnotes? | Guide with Word Instructions

Published on March 28, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on June 7, 2022.

Footnotes are notes placed at the bottom of the page in a piece of academic writing and indicated in the text with superscript numbers (or sometimes letters or other symbols). You can insert footnotes automatically in Word or Google Docs . They’re used to provide:

• Citations in certain styles
• Additional information that would disrupt the flow of the main text

Table of contents

How to insert footnotes in word and google docs, numbering and placement of footnotes, footnotes in chicago style, footnotes in apa style, footnotes in mla style, frequently asked questions about footnotes and endnotes.

If you’re writing in Microsoft Word or in Google Docs, it’s easy to insert footnotes automatically using the built-in functionality of the software.

Most style guidelines are flexible enough that these automatically inserted footnotes meet their requirements, so that you don’t have to worry about the specifics of formatting.

Inserting footnotes in Word

It’s straightforward to insert footnotes in Word. Just follow these steps:

• Click on the point in the text where you want the footnote number to appear.
• Select the “References” tab at the top, and then select “Insert Footnote.”
• Type whatever text you want into the footnote that appears.

Inserting footnotes in Google Docs

You can also easily add footnotes in Google Docs. Follow the steps below:

• Click on the point in the text where you want to add a footnote.
• At the top, click on “Insert” and then on “Footnote” in the drop-down menu.
• Type the text you want into the footnote.

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Footnotes should be numbered consecutively in the order they appear throughout your paper. Each note should have a unique number; don’t use the same number again even if you cite the same source repeatedly.

Footnote numbers are usually placed at the end of the relevant clause or sentence. The number appears after any punctuation, except when the clause ends with an em dash , in which case the number appears before it. Don’t add a space before the number.

Chicago style uses footnotes for citations (unless you’re following Chicago author-date ). Footnotes can also be used to add extra information such as commentary on the source cited, or elaborations on a point you touched on in the main text.

In Chicago footnotes , you place a footnote at the end of the clause or sentence that needs a citation. The footnote contains full information about each source the first time you cite it, and shortened information for subsequent citations of the same source.

       1. Tegan George and Jack Caulfield, “Academic Integrity vs. Academic Dishonesty,” March 10, 2022, https://www.scribbr.com/plagiarism/academic-dishonesty/.

 2. George and Caulfield, “Academic Integrity.”

Full information about all your sources is usually included in a bibliography at the end, except in very short papers, where footnote citations may be used alone if your institution allows it.

Chicago recommends using your word processor’s built-in footnote function to add footnotes, but a couple of formatting details may need to be changed manually:

• Add an indent at the start of each footnote (before the number).
• Write the number at the start of the note in normal text (not superscript), followed by a period and then a space.
• Leave one blank line between footnotes, and make sure footnotes are single-spaced.

APA footnotes are used only for providing extra information, since APA in-text citations appear in parentheses instead.

You can use them to provide supplemental information such as additional examples or clarifications; do this sparingly, as APA warns against including nonessential information. Footnotes are also used to provide copyright attribution when it’s needed.

               1 From What Parents Can Expect in Behavior Therapy , by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017 (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/infographics/what-parents-expect.html). In the public domain.

              2 A second round of testing was initially planned, but this idea was abandoned due to …

APA recommends using your word processing software to automatically insert footnotes, but add an indent at the start of each footnote if this isn’t done automatically. The footnote begins with the superscript footnote number followed by a space.

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MLA footnotes are used to provide supplemental information such as extra examples, clarifications of citation practice, or elaborations on ideas.

MLA in-text citations appear in parentheses, not in notes, but where a lot of citations are needed at once, they can be placed in a footnote to avoid cluttering the text.

           1 Citations of marginalia refer to George’s edition and include page numbers. Citations of the poem refer to Davis’s edition and include line numbers.

        2 This remains a controversial point. Researchers in the field have debated this issue since …

            3 See Crittenden 5–11; Kent 17–34; Smith 44–50; and Jones 36.

MLA recommends using your word processor to automatically insert footnotes, styling the number at the start of the citation in superscript, followed by a space. An indent should also be added at the start of the footnote (before the number).

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page they refer to. This is convenient for the reader but may cause your text to look cluttered if there are a lot of footnotes.

Endnotes appear all together at the end of the whole text. This may be less convenient for the reader but reduces clutter.

Both footnotes and endnotes are used in the same way: to cite sources or add extra information. You should usually choose one or the other to use in your text, not both.

Footnotes are notes indicated in your text with numbers and placed at the bottom of the page. They’re used to provide:

• Citations (e.g., in Chicago notes and bibliography )

Be sparing in your use of footnotes (other than citation footnotes), and consider whether the information you’re adding is relevant for the reader.

To insert a footnote automatically in a Word document:

• Click on the point in the text where the footnote should appear
• Select the “References” tab at the top and then click on “Insert Footnote”
• Type the text you want into the footnote that appears at the bottom of the page

If you need to change the type of notes used in a Word document from footnotes to endnotes , or the other way around, follow these steps:

• Open the “References” tab, and click the arrow in the bottom-right corner of the “Footnotes” section.
• In the pop-up window, click on “Convert…”
• Choose the option you need, and click “OK.”

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, June 07). What Are Footnotes? | Guide with Word Instructions. Scribbr. Retrieved November 22, 2023, from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/what-are-footnotes/

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Sample Footnotes in MLA Style

How to do footnotes.

Method A: Footnote Citations

• Create the works cited or bibliography prior to entering footnotes. Footnotes are typically a condensed version of a citation at the conclusion of a text. Any content included in a footnote will typically be done last. Finish the paper in its entirety, including all references used, and then add footnotes.
• The footnote symbol should be stamped after any punctuation used. The corresponding number appears outside of the sentence.
• Include the citation for a reference or quote. Should you be using a footnote in the place of an in-text citation, it is necessary to include the surname of the writer or editor, along with the title of the work, edition, series, location of publication, date of publication and the name of the publisher.
• Citation of an online resource. In order to cite a website, or another online source, in a footnote you will need the name of the writer, or the editor of the website, along with the title of the website, the URL and the date it was accessed.
• Using footnotes as a means to provide clarification of information to the reader. Rather than adding information about the source in the footnotes, it is possible to use the footnote as a place to provide related information – often taken from sources that are not directly cited in the body of the paper.
• Keep it brief. If an essay quotes a source that talks about something specific and you need to clarify this, the footnote after the number will be brief, direct and include citations.
• Often time, editors will suggest that additional information be included in parenthesis. Remember to take into account the prose and the flow of information.
• Make sure that the footnote is necessary. Prior to using footnotes to further reference sources, ask your teacher how you should be citing sources and if footnotes are required. Most often MLA footnote format asks writers to make use of in-text citations, instead of a footnotes. In this case, footnotes are reserved for supplementary information.

MLA Format Examples

Mla paper example.

Useful information: How to write a research essay professionally?

How to Use Footnotes

Works Cited

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