Category Archives: CMS style

The Chicago Manual of Style presents two styles of documentation. One uses author-date citations in the text paired with a reference list, much like the MLA and APA styles. The other— the one that is explained here—uses numbered endnotes or footnotes and, with long manuscripts, a bibliography. This style is often used in history, art history, and other humanities disciplines.

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) was originally written as a guide to authors and editors of book-length manuscripts. It has been adapted for students as a Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kale Turabian. Occasionally, the recommendations in these two books differ. For example, the Chicago Manual prefers endnotes to footnotes because they are less expensive to typeset; however, Turabian’s manual recommends footnotes for dissertations, theses, and any other paper that will be stored on microfilm. For a typical research paper written as a class assignment, endnotes are generally preferable. In the pages that follow, we will note other differences between the Chicago Manual and Turabian’s manual; find out whether your instructor prefers one form over the other.