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Wellesley College Research Guides

CAMS 201: Technologies of Cinema & Media

Citing with the Chicago Notes / Bibliography Style

The Chicago Manual of Style Notes / Bibliography system is the preferred style for this course. It is used by many scholars in history, arts, and humanities. For other citation styles, see our full Citing Sources guide.

This style consists of two parts:

  1. A superscript number in the text and corresponding note
  2. A bibliography

See further details below. For example citations, see the Chicago Style Citation Examples page.

How to Format Notes

For more detailed information see Chicago Manual of Style, 14.19.

A note consist of two parts:

  1. A superscripted note number (1) in the text, placed at the end of a sentence or clause
  2. A note containing the citation, placed either at the bottom of the page (footnote) or at the end of the paper (endnote).

General Formatting of Notes

  • List in order the author, title, and facts of publication
  • Author's names: write in standard order (e.g., Julia Alvarez)
  • Titles: capitalize in headline style (e.g., How the García Girls Lost Their Accents)
  • Books/Journal Titles: italicize (e.g., How the García Girls Lost Their Accents)
  • Article/Chapter Titles: enclose in quotation marks (e.g., "Black Twitter? Racial Hashtags, Networks and Contagion")
  • Separate elements with commas
  • Enclose facts of publication for books in parentheses
  • Abbreviate editor/edited by (ed.), translator/translated by (trans.), volume (vol.), edition (ed.)
Example

1. Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991), 17.

2. Sanjay Sharma, "Black Twitter? Racial Hashtags, Networks and Contagion," New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 78 (2013): 51, https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF.78.02.2013.

For additional examples, see the source types listed in the left navigation.

Citing the Same Source Again

For more detailed information see Chicago Manual of Style, 14.29-14.36

  • To cite the same source again, shorten the citation using the author's last name and shortened title.
    Example

    1. Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991), 17.

    2. Sanjay Sharma, "Black Twitter? Racial Hashtags, Networks and Contagion," New Formations: A Journal of Culture/Theory/Politics 78 (2013): 51. https://doi.org/10.3898/NEWF.78.02.2013.

    3. Alvarez, García Girls, 20-21.

    4. Sharma, "Black Twitter?," 57-58.

  • Chicago no longer recommends the use of ibid. When citing exactly the same single work as the previous note, use the shortened form, omitting the title of the work.
    Example

    1. Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991), 17.

    2. Alvarez, 20-21.

How to Format the Bibliography

General Formatting of the Bibliography Entries

For more detailed information see Chicago Manual of Style, 14.21; 14.61-14.99

Bibliography entries are formatted similarly to notes, with the following differences:

  • Authors: names are inverted (e.g. Alvarez, Julia)
  • Publication details: not enclosed in parentheses
  • Elements are separated by periods, not commas
  • "Edited by" and "Translated by" are written out, not abbreviated
  • Entries are arranged alphabetically by last name of the author.

Compare the bibliography and note forms for this book:

Bibliography:

Alvarez, Julia. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991.

Note:

1. Julia Alvarez, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (Chapel Hill, NC : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991), 17.

For additional examples, see the source types listed in the left navigation.

Order of the Bibliography Entries

  • Alphabetize the list by last name using the letter-by-letter system (e.g., Fernández would come before Fernán Gómez)
  • Single-authored works precedes multi-authored works beginning with the same name
  • Works by the same author are arranged alphabetically by title