History 101: Citing

The Chicago Manual of Style includes two slightly different documentation systems: (1) notes and bibliography (NB) and (2) author-date. The notes and bibliography style is preferred by many in literature, history, and the arts.

In the NB system, you mark within your paper where you have cited something by adding a number, which refers to a detailed reference either at the bottom of the page (footnote) or at the end of the paper (endnote). These notes indicate the specific place in your source you are referencing.

The bibliography includes complete information for each item, with the items arranged in alphabetical order by author's last name.

Purdue's Writing Lab provides an example of a paper formatted using Chicago NB style.

Citation managers (also called reference managers or bibliographic management software) offer a way to save, organize and manage references. 

All citation management programs let you:

• Add citations from databases like PubMed, Web of Science, etc.
• Organize your citations into folders or groups
• Add PDF files of articles to the references
• Format citations in Microsoft Word (and other document programs such as Google Docs) to create bibliographies in any of 1000s of styles
• Share all or part of your database, with various degrees of permissions, and collaborate with others on documents

Four popular citation managers are listed below. The Manage Your Citations guide provides more information about the differences between them. 

Zotero  [guide]

Refworks  [guide]

Mendeley  [guide]

​Endnote  [guide]