Research Process: A Step-By-Step Guide: 5e. Chicago Formatting

Margins

• Use 1" margins for the entire document.
• Indent the first line of paragraphs a 1/2" from the left margin.
• Indent set-off quotations 1" from the left margin.

Text Formatting

• Pick a readable 12 pt font (e.g. Times New Roman).
• Do not justify the text or use hyphenation
• Double-space the text of your paper
• Leave only one space after periods or other punctuation marks.

Heading and Title

• Do not use a title page unless required by your instructor
• Place your name, the instructor's name, the course number and the date on separate lines at the top of the first page, flush with the left margin.
• Center and double-spaced the title between the course heading and the first line of text.
• Do not underline, italicize, or place your title in quotation marks

Page Numbers

• Place page numbers in a header in the upper right-hand corner, 1/2" inch from the top and flush with the right margin.
• Type your last name before the page number.
• Do not use the abbreviation p. or pg before the page number or any other mark or symbol.

Notes

• If you have any endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works Cited page.
• Entitle the section Notes (centered, unformatted).

Chicago Style uses footnotes instead of in-text citations. Just like another citation style, footnotes ensure that your sources are properly attributed to avoid issue of plagiarism. When it doubt, assign a footnote! Use the following guidelines to create your footnotes:

• Generally, you want to provide the author’s name, publication title, publication information, date of publication, and page number(s) if it is the first time the source is being used. Any additional usage, simply use the author’s last name, publication title, and date of publication.
• Footnotes should match with a superscript number at the end of the sentence referencing the source. You should begin with 1 and continue numerically throughout the paper. Do not start the order over on each page.

Example:

1.Henry James, The Ambassadors (Rockville: Serenity, 2009), 34-40.

• When citing a source more than once, use a shortened version of the footnote.

1.James, The Ambassadors, 14.

• if the same source is used two or more times in a row, then the name/keyword/page number are given once, and thereafter the abbreviation “Ibid.” is used.

Please review a sample paper from Purdue University's OWL Chicago Style Guide for further examples

Purdue's OWL Guide on Chicago Style recommends the following guidelines for your Works Cited page. The Works Cited list provides bibliographic information for the sources you used, thereby allowing your reader to identify and locate those materials. To format the page:

• Margins should be set at no less than 1” and no greater than 1.5”. 
• Typeface should be something readable, such as Times New Roman or Palatino. 
• Font size should be no less than 10 pt. (preferably, 12 pt.). 
• Notes and bibliographies should be singled-spaced internally; however, leave an extra line space between note and bibliographic entries. 
• For two to three authors, write out all names. 
• For four to ten authors, write out all names in the bibliography but only the first author’s name plus “et al.” in notes and parenthetical citations. 
• When a source has no identifiable author, cite it by its title, both on the references page and in shortened form (up to four keywords from that title) in parenthetical citations throughout the text. 
• Write out publishers’ names in full. 
• Do not use access dates unless publication dates are unavailable.  
• If you cannot ascertain the publication date of a printed work, use the abbreviation “n.d.”
• Provide DOIs instead of URLs whenever possible. 
• If you cannot name a specific page number when called for, you have other options: section (sec.), equation (eq.), volume (vol.), or note (n.).