What Turabian style is
Turabian style takes its name from Kate L. Turabian, who for decades was the dissertation secretary at the University of Chicago and wrote A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (currently in its 9th edition). Her book adapts The Chicago Manual of Style for the people who actually write coursework — students — rather than for professional publishers. It is widely required in history, religion, the humanities and beyond, particularly in North American institutions.
The key point to grasp at the outset is reassuring: Turabian is not a separate system you have to learn from scratch. It uses Chicago's two documentation systems, with the same citation mechanics, and simplifies a handful of publishing-specific rules that students never need. So if you have read our Chicago guide, you already know most of Turabian — what this page adds is the student-paper focus that is Turabian's distinctive contribution.
Turabian and Chicago: the relationship
Think of Chicago and Turabian as two editions of the same standard aimed at different readers. The Chicago Manual of Style is written for editors and publishers and covers an enormous range of publishing concerns; Turabian's manual takes the citation rules from Chicago and presents them for students writing essays, theses and dissertations, adding detailed guidance on formatting a paper for submission. The citation forms — footnotes, bibliography entries, author–date references — are essentially identical. Where they differ, it is in emphasis and in a few simplifications, never in the underlying logic.
The practical upshot: if a source says "use Chicago" and another says "use Turabian", you do not need two different sets of references. Apply the citation rules in this guide, follow Turabian's formatting advice for your title page and margins, and you satisfy both.
Which system should you use?
Like Chicago, Turabian offers two systems, and you must know which your assignment requires before you write, because they work completely differently.
| Notes–Bibliography | Author–Date | |
|---|---|---|
| How you cite | Superscript number → footnote | Parenthetical (Author Year) |
| List at the end | Bibliography | Reference List |
| Typical fields | History, religion, humanities | Sciences, social sciences |
If your brief is silent, follow your discipline: humanities students almost always use Notes–Bibliography, while science and social-science students use Author–Date. When genuinely unsure, ask — it is far easier to settle before you write than to convert a finished paper from one system to the other.
Notes–Bibliography system
You place a superscript number at the end of the sentence containing borrowed material; that number points to a footnote at the bottom of the page giving the full source and a specific page. A Bibliography at the end lists every source alphabetically. The first footnote for a source is given in full; later citations of the same source use a shortened note (author surname, short title, page) rather than repeating everything — and current guidance prefers this short form to the older ibid.
First (full) footnote
Shortened note
Bibliography entry
More notes & bibliography examples
Chapter in an edited book (note)
Journal article (note)
Website (note)
Author–Date system
The Author–Date system cites the author and year in brackets in your text — (Lepore 2018, 212) — with no comma between author and year, and a comma before the page. Every source appears in a Reference List at the end, where the year moves up next to the author so the in-text cue can find it quickly. If you know APA or Harvard, this will feel familiar.
The early republic was less unified than its founders claimed (Lepore 2018, 212), a reading echoed in more recent surveys (Chen 2021, 19).
Author–Date reference examples
Book
Journal article
Formatting a student paper
This is where Turabian earns its place on every student's shelf: it gives detailed, practical guidance on presenting a paper, thesis or dissertation, which the parent Chicago manual largely leaves to publishers. Typical Turabian formatting uses a readable 12-point font (Times New Roman is conventional), double-spaced body text, one-inch margins, and page numbers. Footnotes are single-spaced within each note, with a blank line between notes. Block quotations — generally five or more lines — are single-spaced and indented, without quotation marks.
Turabian also describes a student title page: the title centred about a third of the way down, with your name, course and date lower on the page, and no page number on the title page itself. For a thesis or dissertation, it covers front matter (title page, table of contents, lists of figures and tables) and the ordering of the whole document. Because institutions vary, always check your department's specific requirements, but Turabian is the reference that tells you what a well-presented student paper looks like when your brief is silent on the details.
Turabian for theses and dissertations
Turabian's manual was written, in its origins, for graduate students preparing theses and dissertations, and that is where it is most valuable. A long research document is not just a long essay — it has a defined structure of front matter, body and back matter, and Turabian sets out the conventional order so you do not have to invent it. The front matter typically runs: title page, copyright page (if required), an abstract, a table of contents, and lists of figures and tables; an acknowledgements page often follows. These pages use lower-case Roman numerals for page numbers, switching to Arabic numerals when the main text begins.
Within the body, Turabian gives guidance on a consistent heading hierarchy — levels of subheading distinguished by placement and emphasis — so that a long argument stays navigable for an examiner. The back matter holds appendices (for material too bulky for the body, such as questionnaires or data tables) and the bibliography or reference list. Knowing this skeleton in advance is genuinely freeing: instead of agonising over what goes where, you can pour your research into a structure that examiners already recognise.
Because requirements vary between institutions and even between departments, your university's own thesis-formatting guide always takes precedence over Turabian where the two differ — many graduate schools issue a template that encodes their specific margins, spacing and front-matter rules. But where your institution is silent, Turabian is the trusted default, and following it signals that you understand the conventions of extended academic writing. If you are early in a thesis, an hour spent with Turabian's formatting and front-matter chapters will save many later.
Turabian vs Chicago vs APA
Turabian and Chicago are, for citation purposes, the same — the differences are presentation and audience. Against APA, the contrast is sharper: Turabian's Notes–Bibliography system uses footnotes rather than parenthetical author–date citations, suits the humanities rather than the sciences, and offers two systems rather than one. If your course has moved you from APA to Turabian, the biggest adjustment is the footnote habit; the underlying discipline of crediting every source precisely is identical.
Quoting and block quotations
Turabian handles quotation exactly as Chicago does, with clear, practical rules for student writers. A short quotation runs into your sentence in double quotation marks, with the citation — a footnote in Notes–Bibliography, a parenthetical reference in Author–Date — at the end and a pinpoint to the page. A longer quotation, generally five lines or more, is set as a block quotation: indented from the left margin, single-spaced (even in an otherwise double-spaced paper), and without quotation marks, since the indentation already signals that the words are quoted. The citation follows the block.
As in every style, the pinpoint is not optional: a quotation, short or long, must point the reader to the exact page it came from, because the purpose of the citation is to let that reader verify your use of the source. And as in every style, quotation should be purposeful. Quote when the original wording genuinely matters — a precise definition, a primary-source passage you intend to analyse, a claim you want to represent in its author's own terms — and paraphrase, with a citation and pinpoint, everywhere else. An essay built largely from quotations reads as a collage of other voices; one built from confident paraphrase, punctuated by well-chosen quotations, shows that you are thinking with your sources.
Turabian and reference managers
For a long paper, thesis or dissertation, you should not be formatting every footnote and bibliography entry by hand, and you do not have to. Reference managers such as Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote all support Chicago/Turabian styles in both their Notes–Bibliography and Author–Date forms. You capture each source once into your library, insert citations as you write, and the software generates the footnotes (renumbering them automatically as you edit) and assembles the bibliography in the correct order and format. For a document with dozens or hundreds of sources — exactly the kind Turabian was written for — this removes the most tedious and error-prone part of the work.
The knowledge in this guide still matters even when software does the formatting, because you need to recognise when a manager has produced something incorrect — a mis-shortened note, a missing pinpoint, an editor credited as an author. The best workflow combines the two: let the manager handle the mechanics and the renumbering, and use your understanding of Turabian to check the output and fix the occasional slip. That partnership — machine for the repetitive labour, your judgement for the result — is what lets you produce a long, correctly formatted document without the referencing consuming the time you need for the actual research and writing.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Treating Turabian and Chicago as two different systems to learn — they share the same citation rules.
- Mixing footnotes (Notes–Bibliography) with parenthetical citations (Author–Date) in one paper.
- Giving a full footnote every time instead of switching to the short form after the first citation.
- Overusing ibid. instead of a clearer shortened note.
- Putting specific page numbers in a bibliography entry for a whole book.
- Ignoring Turabian's formatting guidance and guessing at the title page and margins.
- Numbering footnotes by hand instead of using your word processor's tool.
Five habits for accurate Turabian
1. Decide your system first. Notes–Bibliography or Author–Date — settle it before writing a single citation, because converting later is tedious.
2. Use the Chicago guide for the citation forms. They are the same; lean on what you already know and reserve Turabian for the formatting questions.
3. Read Turabian's formatting chapters once. Especially for a thesis — they tell you exactly how the title page, margins and front matter should look.
4. Full note then short note. Give a full footnote on first citation, then a shortened note (author, short title, page) for every later one.
5. Let software manage footnotes. Insert footnotes with the built-in tool so numbering survives editing and reordering.
Recognise Turabian as Chicago for students, choose your system up front, lean on Turabian's formatting guidance for presentation, and the style becomes very manageable — most of the work is knowledge you already have from Chicago. When a thesis deadline looms, our writers can produce a fully Turabian-formatted paper, citations and front matter included.
Frequently asked questions
Is Turabian the same as Chicago?
Effectively yes — Turabian is the student version of Chicago, using the same two systems and citation mechanics, simplified for coursework and theses.
Which Turabian system should I use?
Notes–Bibliography (footnotes) for history and the humanities; Author–Date (parenthetical) for the sciences and social sciences. Your assignment or discipline decides.
Does Turabian require a title page?
It gives detailed guidance for a student title page — title centred about a third down, your name, course and date lower — though exact requirements vary by institution.