Turabian Tips

Easiest way to get the perfect citation: World Catalogue.

1. The syntax for the footnote for a simple book is simple [AuthorFirstname + AuthorLastname, Title, (City: Publisher, Date), Page no.].

2. Use research tools like Zotero.org or eturabian.com to enter footnotes automatically.

3. Copy and paste the sources from my blog into your footnote for the correct Turabian format.

4. Copy text from a website into Notepad to strip the hidden html code from the text, then from notepad copy and paste into your paper.

5. Here is a free document template with a convenient styles menu for MSWord, that will consistently format your document/manuscript or paper.
   

6. MS Word Shortcut: To enter a footnote in your paper using MS Word use: Ctrl + Alt + F. Now enter your footnote. (YouTube Video) 

7. TWO TYPES OF TURABIAN: Don't confuse the Turabian "parenthetical "in-text" citations style" which looks like this (Smith 1980, 34), with Turabian Notes/Bibliography style (Footnote at the bottom of the page)

8. Don't use MS Word "References/ Insert Citations." Microsoft Format Feature in MS Word for Chicago and Turabian DOES NOT enter the footnotes correctly in your document, so do not use it for your footnotes and bibliography. When you select Turabian in the Microsoft Word feature it formats the Footnote in APA (also called parenthetical in-text citations Turabian style) which is not what we use in this class. Word will make your footnotes look like this (Graves 2003, 345). 

9. Wikipedia. Don't quote it!!! The material is notorious for being unreliable and inaccurate. NEVER place Wikipedia in your bibliography.

10. Use Wikipedia to check out the footnotes and bibliography at the bottom of the articles where they will often have links to PDF files for download able books.

11. Use Google Books or Amazon to read parts of books.
    

Typing

As you type, remember that a word processor (such as Microsoft Word) is not a typewriter. Even writers who have used word processors for years still make elementary typewriting mistakes. Thus, the authorial commandments:
1.    Thou shalt not use tabs to indent paragraphs. This outmoded (and time-consuming) practice should be abandoned in favor of paragraph styles (such as Body Text) that automatically indent text.
2.    Thou shalt not type double spaces between sentences. Since typewriters used monospaced fonts (with every character the same width), spaces between sentences helped improve readability. Word processors, however, use proportional fonts, so character widths are different. That means there’s no longer a need for double spaces between sentences.
3.    Thou shalt not use carriage returns (by pressing the ENTER key) to end a line within a paragraph. In a word processor, this is simply not necessary, and in fact will cause enormous problems for your publisher. The only time you need to press the Enter key is at the end of a paragraph. Let your word processor take care of individual line breaks.
4.    Thou shalt not type double returns between paragraphs. If you need extra space between text levels, let the styles handle it.
5.    Thou shalt not use manual page breaks. Again, these should be handled by styles and section breaks, inserted automatically when you start a new part or chapter.
6.    Thou shalt not use underlining to indicate emphasis, book titles, and the like. On a typewriter, underlining text was the only option—a substitute for italic. With a word processor, genuine italic is available. Why not use it?
7.    Thou shalt not use the letter ell (l) for the number 1. If you remember using a typewriter, you may recall that the number keys started with 2, not 1, and that the ell key doubled as the number 1. In a word processor, ells and ones are different characters. If you use ells for ones, some of your numbers will look really strange when they’re typeset, like this: l98l. See?
8.    Thou shalt not manually hyphenate words at ends of lines. Please don’t worry about word or line breaks. Your publisher’s typesetting program will change them all anyway.

These 8 Typing commandments are used with permission from Copyright © 2005 by the Editorium. All rights reserved. You may freely share these instructions and the template itself (both unchanged) with anyone you’d like. Suggestions for improvement are welcome. Please send them to: editor@editorium.com.

Modified Sept. 11, 2019. Copyright © 2014 Dr. David E. Graves