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Quick Reference Guide to Footnotes and Bibliographies in History Papers

by Phillip J. Stern 
and Richard Elphick

These notes illustrate one widely used form  for most footnotes and bibliographical references.  If you run up against anything more complicated, the best guide book is Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago, numerous editions).

Note:  In each grouping, the first reference is for footnotes, the second for bibliographies.  Note that entries in footnotes start with the author's first name or initials; the first line is indented, the subsequent lines are not.  Entries in the bibliography are listed in alphabetical order, with the author's last name first.

Book, One Author

¹John Noble Wilford, The Mapmakers: The Story of the Great Pioneers in Cartography from Antiquity to the Space Age  (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), 43.

Wilford, John Noble. The Mapmakers: The Story of the Great Pioneers in
Cartography from Antiquity to the Space Age. New York: Vintage Books, 1981.

Book, Two Authors

¹David Bannister and Carl Moreland, Antique Maps (London: Phaidon Press, 1993), 98.

Bannister, David and Carl Moreland. Antique Maps (London: Phaidon Press, 1993.

Component (e.g. a chapter) by one author, in a work by another (each component must be listed separately in the bibliography)

¹J.B. Harley, "Maps, Knowledge, and Power," The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, ed. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 279.

Harley, J.B. "Maps, Knowledge, and Power." The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, ed. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, 277-312. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Article in a Journal

Note: The first number (i.e. 1) refers to the volume number of the journal, the second to the issue number (i.e. no. 1).

The page numbers following the bibliography entry give the pages of the article in its entirety.

¹Philip D. Curtin, "The White Man’s Grave: Image and Reality, 1780-1850," Journal of British Studies, 1, no. 1 (November 1961): 98.

Curtin, Philip D. "The White Man’s Grave: Image and Reality, 1780-1850." Journal of British Studies, 1, no. 1 (November 1961): 94-110.

Abbreviations and Short-Cuts in Footnotes/Endnotes

If one reference from a given work is immediately followed by a reference from the same work, the second citation is commonly listed as Ibid., page number.

¹Dane Kennedy, The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj (Berkeley: University of California, 1996), 105.

²Ibid., 234.

All subsequent references to a work (except a reference that follows immediately) are abbreviated as follows: Author’s Last Name, Abbreviated Title, page number. For example:

¹Dane Kennedy, The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj (Berkeley: University of California, 1996), 105.

²Betty Fladeland, Abolitionists and Working-Class Problems in the Age of Industrialization  (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 221.

³Kennedy, Magic Mountains, 22.

When to footnote a source:

• When quoting directly
• When paraphrasing another author’s idea
• When citing statistics, data, etc.
• When relying on an obscure or implausible fact
• When in doubt whether to cite

Remember to alphabetize your bibliography; do not number the entries and include only items you used in writing your paper.

Capitalization of Titles

Titles of books in English should have all words in capitals, except  "to" in the infinitive, prepositions, and the words "and,"  "nor,"  "a,"  "an,"  "the"  and "or."  To abide by this rule, you may have to change the capitalization of some titles, particularly of books and articles published in the United Kingdom. But you should never Americanize the spelling of titles. Titles of works in French, Spanish, Italian, and German should be capitalized just as they would be in a normal sentence in that language. In titles in these languages, however, and in English, the word after a colon is always capitalized.

Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social, and Cultural History

Geschichte des Christentums in Deutschland: Religion, Politik and Gesellschaft vom Ende der Aufklärung bis zur Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts

L’Angleterre il y a 50 ans: Essai d’histoire politique et littéraire