CHICAGO STYLE CITATION GUIDE

Formatting Your Bibliography Section

When creating a bibliography according to Chicago Style formatting, you should follow these standards:

  • Use 1-inch margins on all sides.
  • Double space the entire document; don’t add extra spacing between sources.
  • Use Times New Roman font in size 12 for your entire paper, including the bibliography.
  • List sources alphabetically by authors’ last names.
  • Titles of books and journals are italicized. Titles of articles, chapters, poems, etc. are placed in quotation marks.
  • In a bibliography, all major elements (such as author name, title, and name of publication are separated by periods.
  • End each citation with a period. 
  • Indent the second and any subsequent lines for a source.
  • For online sources: include a DOI (digital object identifier) or URL to indicate the source’s location.
      • A DOI can often be found for database sources. The DOI will be published with a source’s publication information.
      • If you are citing a database source without a DOI or if you are citing a website, you should use a URL. Delete “http://” from URLs. 
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