Welcome to the guide for Citing References Using Chicago Manual of Style!

We hope that you will find this guide a useful starting place for information on Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition and Turabian. We have assembled a core collection of resources available through the Wayne State University Library System, as well as high quality, freely available web resources. This guide is a collaborative work-in-progress, developed with the suggestions and feedback from students and faculty.

Note: Turabian style is built on Chicago Manual of Style, with specific requirements for the formatting of class papers, theses, or dissertations. The general formatting rules are:

-Margins of atleast one inch on all sides

-Single, readable font (Arial, Times New Roman, etc.) with a font size equivalent to at least 12-point Times New Roman

-Double-spaced in all areas (exceptions are block quotes, table titles and figure captions, lists in appendixes, table of contents, footnotes/endnotes, and bibliographies/reference lists)

Do not use AI to suggest references to read/cite

Please be aware that ChatGPT and other AI services can produce incorrect, made-up references that cannot be sourced. While some individual parts of an AI-generated reference may be accurate (such as the journal name, article or book title or an author) the whole reference does not usually exist so cannot be found by our library team.

If you have a reference that you cannot find, our team may ask where it came from so that we can ensure it is legitimate before attempting to find it. If you need assistance, please use our 24/7 library chat service. 

This online manual includes a Citation Quick Guide, Chicago Style Q&A, and Video Tutorials.

Zotero Citation Manager (Beginner Level)

Zotero is a free app that lets you create and save a library of your sources, take notes, and use those sources with Word, Google Docs, or LibreOffice to integrate the citations in your paper and create a properly formatted bibliography. Recommended for Undergraduates and all levels of students in the Social Sciences or Humanities. You need to have your own personal computer in order to use the word processor integration to create bibliographies

RefWorks Citation Manager (Beginner Level)

RefWorks is a cloud-based licensed citation management app available free to all Wayne State students, faculty, and staff. It can collect citations from databases and Google Scholar, format bibliographies in lots of citations styles, and works with Word and Google Docs to insert citations and build reference lists as you write. Recommended for Undergraduates. RefWorks is also a good option if you work on lots of group research projects, or use public computers and need a cloud-based option.

EndNote Citation Manager (Advanced Level)

EndNote citation management software is licensed software available for purchase (at a discounted rate) by all Wayne State students, faculty and staff. It can format bibliographic entries in almost every citation style and works with most word processors to insert citations and build reference lists as you write. Citation information can be entered manually or export directly from the library's online databases. Recommended for Graduate Students in the Sciences or Engineering.