Citation Guide

Warning: Do not replace author names with 3-em dashes until List of References is properly alphabetized.

For successive entries by the same author, editor, translator, or compiler, a 3-em dash (followed by a period or comma, depending on the presence of an abbreviation such as ed.) replaces the name after the first appearance (but see 14.67). Alphabetization is by title of work (abbreviations such as ed. or trans., which must always be included, do not influence the order of entries). See also 14.71.

• Only include date accessed if the source material has no date.
• Always include a period at the end of the URL.
• Do not insert a hard or soft return within the URL string; doing so breaks the link.

Do not include honorifics (Dr., Col., Professor, etc.) when citing author names. Including these titles in the body of your document is acceptable.

For the National Security Strategy, cite the president as the author.

For other official documents, the author is the organization immediately responsible for creating the document. In the example below, the author is the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and the publisher is the Department of the Navy.

In the example above, the author is NOT an umbrella organization, signatory, or any of the following:

• Chief of Naval Operations
• Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
• W. F. Moran
• Department of Defense
• Navy Pentagon
• R. P. Burke
• United States of America​

Do not include acronyms for organizations listed as authors in the List of References or footnotes:

• YES: Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
• NO: Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO or OCNO).
• NO: CNO or OCNO.

What is the difference between them?

• A Bibliography lists all works cited and consulted
• A List of References includes all works cited in a text

The NPS Thesis Processing Office prefers a List of References for the following: 

• Thesis
• Capstone project report
• MBA report
• Dissertation

Note: Always format the information in your citations (titles, author names, etc.) according to the requirements of the citation style you are using, regardless of how it appears in the original source.

A citation is required if you did not wholly create the figure—i.e., if you used someone else's image or data. A citation is not needed when all elements of the figure are your own creation.

• If you use the figure exactly as it appears in the source, use
  “Source: ___.”
• If you alter the original figure or use someone else's image or data to create the figure, use “Adapted from ___.”

Figure 1.    A Figure with a Citation in Chicago Notes and Bibliography Style¹

Footnote Examples

¹ Source: Ged Griffin, “Managing Peacekeeping Communications,” Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning 3, no. 4 (2009): 325.

or

¹ Adapted from Ged Griffin, “Managing Peacekeeping Communications,” Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning 3, no. 4 (2009): 325.

• Footnotes for figures follow the same rule for ibid. and shortened citations.
• For more details, see the Thesis Template.

Where in the sentence does my footnote go?
 

• Single footnotes go at the end of a sentence, after the punctuation, like this.¹
• “If the sentence ends with a quotation, the quotation marks go outside the punctuation, then the footnote is placed after the quotation marks, like this.”²
• Please do not insert any spaces before a footnote; please do put a space between a footnote and the beginning of the next sentence.

Multiple Citations in a Single Sentence
 

When citing more than one source in a single sentence, there are two options:

• Place a single footnote at the end of the sentence, outside the punctuation, and include all citations in this one footnote, separated by semicolons. CMS 14.57.
• Place each footnote at the end of the clause containing the information it cites. CMS 14.26.

In the paragraph below, the reference numbers are highlighted in yellow and the signal phrases are highlighted in blue. Note that the second sentence is common knowledge, whereas the final sentence does not need a citation because it is the opinion of the author. (See "How often do I cite?")

* Note: no page number is necessary in footnote 1 because the sentence describes the source’s general argument rather than data or analysis from a specific location in the source.

¹ Shawna Jackson, “Color’s Effect on Restaurant Patrons,” Journal of Restaurant Marketing 13, no. 4 (April 1999).

² Roberta Chen and David Lopez, Color Me Hungry: How to Decorate Your Restaurant to Increase Profit and Patronage (New York: Routledge, 2009), 3.

³ Chen and Lopez, 29.

⁴ Jackson, “Color’s Effect on Restaurant Patrons,” 18; and Chen and Lopez, Color Me Hungry, 74–76.

The Chicago Manual of Style advises that “footnotes should be placed where you need them. . . . Whenever you can imagine the reader asking ‘Says who’ you should add a note.” Clarity is your goal as a writer, and what constitutes clear attribution in any given context will depend to some extent on the particulars of your text. Nevertheless, the following are some reliable rules of thumb:

• Use a footnote (even if you also use a signal phrase) the first time you quote, paraphrase, or otherwise use material from a source in your paragraph.
• Always use footnotes for direct quotes.
• Use footnotes, signal phrases, or sentence flow to indicate ongoing use of this same material.
• Be sure to use a footnote again when drawing upon information from a different location in the source (see rules for including page numbers).

Chicago prefers shorter citations, but ibid. is still allowed when the footnote is identical to the one right before it. See CMS 14.34. Be consistent. Use either ibid. or shorter citations.

There are four forms of notes:
 

• Full citation for first appearance. Use when introducing a source (when citing it for the first time only).
   
• Short citations for subsequent appearances: Author or Organization name, Shortened Title, page number. Use when reintroducing a source (citing it again after citing something else).
  
  
  • When citing multiple sources with the same author and same title, include the date in the short citation to differentiate them.
     
• Shorter citations contain only author or organization name and page number. Use instead of ibid. when continuing to cite a source (after a full or short citation).
  
  
  • Shorter citations must occur in an unbroken chain: if you switch to a different source, use a short citation to reintroduce.
     
• Ibid. (not preferred)

Example Footnotes List:

If any information is missing from a source (a journal with no volume number, for example), simply omit that information. For sources consulted in hardcopy, omit the URL and any additional verbiage that introduces it. Anything retrieved online, however, MUST have a link. The only exception is journals retrieved from a subscription database such as ProQuest. 

• Up to three authors:
  • In the Bibliography / List of References, include all of them
  • In the footnote, include all of them
  • In the text, include all of them
     
• Four to ten authors:
  • In the Bibliography / List of References, include all of them
  • In the footnote, list only the first author, followed by et al. (“and others”)
  • In the text, list only the first author, followed by et al.
     
• More than ten authors:
  • In the Bibliography / List of References, include only the first seven, followed by et al.
  • In the footnote, list only the first author, followed by et al.
  • In the text, list only the first author, followed by et al.

In footnotes, the page number(s) is needed when

• Quoting – Always include
• Paraphrasing – Always include
• Summarizing – Include if summarizing a single continuous passage in a work

Example

N: Michael Pollan and Daisy Potatohead, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006), 99–100.

S: Pollan and Potatohead, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, 100.

• If unsure, include the page number(s).
• No page number is needed in a footnote when you are referring to the source as a whole. For example: “George W. Bush’s Decision Points recounts pivotal moments during his time in office.”

If the source does not contain page numbers, often with electronic formats, include as much information as needed for the reader to locate the material. In citations especially of shorter electronic works presented as a single, searchable document, such locators may be unnecessary.

See 14.22 Page numbers and other locators
See also 14.160 Page or location numbers in electronic formats
 

In the list of references/bibliography
For portions of larger documents, such as journal articles and book chapters, include the page range.

Example

B: Haynes, Peter. “Al-Qaeda, Oil Dependence, and U.S. Foreign Policy.” In Energy Security and Global Politics: The Militarization of Resource Management, edited by Daniel Moran and James A. Russell, 62–74. New York: Routledge, 2009.

When citing a source retrieved online, use the "online" format even when you or someone else printed out the material. For example, if you print out a thesis or your advisor provides you with a printed thesis, it is still categorized as an online document.

Only cite as a print source when the material has been produced by a publisher in hard copy. For example, if you obtain a print journal or book from the library stacks, it is categorized as a printed source.

An indirect source is a source that cites some other work that you discuss in your text.

Whenever possible, consult primary sources and your sources’ sources yourself. Upon investigation of the primary source, you may find you disagree with the indirect source author’s analysis or methods.

How to Incorporate Indirect Sources

The following passage incorporates a properly credited indirect source. The indirect source information is highlighted in yellow; the primary source information is highlighted in blue.

Walker describes Miguel Roig’s 1999 experiment, which correlates inadequate paraphrasing in student writing with poor reading comprehension.¹ Citing Roig’s data, Walker explains that “students do in fact possess skills necessary for paraphrasing but … may be impeded from applying those skills when dealing with rigorous text.”²

Note: Footnotes for indirect sources must cite both the primary and the indirect source; in the references list, include only the indirect source (the source you consulted—see example).

For more information

See the TPO's "Citing Your Sources’ Sources" handout.

A citation is required if you did not wholly create the table—i.e., if you used someone else's data. A citation is not needed when all elements of the table are your own creation.

• If you use the table exactly as it appears in the source, use
  “Source: ___.”
• If you alter the original table or if you use someone else's data to create the table, use “Adapted from ___.”

Table 1.    A Table with a Citation in Chicago Notes and Bibliography Style¹

Footnote Examples

¹ Source: Roberto Suro, “Changing Channels and Crisscrossing Culture: A Survey of Latinos on News Media,” Pew Research Center, April 19, 2004, https://www.pewhispanic.org/2004/04/19/changing-channels-and-crisscrossing-cultures/.

or

¹ Adapted from Roberto Suro, “Changing Channels and Crisscrossing Culture: A Survey of Latinos on News Media,” Pew Research Center, April 19, 2004, https://www.pewhispanic.org/2004/04/19/changing-channels-and-crisscrossing-cultures/.

• Footnotes for figures follow the same rule for ibid. and shortened citations.
• For more details, see the Thesis Template.

For works with a translator, follow the format for edited books but substitute "trans." for "ed." in the notes and "translated" for "edited" in the references:
 

N: Maxence Manqué, Old and Rejected Poems, trans. Pemily Hickinson (Scituate, MA: Narrow Fellow Press, 1989), 472.

S: Manqué, Old and Rejected Poems, 889.

B: Manqué, Maxence. Old and Rejected Poems. Translated by Pemily Hickinson. Scituate, MA: Narrow Fellow Press, 1989.
 

If you provide the translation to a non-English work, format the original title in sentence case, then give your translated title, also in sentence case, in square brackets immediately following. Note that the other formatting rules for titles—italics and quotation marks—remain the same:

N: Maxence Manqué, "L'esthétique de l'échec" [The aesthetics of failure], in Éviter les clichés et des autres clichés [Avoiding clichés and other clichés], ed. Hamish Sweeney (New Brunswick: Stew & Offspring, 1992), 5.

S: Manqué, "L'esthétique de l'échec," 11.

B: Manqué, Maxence. "L'esthétique de l'échec" [The aesthetics of failure]. In Éviter les clichés et des autres clichés [Avoiding clichés and other clichés], edited by Hamish Sweeney, 3–44. New Brunswick: Stew & Offspring, 1992.