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Turabian Style Guide: Home

created for Social Studies courses, Spring 2015 updated for Spring 2017

Citation Generating Tools (Use at Your Own Peril)

Any automatic citation generator will not always be accurate and may not/will not include all of the necessary information required for your citation. 

If you use an automatic citation generator, check the generated citation against your chosen style's rules for accuracy.  

Why use a citation style?

The key to citing any source is to:

  1. be consistent in style and format;
  2. have a clear and neat format;
  3. present sufficient information for a reader to identify and find the work or cited passage;
  4. NOT make up your own rules.

For citing material from the Web, two additional pieces of information are usually needed:

  1. the electronic address or URL of the site (e.g. http://...) OR the Digital Object identifier (DOI) of the electronic article
  2. the date you accessed the site or database

Comparing Citation Styles

So, how do I know which style to use? How do I know the basic rules of the citation style I've selected?