Style Guide for Research Papers: Footnotes & Bibliography
When to Use Footnotes
Always use quotations marks and a footnote with words that are not your own, including words generated by ChatGPT or other generative AI tools. Quotation marks without a footnote or a footnote without quotation marks still count as plagiarism. Paraphrasing a source with sentences so similar to the original that they are virtually quotations but with light thesaurus work, or are simply rearranged clauses from the original, still counts as plagiarism.
Ideas that are common knowledge do not need to be cited. The challenge is in knowing what is and is not common knowledge. When in doubt, cite it. It is better to have too many citations than too few. The Purdue OWL Plagiarism page reflects the standard guideline of repetition in five or more sources as a baseline for something being in common knowledge.
Footnotes are not just a place to provide the source of a quotation. Footnotes can refer to the source of information even what that source is not quoted in the body of the paper. Footnotes can also provide extra data that would be cumbersome in the body of the paper, such as listing other sources that agree or disagree with the point being made, or annotating the resources with information that would detract from the main point in the body of the paper.
The tabs in this guide that begin with "Citing" will give examples of how to format specific types of resources in the footnotes and bibliography. "Citing Books," for example, gives guidance on how to cite books with a single author, multiple authors, an editor, and so forth. "Citing Commentaries" gives guidance on how to cite the various types of biblical commentaries. If you are using a program or website to help format your citations, set it to "Turabian" or "Chicago," "notes-bibliography," and then correct the result so that it follows the requirements in this guide.
Footnotes
Footnotes are the required form of documentation (i.e., Bibliographic Method, Notes and Bibliography, or Full Citation/Note). For resources that are not included in this style guide, use the guidance from the latest edition of A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate L. Turabian (16.3) or the latest edition of The SBL Handbook of Style (SBLHS). For resources not covered in this style guide, in Turabian, or in SBLHS, use the Chicago Manual of Style.
Use your word-processing program’s “footnotes” feature to create footnotes, numbering the footnotes consecutively beginning with 1. Superscript the numbers in the main body of the paper. For the footnote at the bottom of the page, use either full-sized numbers followed by a period, or superscripted numbers with no period, whichever is the default of your word-processing program. Set your footnotes to appear at “beneath the text” in the setup options.
In the footer, indent the first line of footnotes by ½ inch (i.e., “paragraph indent”). Use Times New Roman, 10 point font for the footnoted text. Footnotes are single-spaced within each footnote entry with a double-space between entries. Use the shortened form of author-title notes for repeat entries [last name, abbreviated title, page number]. It is no longer encouraged to use Ibid. Examples of both the full footnote (N) and the shortened footnote (SN) of various resources are provided elsewhere in this style guide.
Bibliography
A bibliography is required for every research paper and must include all the sources used for the paper. If a source is referenced in the paper, it must appear in the bibliography. If a source is not referenced in a paper, it may not appear in the bibliography. This is functionally synonymous with a "Works Cited," but in our discipline it is called a "Bibliography."
A bibliographic entry is similar in content to a footnote, but different in form. The citation examples in this style guide provide guidance for how to cite sources in footnotes (N), in shortened footnotes (SN), and in the bibliography (B).
Within a bibliography, entries are alphabetized by last name. Use a hanging indent for each entry: the first line is flush to the left margin, the second line (or other subsequent lines) is indented ½ inch. Use a single-space within each entry but a double-space between each entry. As with the body of the paper, bibliographies use Times New Roman, 12 point font. Other form features are noted in the examples provided in this style guide.
Documentation of Resources
The citation of resources follows the basic format of: author, title, city, publisher, date of publication, and page(s) cited. Citations can vary, however, due to the wide variety of types of books and information needed to properly identify the source. In the examples in this guide, the footnote number may be different than the number in your paper. If you are using a program or website to help format your citations, set it to “Turabian” or “Chicago,” “notes-bibliography,” and then correct the result so that it follows the requirements of this guide.