What citation style do history majors use?

Most history departments require Chicago Notes-Bibliography from the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2024). Some courses still accept Turabian 9th edition, the live student handbook based on CMOS 17. The University of Chicago Press lists Turabian 10th edition for November 2026. A methods or economic-history course may instead require Chicago Author-Date. Check the syllabus before you format anything.

Is Chicago 18 or Chicago 17 the current edition for history papers?

Chicago 18, published in 2024, is the current professional edition. It drops the city of publication for most books, shortens author lists in notes, and continues to prefer shortened notes over ibid. Use CMOS 17 or Turabian 9 only when the instructor names that edition. Do not assume Turabian 10 is assigned until the syllabus says so.

Do history papers use footnotes or endnotes?

Either is Chicago-correct. Footnotes keep the source on the same page; endnotes keep the narrative clean. Follow the instructor or journal. The American Historical Review's submission page talks about footnotes and asks you to follow the AHR style guide. Do not mix footnotes and endnotes, and do not pair notes with Author-Date parentheses in the same paper.

Should I still use ibid. in a history paper?

Not if you are following CMOS 18. Section 13.37 recommends a shortened note — author, short title, page — every time after the first full citation. Ibid. hides the source in electronic notes and saves no space. A further-shortened author-only note is allowed when the preceding note already named that one work.

How do I cite an archival letter in Chicago?

In the note, name the writer, the recipient, the date, the collection, and the repository, plus a URL if you used a scan. In the bibliography, list the collection once. CMOS 18 §§14.119–14.129 is the manuscript chapter; copy box and folder numbers from the finding aid. The archives guide has the YIVO, MHS, NARA GIL 17, and Lincoln Papers preferred-citation forms.

What if the document has no date or no author?

Do not invent either. Start with the title or a short description if there is no author. For a missing date write n.d. or a bracketed estimate such as [ca. 1865] only when the finding aid or internal evidence supports it.

Can I cite a primary source I only saw quoted in a book?

Only if you also cite that book. The AHA calls borrowing unexamined primary-source references from a secondary work inappropriate. Use a "cited in" note as a last resort, then get the original if your argument depends on the wording.

Does Turabian 9 already follow Chicago 18?

No. The live Turabian home page still describes the 9th edition as updated to CMOS 17. Turabian 10 is listed by the University of Chicago Press for November 2026. If your syllabus says CMOS 18, drop the city for post-1900 books and use shortened notes instead of ibid., even if a Turabian 9 photocopy still shows the older forms.

How to Cite Sources in History (Chicago CMOS 18) [2026]

Quick Answer: How Historians Cite Sources

Use Chicago Notes-Bibliography unless the syllabus names Author-Date or a journal stylesheet. Put a superscript number after the borrowed fact or quotation. The first note for a source is complete. Later notes shorten to author, shortened title, and locator. The bibliography lists each source once, alphabetically, with periods instead of the note's commas and with publication data outside parentheses. Cite the copy you actually read. If you found a letter only because a monograph quoted it, name both the letter and the book.

CMOS 18 Notes-Bibliography templates

First note (book):

Firstname Lastname, Book Title (Publisher, 2020), 45.

Shortened note:

Lastname, Short Title, 48.

Bibliography:

Lastname, Firstname. Book Title. Publisher, 2020.

First note (unpublished letter):

Firstname Lastname to Recipient Name, Month Day, Year, Collection Name, Repository Name, Location or URL.

The University of Chicago Press states why history prefers notes over parenthetical years, and it states the book change that still appears on older syllabi:

Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide (opened 10 September 2026)

The notes and bibliography system, Chicago's oldest and most flexible, can accommodate a wide variety of sources, including unusual ones that don't fit neatly into the author-date system. For this reason, it is preferred by many working in the humanities, including literature, history, and the arts.

Note that a place of publication is no longer required in book citations (see CMOS 14.30).

Those two sentences are from the official Notes and Bibliography sample citations and the Quick Guide overview. CMOS 18 was published in 2024 and replaced the 17th edition (2017). If a professor still requires CMOS 17 or Turabian, follow that sheet. The Turabian home page still describes the 9th edition (2018) as updated to CMOS 17, and it still often wants a city of publication. The University of Chicago Press lists a 10th edition for November 2026, aligned with CMOS 18; until that handbook is the assigned text, do not treat Turabian 9 as if it already followed the 18th edition.

Why History Treats Citations as Evidence

The AHA Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct (wholly revised 2005; latest amendments January 2023) is the profession's ethics document. It is not a citation manual, but it is the reason history papers look the way they do. Historians do not treat a footnote as optional decoration on a finished argument. The note is the claim that the evidence exists and can be checked.

American Historical Association, Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct (January 2023)

They do not fabricate evidence.

Honoring the historical record also means leaving a clear trail for subsequent historians to follow.

Any changes to a primary source or published secondary work, whether digital or print, should be noted.

The ease with which digitally preserved records are reproduced and accessed facilitates this practice but makes accurate citation even more vital.

It enables other historians to retrace the steps in an argument to make sure those steps are justified by the sources.

For all these reasons, historians pride themselves on the accuracy with which they use and document sources. The sloppier their apparatus, the harder it is for other historians to trust their work.

That is why this guide spends as much time on what you actually opened as on punctuation. A perfect CMOS note that points at a letter you never saw, a newspaper headline you invented, or a folder number you guessed fails the AHA test even if the commas are right. For the line between a primary source and a later interpretation, use Primary vs secondary sources. For where to look, use How to find historical primary sources.

Notes-Bibliography or Author-Date?

Chicago is one manual with two documentation systems. History, art history, literature, and most other humanities courses want Notes-Bibliography: a superscript number, a footnote or endnote, and a bibliography. Economic history, some political-science methods courses, and journals that follow science conventions may want Author-Date: a parenthetical name and year in the sentence and a reference list. Do not mix them in one paper. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, is the student handbook built on Chicago, not a third style. It teaches both systems. If the assignment says only "Chicago," ask which system — then stay there.

Which Chicago system a history assignment usually wants
Situation	Usual system	Why
Undergraduate or graduate history paper	Notes-Bibliography	Notes can carry a box number, a folio, a short comment, and a page without breaking the sentence.
Public history, literature, religious studies	Notes-Bibliography	The same flexibility that holds letters and court records also holds unusual objects.
Economic history or a social-science methods course that says Chicago	Author-Date, if the instructor names it	The year sits next to the name, which matters when you are comparing recent studies.
Student paper using Turabian	The system the instructor names	Turabian 9 still follows CMOS 17 punctuation, including a city of publication on many books. A Turabian 10 assignment, once assigned, should follow CMOS 18.
Article for the American Historical Review	The AHR style guide, not a generic Chicago template	The AHA article-submission page asks authors to follow the AHR style guide and budgets roughly 4,000–5,000 words of footnotes on an article of at most 8,000 words of text (a 2:1 guideline).

Notes-Bibliography (usual history paper)

Superscript number in the sentence.
First note is complete; later notes shorten.
Bibliography at the end, usually alphabetical.
Best for letters, newspapers, and archival folders.

Author-Date (only if assigned)

Parenthetical name and year in the sentence.
Reference list instead of a bibliography.
No footnotes for ordinary citations.
Useful when the publication year is part of the argument.

This page uses Notes-Bibliography in every worked example because that is the system history programs actually assign. For Author-Date book and article forms, use How to cite a book in Chicago and How to cite a journal article in Chicago. To see how Chicago differs from APA, use APA vs Chicago.

What Chicago 18 Changed for History Papers

Most broken history citations on current papers are CMOS 17 leftovers. The 18th edition dropped the city of publication for books from 1900 on, shortened the author list in notes, stopped requiring a chapter page range in the bibliography, and kept the earlier decision to prefer shortened notes over ibid.

Official CMOS 18 Quick Guide rules that still surprise history students

The page range for a chapter in a book is no longer required in bibliography entries (see CMOS 14.8). In a note, cite specific pages as applicable.

For three or more authors, list up to six in the bibliography; for more than six authors, list the first three, followed by “et al.” (“and others”). In a note, list only the first, followed by “et al.”

Journal articles are usually cited by volume and issue number. In a note, cite specific page numbers. In the bibliography, include the page range for the whole article. For articles consulted online, include a URL (preferably one based on a DOI; see CMOS 13.7); alternatively, list the name of the database.

Chicago 17 habits that no longer belong in an 18th-edition history paper
Habit from an older handout	CMOS 18 rule	Section
Always City: Publisher, Year	Omit the city for books published in 1900 or later	14.30
City and publisher together on a pre-1900 book	Prefer the city instead of the publisher when the publisher is less useful	14.31
et al. only after four authors in a note	In a note, list the first author plus et al. as soon as there are three authors	13.23 / Quick Guide
List up to ten authors in the bibliography	List up to six; if more than six, first three plus et al.	Quick Guide, journal examples
Chapter page range required in the bibliography	Omit it; cite specific pages only in the note	14.8
Ibid. for the previous note	Use a shortened note instead	13.37
3-em dash for a repeated author in the bibliography	Repeat the name	13.72

Do not teach yourself ibid.

Older history handouts still treat ibid. as a skill. CMOS 18 §13.37 does not. Douglas College reprints the handbook sentence:

CMOS 18 §13.37, as reprinted by Douglas College Library

The abbreviation ibid. (from ibidem, "in the same place") usually refers to a single work cited in the note immediately preceding. However, because ibid. can obscure the identity of a source, Chicago recommends instead using shortened citations.

Shortened citations generally take up less than a line, meaning that ibid. saves no space, and in electronic formats that link to one note at a time, ibid. risks confusing the reader.

The most common short form consists of the last name of the author and the main title of the work cited, usually shortened if more than four words.

Chicago's What's New in the 18th Edition page adds that a shortened citation used instead of ibid. may take one of three forms: author-title (the regular short form), author-only, or title-only. After the first full note, the safe classroom default is still last name, shortened title, and page. Use author-only only when the preceding note already named that one work.

Notes versus Bibliography Punctuation

The same facts appear twice, in two grammars. A note is a sentence fragment: author in normal order, commas between elements, publication data in parentheses, a locator after the closing parenthesis. A bibliography entry is a list item: author inverted, periods between elements, no parentheses around publisher and year. Notes cite the page you used. Bibliography entries describe the whole book or the whole article page range. Archival collections are the exception: the note cites the item; the bibliography usually lists the collection, not every letter.

Books and Scholarly Monographs

A history monograph is cited as a book. CMOS 18 italicizes the title, drops the city for a post-1900 imprint, and puts a page number only in the note. The official Quick Guide book example is Charles Yu's novel — not a history title, but the punctuation a history monograph uses is the same:

CMOS 18 Quick Guide book sample

First note:

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45.

Shortened note:

Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48.

Bibliography:

Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown. Pantheon Books, 2020.

CMOS 18's own short-form teaching example is a real history monograph. Heather Hendershot's When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2022. Douglas College reprints these CMOS 18 §13.33 lines:

CMOS 18 §13.33 history-monograph sample (Douglas College reprint)

First note:

Heather Hendershot, When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America (University of Chicago Press, 2022), 149.

Shortened note:

Hendershot, When the News Broke, 165–66.

Bibliography (constructed from the same facts):

Hendershot, Heather. When the News Broke: Chicago 1968 and the Polarizing of America. University of Chicago Press, 2022.

A standard U.S. history survey follows that pattern. Jill Lepore's These Truths: A History of the United States (W. W. Norton, 2018; ISBN 978-0-393-63524-9) is a real book. CMOS 18 omits "New York" even though older notes still include it:

First note:

Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (W. W. Norton, 2018), 234.

Shortened note:

Lepore, These Truths, 345.

Bibliography:

Lepore, Jill. These Truths: A History of the United States. W. W. Norton, 2018.

Cite the edition you held. A 1994 Penguin reprint of Gibbon is not the 1781 Strahan and Cadell volume. For chapters in edited collections, translations, ebooks, and the pre-1900 city rule, use How to cite a book in Chicago.

Chapters, Edited Collections, and Founders Online-Style Compilations

A chapter in an edited book is a common history assignment: a psalter essay, a volume introduction, a document in a documentary edition. CMOS 18 §14.8 dropped the chapter page range from the bibliography. The official Quick Guide sample is Kathleen Doyle's essay on the Queen Mary Psalter — a real chapter in The Book by Design (University of Chicago Press, 2023):

CMOS 18 Quick Guide chapter sample

First note:

Kathleen Doyle, “The Queen Mary Psalter,” in The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, ed. P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin (University of Chicago Press, 2023), 64.

Shortened note:

Doyle, “Queen Mary Psalter,” 65.

Bibliography:

Doyle, Kathleen. “The Queen Mary Psalter.” In The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention, edited by P. J. M. Marks and Stephen Parkin. University of Chicago Press, 2023.

The official Quick Guide ebook sample that history students actually need is Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner's The Founders’ Constitution. Cite the chapter and document numbers the edition uses, not a guess at print pagination:

CMOS 18 Quick Guide ebook sample

First note:

Philip B. Kurland and Ralph Lerner, eds., The Founders’ Constitution (University of Chicago Press, 1987), chap. 10, doc. 19, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/.

Shortened note:

Kurland and Lerner, Founders’ Constitution, chap. 4, doc. 29.

Bibliography:

Kurland, Philip B., and Ralph Lerner, eds. The Founders’ Constitution. University of Chicago Press, 1987. https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/.

Journal Articles

History journals are cited by volume and issue. The note gives the page you quote; the bibliography gives the article's full page range. For an article you read online, add a DOI URL when the journal supplies one (CMOS 13.7). The live CMOS 18 Quick Guide no longer uses the older Livy sample. Its current journal punctuation is Hyeyoung Kwon's American Journal of Sociology essay — not a history journal, but the commas, issue number, and DOI a history article uses:

CMOS 18 Quick Guide journal sample (current)

First note:

Hyeyoung Kwon, “Inclusion Work: Children of Immigrants Claiming Membership in Everyday Life,” American Journal of Sociology 127, no. 6 (2022): 1842–43, https://doi.org/10.1086/720277.

Shortened note:

Kwon, “Inclusion Work,” 1851.

Bibliography:

Kwon, Hyeyoung. “Inclusion Work: Children of Immigrants Claiming Membership in Everyday Life.” American Journal of Sociology 127, no. 6 (2022): 1818–59. https://doi.org/10.1086/720277.

For a history journal that CMOS 18 itself uses when it teaches shortened notes, Douglas College reprints Marco Cavarzere's History of Humanities article (DOI 10.1086/718537; volume 7, number 1, Spring 2022):

CMOS 18 §13.33 history-journal sample (Douglas College reprint)

First note:

Marco Cavarzere, “History, Politics, and Fiction in Seventeenth-Century Italy: The Case of Baroque Novels,” History of Humanities 7, no. 1 (2022): 39–40.

Shortened note:

Cavarzere, “Seventeenth-Century Italy,” 42.

Bibliography (Ca' Foscari record: vol. 7, pp. 37–57, plus the DOI):

Cavarzere, Marco. “History, Politics, and Fiction in Seventeenth-Century Italy: The Case of Baroque Novels.” History of Humanities 7, no. 1 (2022): 37–57. https://doi.org/10.1086/718537.

Susan Satterfield, “Livy and the Pax Deum,” Classical Philology 111, no. 2 (April 2016): 165–76, is still a real essay and was the CMOS 17 Quick Guide journal sample. Do not call it the current official sample. Do not invent a journal article to fill the template. The previous version of this page, before the August 2026 rewrite, cited Annette Gordon-Reed, "The Memory of Slavery," Journal of American History 105, no. 3 (2018). That essay does not exist. Gordon-Reed's real 2018 work includes "America's Original Sin" in Foreign Affairs and other identified publications. If you cannot verify title, volume, and pages from the PDF or the publisher page, omit the example and cite the file in front of you. Full journal patterns, including three-author notes, are in How to cite a journal article in Chicago.

Letters and Manuscript Collections

Unpublished letters are why history uses notes. CMOS 18 §§14.119–14.129 covers manuscript collections. The note names the item: writer, recipient, date, collection, repository, and a URL if you read a scan. The bibliography usually lists the collection once. There is no single required order after the item itself; CMOS asks you to pick a sequence and keep it. Box, folder, finding-aid, and Presidential-library detail now live in the rewritten How to cite archives in Chicago. For the hunt before the note, use How to find and use archives.

Abraham Lincoln's 22 August 1862 letter to Horace Greeley is a real document in the Library of Congress Abraham Lincoln Papers, Series 2 (item mal4233400). The LOC record is a newspaper clipping of the letter, not the outgoing manuscript. Cite the object you used. This environment could not load the live loc.gov HTML (Cloudflare challenge); the item ID and the clipping caveat come from the Library of Congress catalog record used on the archives guide:

Constructed from the Library of Congress record, not a CMOS sample

First note:

Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln Papers, Series 2, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mal4233400/.

Shortened note:

Lincoln to Greeley, August 22, 1862.

Bibliography:

Abraham Lincoln Papers. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Speeches and Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets

Cite the form you read. Frederick Douglass delivered "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852. The first publication is the 1852 pamphlet printed by Lee, Mann & Co., American Building. A modern website that reprints the speech is a different source. The Internet Archive record orationdelivered00fred is the cataloged 1852 Lee, Mann copy (48 pages; LCCN 16025947):

1852 Rochester pamphlet (cataloged Internet Archive copy)

First note:

Frederick Douglass, Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, by Frederick Douglass, July 5th, 1852 (Rochester: Lee, Mann & Co., 1852), https://archive.org/details/orationdelivered00fred.

Bibliography:

Douglass, Frederick. Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, by Frederick Douglass, July 5th, 1852. Rochester: Lee, Mann & Co., 1852. https://archive.org/details/orationdelivered00fred.

The city stays in that note because CMOS 14.31 prefers the place of publication for books printed before 1900. A 1994 reprint would italicize the modern title the reprint actually uses and would drop the city if the reprint is post-1900.

Newspapers as Historical Evidence

A newspaper is a dated dispatch, not a journal. CMOS 14.89–14.98 omits volume and issue numbers. Page numbers may appear in a note and are omitted from the bibliography. The official Quick Guide states the rule, then gives a modern New York Times story as the sample. Use that punctuation for an 1862 paper too — but only with a headline you actually read.

Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, news or magazine article

Articles from newspapers or news sites, magazines, blogs, and the like are cited similarly. Page numbers, if any, can be cited in a note but are omitted from a bibliography entry. For articles consulted online, include a URL or the name of the database.

CMOS 18 Quick Guide newspaper sample

First note:

Dani Blum, “Are Flax Seeds All That?,” New York Times, December 13, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/well/eat/flax-seeds-benefits.html.

Shortened note:

Blum, “Flax Seeds.”

Bibliography:

Blum, Dani. “Are Flax Seeds All That?” New York Times, December 13, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/well/eat/flax-seeds-benefits.html.

The previous version of this page invented "Troops Clash at Boston Harbor," Boston Gazette, 12 March 1770. The Boston Massacre was 5 March 1770; that headline is not a citable article. If you need a historical newspaper, open a scan in Chronicling America and copy the headline printed on that page. A page already verified on the primary-source guide is the 16 October 1918 Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), page 6:

Chronicling America historical newspaper (real item)

First note:

Evening Star (Washington, DC), 16 October 1918, 6, Chronicling America, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1918-10-16/ed-1/seq-6/.

Bibliography:

Evening Star (Washington, DC). 16 October 1918. Chronicling America. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1918-10-16/ed-1/seq-6/.

Full newspaper patterns, including unsigned stories and library databases, are in How to cite a newspaper in Chicago. How to find the page is in How to find historical primary sources.

Government Documents

Name the class before you format: agency report, hearing, statute, or congressional debate. CMOS 18 defers to The Bluebook for cases and many legal instruments. A titled commission report behaves like a book with a corporate author. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States published The 9/11 Commission Report in 2004; GovInfo still hosts the official GPO edition:

Agency report (verified GPO edition)

First note:

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), 326, https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-911REPORT.

Shortened note:

National Commission, 9/11 Commission Report, 339.

Bibliography:

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report. 2004. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-911REPORT.

Do not invent a Congressional Record volume, part, and page. If you used a debate, copy the Congress, session, date, and page from the GovInfo or bound volume in front of you. Class-by-class government forms are in How to cite a government document in Chicago.

Oral Histories

CMOS 14.108–14.110 cites an interview under the interviewee, then names the interviewer, the date, and the archive or broadcast. The current Quick Guide interview sample is Joy Buolamwini on NPR — use that punctuation for a history oral history, but do not pretend Buolamwini is a Civil Rights interview. Rosa Parks sat for Blackside, Inc. on 14 November 1985 for Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965. Washington University Libraries' Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection, holds the interview as Interview with Rosa Parks:

Verified Henry Hampton Collection interview

First note:

Rosa Parks, interview by Blackside, Inc., November 14, 1985, for Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965, Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection, https://repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/5d86p1921.

Bibliography:

Parks, Rosa. Interview by Blackside, Inc. November 14, 1985. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965. Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection. https://repository.wustl.edu/concern/videos/5d86p1921.

Translations and Books Published before 1900

Name the translator. Cite the edition you read, and keep the original date in the narrative when the age of the text matters. Robin Waterfield's 1998 Oxford World's Classics translation of Herodotus, with introduction and notes by Carolyn Dewald, is a real book (hardback ISBN 0-19-212609-1); CMOS 18 drops the city:

First note:

Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford University Press, 1998), 145.

Bibliography:

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford University Press, 1998.

For a book published before 1900, CMOS 14.31 prefers the city when the publisher name is less useful. The Quick Guide's official example is Herman Melville's 1851 Moby-Dick:

CMOS 18 Quick Guide pre-1900 ebook sample

First note:

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (New York, 1851), 627, https://melville.electroniclibrary.org/moby-dick-side-by-side.

Bibliography:

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. New York, 1851. https://melville.electroniclibrary.org/moby-dick-side-by-side.

When You Found a Primary Source in Someone Else's Book

History papers fail this more than they fail italics. If you quote an 1862 letter because Lepore quoted it, and you never opened the Lincoln Papers, you may not cite the letter as if you had. CMOS has a "cited in" form for a source taken from a secondary work. The AHA names the ethical problem directly:

AHA Statement on Standards of Professional Conduct, §4 Plagiarism

Borrowing unexamined primary source references from a secondary work without citing that work is likewise inappropriate.

Name the primary source, then the historian who printed or quoted it, and get the original if the argument depends on wording, dating, or archival context. A "cited in" note is a last resort, not a research method.

Failure Modes History Students Actually Hit

No date. Use a supplied date if the finding aid or catalog gives one. Otherwise write n.d. or an inferred date in square brackets: [ca. 1865]. Do not invent a year to make the note look finished.
No author. Start the note with the title or a descriptive label. An unsigned newspaper story begins with the headline. A corporate report begins with the agency.
Database versus URL. For a journal with a DOI, use https://doi.org/ plus the DOI (CMOS 13.7). For a library database whose URL is a session link, name the database. For Chronicling America or a digital archive, use the persistent item URL.
Note versus bibliography. Notes use commas and parentheses; bibliography entries use periods. Archival notes cite the item; archival bibliography entries usually cite the collection.
Container titles. Italicize the book, journal, newspaper, or pamphlet you held. Quotation marks go on article titles, chapter titles, and unpublished item titles. Do not italicize an archival collection name unless the repository styles it that way and you are following that house style consistently.
The later book. If a dissertation became a monograph, cite the book you read, not the dissertation, unless you used the dissertation. See How to cite a dissertation in Chicago.
Access dates. CMOS does not require an access date when the source has a publication or revision date. Add one for an undated page or when your instructor (or Turabian 9) requires it.
Turabian 9 on a CMOS 18 paper. The live student handbook is still the 9th edition (CMOS 17). If the syllabus says CMOS 18, drop the city for post-1900 books even if a Turabian 9 handout still shows it.

Divide the Bibliography when the Sources Warrant It

CMOS 18's chapter 13 section on dividing a bibliography into sections allows that split when it helps the reader. History papers often separate Primary sources from Secondary sources so the evidence base is visible at a glance. Use it when you have enough unpublished or contemporary material to make the distinction informative. Do not create a "Primary sources" heading for three monographs and one website. Inside each section, sort alphabetically. Repeat an author's name; do not use a 3-em dash (CMOS 13.72).

What to record before you leave the archive or close the PDF

Author or creator, as printed or as the finding aid names the creator.
Title or a one-line description if the item has no title.
Exact date, or n.d., or a bracketed inferred date.
Collection, series, box, and folder — copied from the finding aid, not remembered later.
Repository name and city, plus the persistent URL or database name if you used a scan.
The page, folio, or timestamp you actually quoted.
Whether this is the original, a published edition, or a quotation in a secondary work.

Classical and Medieval Citations

Classical texts are often cited by traditional book, chapter, and line numbers rather than by the pagination of one modern printing. CMOS 18 discusses those identifying numbers in the classical-references sections of chapter 14. Still name the modern edition or translation you used, because readings differ. Medieval manuscripts add a repository and a shelfmark. If you cannot verify a shelfmark from the library catalog, do not invent one. The previous version of this page attached British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106 to a generic "medieval charter" — that shelfmark belongs to a Magna Carta exemplar, and a vague label is not a citation.

Format the note, then check the source in front of you

The Chicago citation generator can draft a Notes-Bibliography footnote and bibliography entry from a DOI, ISBN, or URL. History papers still need you to add the box number, the folio, or the "cited in" that a lookup will not know. Use the generator for the published half of the bibliography; finish unpublished items by hand.

Open the Chicago generator Compare Turabian and Chicago

History citation FAQ

What citation style do history majors use?: Most history departments require Chicago Notes-Bibliography from the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (2024). Some courses still accept Turabian 9th edition, the live student handbook based on CMOS 17. The University of Chicago Press lists Turabian 10th edition for November 2026. A methods or economic-history course may instead require Chicago Author-Date. Check the syllabus before you format anything.
Is Chicago 18 or Chicago 17 the current edition for history papers?: Chicago 18, published in 2024, is the current professional edition. It drops the city of publication for most books, shortens author lists in notes, and continues to prefer shortened notes over ibid. Use CMOS 17 or Turabian 9 only when the instructor names that edition. Do not assume Turabian 10 is assigned until the syllabus says so.
Do history papers use footnotes or endnotes?: Either is Chicago-correct. Footnotes keep the source on the same page; endnotes keep the narrative clean. Follow the instructor or journal. The American Historical Review's submission page talks about footnotes and asks you to follow the AHR style guide. Do not mix footnotes and endnotes, and do not pair notes with Author-Date parentheses in the same paper.
Should I still use ibid. in a history paper?: Not if you are following CMOS 18. Section 13.37 recommends a shortened note — author, short title, page — every time after the first full citation. Ibid. hides the source in electronic notes and saves no space. A further-shortened author-only note is allowed when the preceding note already named that one work.
How do I cite an archival letter in Chicago?: In the note, name the writer, the recipient, the date, the collection, and the repository, plus a URL if you used a scan. In the bibliography, list the collection once. CMOS 18 §§14.119–14.129 is the manuscript chapter; copy box and folder numbers from the finding aid. The archives guide has the YIVO, MHS, NARA GIL 17, and Lincoln Papers preferred-citation forms.
Do I put primary and secondary sources in one bibliography?: You may use a single alphabetical bibliography. Many history instructors prefer two sections — Primary sources and Secondary sources — when you have enough unpublished or contemporary material to make the split informative. CMOS 18 allows a bibliography divided into sections; follow the syllabus if it requires the split.
What if the document has no date or no author?: Do not invent either. Start with the title or a short description if there is no author. For a missing date write n.d. or a bracketed estimate such as [ca. 1865] only when the finding aid or internal evidence supports it.
Can I cite a primary source I only saw quoted in a book?: Only if you also cite that book. The AHA calls borrowing unexamined primary-source references from a secondary work inappropriate. Use a "cited in" note as a last resort, then get the original if your argument depends on the wording.
Does Turabian 9 already follow Chicago 18?: No. The live Turabian home page still describes the 9th edition as updated to CMOS 17. Turabian 10 is listed by the University of Chicago Press for November 2026. If your syllabus says CMOS 18, drop the city for post-1900 books and use shortened notes instead of ibid., even if a Turabian 9 photocopy still shows the older forms.

Quick Answer: How Historians Cite Sources

Why History Treats Citations as Evidence

Notes-Bibliography or Author-Date?

What Chicago 18 Changed for History Papers

Do not teach yourself ibid.

Notes versus Bibliography Punctuation

Books and Scholarly Monographs

Chapters, Edited Collections, and Founders Online-Style Compilations

Journal Articles

Letters and Manuscript Collections

Speeches and Nineteenth-Century Pamphlets

Newspapers as Historical Evidence

Government Documents

Oral Histories

Translations and Books Published before 1900

When You Found a Primary Source in Someone Else's Book

Failure Modes History Students Actually Hit

Divide the Bibliography when the Sources Warrant It

Classical and Medieval Citations

Format the note, then check the source in front of you

Related guides

History citation FAQ