Style Guide

In this course, we will be using the style common to anthropologists and others in the social and natural sciences (in-text or author-date citations). The bibliography is an important part of academic writing because it places the writer in the context of the larger academic and literary world. As we talked about the importance of contextualizing the anthropologist in ethnography, citing sources properly demonstrates the context and validity of your own work – it never hurts, and almost always helps, to have many in-text cites of other work. Following proper guidelines for citations is essential in research papers you write as a Davidson student or in analytical writing in whatever career you choose. This is an abbreviated version of the Chicago Manual of Style author-date quick guide; see it for more detailed information.

An in-text citation is merely a shorthand to point to the reader the source of the quote or idea; in this case (Watson 1976, 365), the idea is from page 365 of the 1976 work by Watson. The full reference is listed at the end of your paper. Quotes always need citation, and with specific ideas or facts, it does not hurt to add a citation.

Author-Date: Sample Citations

The following examples illustrate citations using the author-date system. Each example of a reference list entry is accompanied by an example of a corresponding parenthetical citation in the text. For more details and many more examples, see chapter 15 of The Chicago Manual of Style. For examples of the same citations using the notes and bibliography system, click on the Notes and Bibliography tab above.

Book

One author

Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin.

(Pollan 2006, 99–100)

Two or more authors

Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. 2007. The War: An Intimate History, 1941–1945. New York: Knopf.

(Ward and Burns 2007, 52)

For four or more authors, list all of the authors in the reference list; in the text, list only the first author, followed by et al. (“and others”):

(Barnes et al. 2010)

Editor, translator, or compiler instead of author

Lattimore, Richmond, trans. 1951. The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

(Lattimore 1951, 91–92)

Editor, translator, or compiler in addition to author

García Márquez, Gabriel. 1988. Love in the Time of Cholera. Translated by Edith Grossman. London: Cape.

(García Márquez 1988, 242–55)

Chapter or other part of a book

Kelly, John D. 2010. “Seeing Red: Mao Fetishism, Pax Americana, and the Moral Economy of War.” In Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, edited by John D. Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui, Sean T. Mitchell, and Jeremy Walton, 67–83. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

(Kelly 2010, 77)

Chapter of an edited volume originally published elsewhere (as in primary sources)

Cicero, Quintus Tullius. 1986. “Handbook on Canvassing for the Consulship.” In Rome: Late Republic and Principate, edited by Walter Emil Kaegi Jr. and Peter White. Vol. 2 of University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, edited by John Boyer and Julius Kirshner, 33–46. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Originally published in Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, trans., The Letters of Cicero, vol. 1 (London: George Bell & Sons, 1908).

(Cicero 1986, 35)

Preface, foreword, introduction, or similar part of a book

Rieger, James. 1982. Introduction to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, xi–xxxvii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

(Rieger 1982, xx–xxi)

Book published electronically

If a book is available in more than one format, cite the version you consulted. For books consulted online, list a URL; include an access date only if one is required by your publisher or discipline. If no fixed page numbers are available, you can include a section title or a chapter or other number.

Austen, Jane. 2007. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Penguin Classics. Kindle edition.

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

(Austen 2007)

(Kurland and Lerner, chap. 10, doc. 19)

Journal article

Article in a print journal

In the text, list the specific page numbers consulted, if any. In the reference list entry, list the page range for the whole article.

Weinstein, Joshua I. 2009. “The Market in Plato’s Republic.” Classical Philology 104:439–58.

(Weinstein 2009, 440)

Article in an online journal

Include a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) if the journal lists one. A DOI is a permanent ID that, when appended to http://dx.doi.org/ in the address bar of an Internet browser, will lead to the source. If no DOI is available, list a URL. Include an access date only if one is required by your publisher or discipline.

Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. 2009. “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social Network.” American Journal of Sociology 115:405–50. Accessed February 28, 2010. doi:10.1086/599247.

(Kossinets and Watts 2009, 411)

Article in a newspaper or popular magazine

Newspaper and magazine articles may be cited in running text (“As Sheryl Stolberg and Robert Pear noted in a New York Times article on February 27, 2010, . . .”), and they are commonly omitted from a reference list. The following examples show the more formal versions of the citations. If you consulted the article online, include a URL; include an access date only if your publisher or discipline requires one. If no author is identified, begin the citation with the article title.

Mendelsohn, Daniel. 2010. “But Enough about Me.” New Yorker, January 25.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, and Robert Pear. 2010. “Wary Centrists Posing Challenge in Health Care Vote.” New York Times, February 27. Accessed February 28, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28health.html.

(Mendelsohn 2010, 68)

(Stolberg and Pear 2010)

Book review

Kamp, David. 2006. “Deconstructing Dinner.” Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan. New York Times, April 23, Sunday Book Review. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/books/review/23kamp.html.

(Kamp 2006)

Thesis or dissertation

Choi, Mihwa. 2008. “Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern Song Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.

(Choi 2008)

Paper presented at a meeting or conference

Adelman, Rachel. 2009. “ ‘Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’: God’s Footstool in the Aramaic Targumim and Midrashic Tradition.” Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 21–24.

(Adelman 2009)

Website

A citation to website content can often be limited to a mention in the text (“As of July 19, 2008, the McDonald’s Corporation listed on its website . . .”). If a more formal citation is desired, it may be styled as in the examples below. Because such content is subject to change, include an access date or, if available, a date that the site was last modified. In the absence of a date of publication, use the access date or last-modified date as the basis of the citation.

Google. 2009. “Google Privacy Policy.” Last modified March 11. http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.

McDonald’s Corporation. 2008. “McDonald’s Happy Meal Toy Safety Facts.” Accessed July 19. http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about/factsheets.html.

(Google 2009)

(McDonald’s 2008)

Blog entry or comment

Blog entries or comments may be cited in running text (“In a comment posted to The Becker-Posner Blog on February 23, 2010, . . .”), and they are commonly omitted from a reference list. If a reference list entry is needed, cite the blog post there but mention comments in the text only. (If an access date is required, add it before the URL; see examples elsewhere in this guide.)

Posner, Richard. 2010. “Double Exports in Five Years?” The Becker-Posner Blog, February 21. http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/02/double-exports-in-five-years-posner.html.

(Posner 2010)

E-mail or text message

E-mail and text messages may be cited in running text (“In a text message to the author on March 1, 2010, John Doe revealed . . .”), and they are rarely listed in a reference list. In parenthetical citations, the term personal communication (or pers. comm.) can be used.

(John Doe, e-mail message to author, February 28, 2010)

(John Doe, pers. comm.)

Item in a commercial database

For items retrieved from a commercial database, add the name of the database and an accession number following the facts of publication. In this example, the dissertation cited above is shown as it would be cited if it were retrieved from ProQuest’s database for dissertations and theses.

Choi, Mihwa. 2008. “Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern Song Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Chicago. ProQuest (AAT 3300426).