Chicago Manual of Style: General Guidelines

General Format

• The margins should be 1 inch on all sides.
• The recommended font is Times New Roman, Courier or Helvetica. Font size should be 12 point.
• Page numbers begin in the header of the first page of text with Arabic number 1.
• Double space the main text 
• Indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch.

Spacing and indentation

• Double-space the main text.
• Single-space figure captions and table titles.

Single-space the following, but add a blank line before and after each item in them:

• the table of contents
• footnotes or endnotes
• bibliographies or reference lists

What is Block Quotation?

• A prose quotation of five or more lines, or more than 100 words, should be blocked. 
• CMOS recommends blocking two or more lines of poetry.
• A blocked quotation does not get enclosed in quotation marks.  
• A blocked quotation must always begin a new line.
• Blocked quotations should be indented with the word processor’s indention tool.

Title Page:

• Class papers should begin with a title page (consult your instructor)
• Place the title of the paper a third of the way down the page, usually centered
• If the paper has both main title and subtitle, put the main title on a single line followed by a colon and begin the subtitle on a new line with an intervening line space
• Write your name along with any other information (Course name & number, date, etc. consult with your instruction) several lines below

Example of Title Page

Libraries in the Digital World

Library 2.0

Rumela Bose

LBRA 1311: Library and Information Literacy

June 18, 2024

Two documentation style in CMOS. Notes or Bibliography and Author-Date Style​

Notes and Bibliography:

• Used mostly in Humanities - including arts, literature, history
• Sources are cited in numbered footnotes or endnotes and correspond to superscript note reference number in the text
• Sources are also usually listed in a separate bibliography
• The footnote or an endnote generally lists the author, title, and facts of publication
• Authors' names are presented in standard order (first name first) in the "NOTE" section

Author-Date System:

• This system is more common in Social Science and Sciences
• Sources are briefly cited in the text, usually in parentheses, by author’s last name and year of publication
• Each in-text citation matches up with an entry in a reference list, where full bibliographic information is provided​

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