Style Guide

In notes-style citations, you signal that you have used a source by placing a superscript number at the end of the sentence in which you quote it or refer to it:

By 1911, according to one expert, an Amazon was "any woman rebel--which, to a lot of people, meant any girl who left home and went to college."¹

You then cite the source of that quotation in a correspondingly numbered note that provides information about the source (author, title, and facts of publication) plus relevant page numbers. Notes are placed at the bottom of the page (called footnotes) or in a list collected at the end of your paper or the end of a chapter (called endnotes). All notes have the same general form:

1. Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (New York: Vintage Books, 2015), 17.

If you cite the same text again, you can shorten subsequent notes:

2. Lepore, Wonder Woman, 28-29.

You will also list sources at the end of the paper in a bibliography. That list normally includes every source you cited in a note and sometimes others you consulted but did not cite. Each bibliography entry includes the same information contained in a full note, but in a slightly different form:

Lepore, Jill. The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Vintage Books, 2015.

The Basic Pattern for Common Sources

Although sources and their citations come in almost endless variety, you are likely to use only a few kinds. While you may need to look up details to cite some unusual sources, you can easily learn the basic patterns for the few kinds you will use most often. 

Book - Single Author

Journal Article

• Center the title "Bibliography" at the top of the page and add two blank lines after.
• Single space each entry, and add a blank line between entries. 
• Apply half-inch hanging indents for each entry.

• (Your word processor should automate these rules if you use the "Endnote" feature.
• Center the title "Notes" at the top of the page and add two blank lines after.
• For the note numbers, use normal text with a period and a space after -- or use superscript with a space after but no period.
• Indent the first line of each note half an inch like a paragraph in the main text. 
• Single space each note, and add a blank line between notes. 

• (Your word processor should automate these rules if you use the "Footnote" feature.
• Each footnote should appear at the bottom of the page that includes its numbered in-text reference.
• For note numbers in the text, use superscript.
• Single-space each footnote in the footnotes section at the bottom of the page.
• For note numbers in the notes, use normal text with a period and space after, or use superscript with a space but no period after.