Turabian Style and What It’s For

The most common style guides, MLA, APA, AP, and Chicago, are used for particular purposes and in specific fields: MLA in the humanities, particularly literary fields; APA in social and behavioral sciences; AP in journalism; and Chicago in the humanities, especially history and the arts. These guides are used for student work as well as higher-level academic work including manuscripts destined for publication. Chicago is especially detailed and even refers to itself on the cover as “the essential guide for writers, editors, and publishers,” and as such it can seem a little highbrow or intimidating to some students or people writing for less formal purposes.

Turabian Style was originally created in the 1930s by Kate Turabian as a booklet for students needing a summary of Chicago style at the university where she worked as a “dissertation secretary” (throwback to a day with much more administrative support). The first book-length version of it was published in 1955. Naturally, it is closely related to Chicago but is more geared toward students, offering overall tips on research and writing as well as information about citation and style. In today’s post, I’ll provide information about Turabian Style and offer some comparisons between it and its cousin, The Chicago Manual of Style.

The 9th and most recent edition of Turabian came out in 2018 and was written to align with the then-current 17th edition of Chicago. (The current and 18th edition of Chicago came out in 2024, but differences between the 17th and 18th editions are not important to Turabian Style.) Turabian’s full title, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Ninth Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers, kind of says it all.

This volume is made up of three parts. Part 1 details the research and writing process including drafting and revising. Part 2 covers Chicago-style citations (notes and bibliography and author-date). And part 3 is all about style: grammar, punctuation, numbers, names, abbreviations, and more. The Chicago Manual of Style is also made up of three parts (publishing and editing, style and usage, and sources and indexes) but is more geared toward publication.

If you are familiar with the 8th edition of Turabian, you may be curious about differences between it and the 9th edition. Newer editions of writing style guides generally emphasize today’s increased reliance on electronic sources and digital document creation; Turabian’s 9th edition predictably contains more information related to this sort of thing as well. This includes added information on citing online resources, writing and submitting papers electronically, and being literate about information consumption in this digital era.

Citations are done the same in Turabian as they are in Chicago. There are two citation systems in Turabian and Chicago: author-date and notes and bibliography. In the author-date system, citations in text are written parenthetically and include the author(s), date of publication, and page number, if applicable. Full reference information is listed in an alphabetical reference list situated at the end of the manuscript. In the notes and bibliography system, citations in text are numerical superscripts, and full reference information is listed in footnotes or endnotes in a numbered bibliography at the end of the manuscript.

The Chicago Manual’s website offers a lot of specifics about both Chicago Style and Turabian, including many examples of author-date in-text citations and of reference listings/bibliographic entries. In addition, the website offers information about formatting and style in both styles. For the best and most detailed information, consult the full versions of the style guides. An online subscription to the Chicago Manual of Style is available in one- two- and three-year durations, and, of course, both guides are available in print.

Sarah P.