NotesBibliography

Notes-bibliography is a citation style used primarily in the humanities, most closely associated with the Chicago Manual of Style. It relies on numbered footnotes or endnotes for in-text citations, while a bibliography at the end of the document provides full bibliographic entries for all cited works. The first citation to a source in a note is usually a full citation; subsequent references to the same source can be shortened or signaled with terms like ibid. The bibliography lists each source in full, organized alphabetically by author.

This system offers the advantage of allowing researchers to provide additional commentary, clarifications, or precise page references within notes, beyond what is included in the bibliographic entry. It is valued for its readability in lengthy, discursive works where readers may wish to consult specific passages or see contextual information without interrupting the main text flow.

Notes-bibliography contrasts with the author-date system, which uses parenthetical in-text citations and a separate reference list, typically favored in the sciences and social sciences for concise, quickly scannable references.

In practice, the notes-bibliography style is implemented across various tools and workflows. In typesetting environments, BibLaTeX can render a style named notes-bibliography (often with options for full notes and a concluding bibliography). Word processors and citation managers also provide Chicago NB templates or styles to achieve the same formatting.

Overall, notes-bibliography offers a flexible, reader-friendly framework for detailed citation and commentary, widely used in scholarly writing within the humanities.