Turabianformat

Turabian format, commonly referred to as Turabian style, is a citation and formatting system derived from the Chicago Manual of Style and tailored for student writing. It was created by Kate L. Turabian, who served as the dissertation secretary at the University of Chicago. The manual, originally published in 1937 as A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, provides guidelines for preparing scholarly papers and theses in a consistent format.

Turabian supports two documentation approaches: Notes-Bibliography style and Author-Date style. The Notes-Bibliography system uses footnotes or endnotes supplemented by a bibliography; it is common in humanities disciplines such as literature, history, and philosophy. The Author-Date system uses parenthetical in-text citations and a reference list, aligning with practices in the physical, natural, and social sciences.

Guidelines cover formatting, citation punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations, quotations, and the layout of title pages, margins, pagination, and headings. Turabian is designed to be compatible with the Chicago Manual of Style but is streamlined for student manuscripts, with more prescriptive rules for common student tasks such as term papers, theses, and dissertations.

Usage varies by institution and field. Turabian remains widely taught in universities, particularly in history and other humanities departments, but some programs prefer Chicago, APA, or MLA styles. It is supported by many academic writing guides and citation management tools.