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Preferences for footnoting and bibliographical style. Good practice in citing sources in history papers calls for footnotes (footnotes or endnotes) and bibliographies. Styles vary slightly and consistency of style is more essential than applying one absolutely uniform set of rules; instructors have the last word in what is appropriate for their courses. On the whole the History Department advises that you follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2003. In brief, we urge you to establish habits in citing authorities for history papers along the following general rules:
Footnotes are preferred to in-text citations. In this respect, history differs from most science, social science and some humanities. Authors’ names are arranged with family name last, following given names. In bibliographies (arranged alphabetically by author), the family name of the first author comes first. Short essays with only a few well-identified sources may simply employ in-text citations, for example: (Smith, 34). Example: from a hypothetical research paper about The New York Times and reports from Moscow and Hanoi by the correspondent and writer, Harrison Salisbury.
- Gay Talese, The Kingdom and the Power, 2nd ed. (New York: Ivy Press, 1992): 501.
- Richard F Shepard, The Paper’s Papers: A Reporter’s Journey through the Archives of the New York Times (New York: Times Books, 1996): 100.
- Harrison Salisbury, ‘Without Fear or Favor’: The New York Times and its Times (New York: Times Books, 1996): 13.
- Harrison Salisbury, A Journey for Our Times: A Memoir (New York: Harper & Row, 1983): 323.
- Shepard, Paper’s Papers, 178.
- Salisbury, Journey, 15.
- Mark A. Lawrence, “Mission Intolerable: Harrison Salisbury’s Trip to Hanoi,” Pacific Historical Review 75 (August 2006): 430.
- Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, The Trust: the Private and Powerful Family behind the New York Times (Boston: Little Brown, 1999): 630.
Bibliographical arrangement of the above:
Lawrence, Mark A., “Mission Intolerable: Harrison Salisbury’s Trip to
Hanoi.” Pacific Historical Review, 75 (August 2006): 429-458.
Salisbury, Harrison, A Journey for Our Times: A Memoir. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
___, ‘Without Fear or Favor’: The New York Times and its Times. New York: Times Books, 1996.
Shepard, Richard F., The Paper’s Papers: A Reporter’s Journey Through
the Archives of the New York Times. New York: Times Books, 1996.
Talese, Gay, The Kingdom and the Power. 2nd ed. New York: Ivy Press, 1992.
Tifft, Susan E. and Alex S. Jones, The Trust: the Private and Powerful
Family behind the New York Times. Boston: Little Brown, 1999.
In footnotes containing repeated citations of the same source, current practice prefers the author’s last name and page rather than Ibid.. If you cite multiple works by the same author, use a shortened version of the title: loc cit. is no longer used.
Footnotes to websites
Give author, title, URL address, <date posted> and (date accessed). For example: Harry Hopkins, Work Relief Administration Press Conference, 11 June 1934, New Deal Network, http://newdeal.feri.org/workrelief/hop06.htm, <posted 7/14/02> (accessed 8/23/05).
Developing Your Own Voice
One of our main goals as teachers is to have students develop their own ideas and the ability to express them. This is your voice, and it is one of the most important things college education can give you. Studying history is an excellent way to develop your voice.
Contrary to popular belief, history is not just one thing after another. It is the process of thinking about what happened, why, and what that means. No history professor wants a student simply to repeat what he or she has been read or told. We want students to put it in their own words. We want to see what the students themselves think about the issue at hand. This is what we mean by being original: ideas and information can come from other sources, but you have to put them together in your own coherent way.
This is why citation is so important. It allows you to separate out what you know and think from what others have said, so that readers can appreciate the power of your ideas. It also lets you show where you got your information. This will impress your readers and enable them to trust you as a reliable thinker. All scholarship depends on that trust. Without it, without good citations that can be traced to the sources you have used, your work is something else: fiction, propaganda, lies, deception, or fantasy.
For your citations to be effective, you have to know when to use them. You don’t have to use them for widely known facts (example: “George Washington was the first president of the United States.”) You do have to use them when you put lesser known information into your paper, or use someone else’s words, ideas, or analytical framework. The citation then lets you show the reader that you have done your research, and marks those findings off from your own thoughts and interpretation of that research. It also lets readers verify and follow up on your claims. Without citations, your voice gets lost.
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