Guide to Chicago/Turabian Style for Seminarians

First, you should always check with your professor to be sure she or he doesn't have specific formatting preferences s/he'd like you to follow. These will probably be in your course syllabus, so always start there!

The order of your pages should be:

• Title/cover page
• Body of the paper
• Appendix (if there is one)
• Bibliography

General page layout

• One-inch margins on sides, top and bottom.
• Use a standard 12-point font: Times New Roman or Garamond are most common.
• Double-space the text in the body of the paper. (Block quotations are treated differently -- see the box below.)
• Use left-justified text, which will have a ragged right edge. Do not use fully justified text (that is, even on both sides).
• Use a half-inch indent at the beginning of paragraphs, block quotes, footnotes, and hanging indents in your bibliography.
• Number the pages in the top right corner of the paper, beginning with the first page of text (so, not the title page!). It's a good idea to include your last name as well, in case pages become separated (ex., "McCall 2"). Number straight through from the first text page to the final bibliography page but do not count any pages after the end of the text as part of your page count. (A five-page paper may also have a cover page, two pages of notes and one page of bibliography which is nine pieces of paper.)
  • Note: If you are writing a thesis, your paper format will include front matter such as a list of abbreviations and a table of contents; these pages should be numbered with lower-case Roman numerals, and you'll switch to Arabic numerals on the first page of the body of your paper. Additionally, the placement of page numbers may differ for theses (center bottom or in the lower right footer). Check your department's guidelines for thesis formatting.
• If you are required to turn in a hard copy of your paper, ask your teacher if two-sided printing is acceptable. It is not standard to print on both sides of the page, but it is eco-friendly.

• Center the title of your paper in the middle of the page, a third of the way down.
• Space down several lines and center your name, Union Presbyterian Seminary, the course title, your professor's name, and the date near the bottom of the page.
• Use Times or Times New Roman 12 pt font for the title page. Do not try to make your cover page decorative by using bold, underline, or creative fonts.
• Do not put a page number on the cover page, and do not count it as part of the total page count.

Main Body

• Whenever you mention a title in the text, notes, or bibliography of your paper, you should capitalize it “headline-style” -- that is, the first words of all important words in the title and subtitle should be capitalized.
  • For example:
    • The Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, by Julius Wellhausen
    • "The Outlaw Jesus, the Justice of God, and Paul's Letter to the Romans," by Beverly Roberts Gaventa
• Titles in the text as well as in notes and bibliographies are formatted based on the type of work they name:
  • Book and journal titles (and titles of other larger works, like long epic poems and plays) should be italicized.
  • Article and chapter titles (and titles of shorter works, like short poems) should be enclosed in double quotation marks
    • For example, "The Souls of Biblical Folks and the Potential for Meaning," an article by Brian Blount, is published in the Journal of Biblical Literature.
• Otherwise, take a minimalist approach to capitalization.
  • For example, use lowercase terms to describe eras, except in the case of proper nouns (e.g., “the colonial period,” vs. “the Victorian era”).

References to the Bible in the Body of the Paper

• References to biblical texts go in parentheses in the body of the paper, not in footnotes.
• The first time you refer to the name of a biblical book, it should be written out fully. Any subsequent references to it can be abbreviated or, if no citations to other works (biblical or otherwise) have intervened, the book name can be omitted completely. See the attached PDF sample page for examples.
• The names of biblical books are neither italicized nor in quotations marks: Philemon, Ezekiel.
• The words "book" and "gospel" should not be capitalized when they come before the title of a biblical book.
  • For example:
    • The book of Numbers
    • The gospel of Luke

Blocked Quotations

Long quotations should be used judiciously -- say, no more than two in a five- or six-page paper. It is easy for long quotes to take over, and then it can seem as if you are letting your secondary sources write your paper for you.

Use these guidelines for formatting block quotes in your paper:

• A prose quotation of five or more lines, or more than 100 words, should be blocked.
• Two or more lines of poetry should be blocked.
• A blocked quotation is not enclosed in quotation marks.
• A blocked quotation must always begin a new line.
• Blocked quotations should be indented with the word processor’s indention tool. 
• Blocked quotations should be single-spaced, not double-spaced.

For detailed information on how to cite specific types of materials (an article in an edited volume, a book with an editor, etc.), see the "Examples of Citations in Chicago Style" tab at left.

• Center the word “Bibliography" at the top of your comprehensive list of sources.
• Leave two blank lines between “Bibliography” and your first entry.
• Each entry should be single-spaced, with one blank line between entries.
• List entries in alphabetical order according to the first word in each entry. (That's usually the author's last name, but sometimes it might be the title of the source.)
• Multiple references by the same author should be arranged chronologically, with the oldest work first. Use a 3-em dash (___) instead of the author's name
• Use hanging indents: The first line of each entry should be justified with the left margin; each subsequent line in that entry should be indented half an inch.
• Use “and,” not “&,” for multi-author entries.
• In general, write out all information without abbreviating anything.
  • Write out all the contributing authors' names -- first and last (and middle initials or suffixes if they have them) -- in both the bibliography and your footnotes.
  • When a source has no identifiable author, cite it by its title, both on the bibliography page and in shortened form (up to four keywords from that title) in footnote citations throughout the text.
  • Write out publishers’ names in full.
• You do not need to include the date you accessed the source.
• If you cannot ascertain the publication date of a printed work, use the abbreviation “n.d.”
• Provide DOIs for journal articles and periodicals instead of URLs whenever possible. If no DOI is available, provide a URL.
• If you cannot identify a specific page number or page range in the bibliography, you have other options: section (sec.), equation (eq.), volume (vol.), or note (n.). Remember, you're leaving a road map for your reader to follow your trail. Give them as much information as you can.