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Guide to Chicago/Turabian Style for Seminarians

This libguide was created to help students at Union Presbyterian Seminary learn how to format papers and properly cite sources in Chicago style, which is typically the style preferred in fields related to religious studies.

How to Create a Footnote in MS Word

1. Type a sentence into the body of your paper. You will insert the superscript number that points the reader to your footnote after any punctuation marks in your phrase or sentence, with no space. If you are quoting a source, the superscript should go immediately after the closing quotation mark (as in the first example below). If you are citing a source but not quoting it, the superscript should go at the end of the sentence (as in the second example):

  • High crosses, which may at some point have been intended to function as “focal point[s] for preaching, prayer, or penance,”4 are regularly intricately decorated with carved images that depict religious ideas.
  • Here God's glory, like God's power, is a key indicator of God's self, but does not exhaust God's identity.11

2. Place your cursor at the point where you wish to insert the superscript number for your footnote.

3. Go to the "References" tab in the MS Word toolbar.

4. Select the "Insert footnote" icon at the top of the page. Word will place a superscript in the body of your paper and create a footnote in the footer, where you can enter the citation information. (The default font size for footnotes is 10-pt; some instructors prefer 12-pt, so you might want to ask if your professor has a preference.)

Here is another way to insert a footnote in Word, starting at step 3 above:

3. Go to "Insert" in the Word menu bar (very top of the page). Select "Footnote...".

4. A dialogue box will pop up that allows you to change the position and other elements of your footnote. The screencap below shows the default settings, which are the ones you want.

How to Insert a Footnote in Google Docs

To insert a footnote in a Google Doc, follow steps 1 and 2 above to determine where you want to insert your footnote. Then:

3. Select "Insert" from the menu bar and select "Footnote" from the drop-down menu. To use the keyboard shortcut instead of the menu, simultaneously hit ⌘ + Option + F (on a Mac) or Ctrl + Alt + F (on a PC).