THE OFFICIAL AND DEFINITIVE
JACK REYNOLDS STYLE GUIDE
This style guide is designed for students enrolled in sections of HIS 2003 or HIS 4973 with Jack Reynolds. This guide is also appropriate for students preparing research papers for the National History Day’s “History Fair”. Students enrolled in this or other courses taught by other instructors should check with their instructor regarding appropriate citation formats, which may differ from those presented here.
The discipline of history follows the so-called “Chicago” style of citation associated with Kate Turabian. As a rule, historians do not observe the Modern Language Association’s format – which takes the form (Foner, 1988: 151-52). Students entering a History Fair project are allowed to use either format, so long as they are consistent. Various instructors or publications might differ on the information they require in a citation (whether or not to include the book publisher, for example) and the conventions of citation (identifying page numbers by a “p”). For more detailed description of the various forms consult Kate Turabian: A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations (6th ed.: Chicago, 1996). This format is also briefly explained and illustrated by Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History – though there are some minor differences between Marius’s guidelines and those presented here.
The entry formats are divided below between Footnote (or Endnote) and Bibliographic citations as they might apply for books, articles, assorted primary sources, and miscellaneous sources (which includes oral histories, citations from the web, dissertations, etc.). You can click on the term “Footnote” or “Bibliography” below for general information on the format, and then to “Book,” “Article” or other format for examples and explanations of how to deal with such complications as multiple authors, editions other than the first, subsequent listings of footnotes, etc..
There are some conventions common to footnotes and bibliography: (1) All contain the same basic information (2) Book titles, newspapers and journals are underlined or italicized to clearly set them off from the rest of the text. This also applies when they are mentioned in the body of the text. (3) Article titles appear in quotes (as likewise in the body of the text). This includes articles that appear in an edited volume. (4) Information about the author and title should be taken from the book’s title page rather than the cover. (5) Remember that small variations from a standard format listed here might be acceptable provided they are rigorously observed: if you wish to use a comma instead of a colon to separate place of publication from year, do so consistently.
Each reference in the first 5 sections below applies to the initial citing of a work Guidelines for making subsequent references appear under “Subsequent and Secondary Citations.”
SUBSEQUENT & SECONDARY CITATIONS / BIBLIOGRAPHYBOOKS / BOOKS
ARTICLES / ARTICLES
PRIMARY SOURCES / PRIMARY SOURCES
MISCELLANEOUS / MISCELLANEOUS
REYNOLDS STYLE GUIDE
FOOTNOTES:
For Books
There is no difference in the format of “footnotes” appearing at the bottom of the page versus “endnotes” that are listed at the end of the paper. Footnotes are generally more readily accessible and hence preferable, but endnotes are acceptable. References to “footnotes” in what follows can be equally applied to endnotes.
Dissertations, which are not published, follow a different format and are covered in the Miscellaneous section.
In their simplest form, footnote citations for books take the following general format:
Author(s): (first, middle and last name) followed by a comma.
Title: underlined and not followed with any further punctuation
Begin Parentheses
Place of Publication: City, (possibly state and nation) followed by a colon
Year of publication
Close parentheses (followed by a period if there are no page references)
Comma and page number, followed by a period.
12Wing Chung Ng, The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80 (Vancouver, Canada: 2000), 190-98.
Some style formats also call for listing the publisher, which would appear between place and date of publication thusly:
19Harvey J. Graff, Conflicting Paths, Growing Up in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 290-98.
Some of the more common complications that can arise in the citation procedure are discussed in the entries below.
Authors, Editors and Translators
The author(s) name should be listed exactly as it appears on the book’s title page.
If the author’s name does not appear, the author is listed as “Anonymous”.
If a work has multiple authors they should be listed in the order in which they appear on the book’s title page, from the top down.
2Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, A Basic History of the United States (New York: 1944), 89.
However, if there are more than three authors, list only the first followed by “et. al.” (which is latin for “and others”). There is no punctuation between the author’s name and “et al.”. Note that “et al.” is not used when listing works in the bibliography – where all authors must be listed.
3Jacquelyn Dowd Hall et. al., Like A Family, The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: 1987), 343.
Some books are not written by a single author but include a collection of essays or documents written by others. The person or persons who organized the work is listed as an editor, and identified as such as “ed.” or “eds.”, with commas separating the name and title.
4Virginia Yans-McLaughlin, ed., Immigration Reconsidered: History Sociology and Politics (New York: 1990).
5David R. Johnson, John A. Booth and Richard J. Harris, eds., The Politics of San Antonio, Community, Progress & Power (Lincoln, NB: 1984).
When an entire edited work is cited the reference is to all the essays in the volume – rather than a single essay. If only one or a few essays out of a volume have been consulted, they should be listed individually following the conventions for “Articles in Books” referred to in the “Articles” section.
Occasionally, a work may include both an author and an editor. This might occur with a work that has been long out of print and has been updated, perhaps with an introduction, some annotation or the addition of extra material. The book below was originally published in 1904 by Riordan and more recently re-issued with commentary and additional documents by McDonald.
14William L. Riordon, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics, edited and with an introduction by Terrence J. McDonald (Boston: 1994), 51.
The person responsible for preparing a translated work should also be listed following the title and a comma and identified as “trans.”, but they are not to be confused with the author.
6Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Sian Reynolds (2 vols.; New York: 1972), I, 231-75.
Works where the author is an organization or institution – such as the Census Bureau – are usually primary sources and are discussed in that section.
Title
The work’s full title as it appears on the title page, should be reported, taking note of any punctuation and capitalization in the title. If the title has a heading and subheading that is evident in the use of different size font (or use of bold) these can be set off with a comma.
8Antonio Calabria, The Cost of Empire, The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule (Cambridge: 1991), 64.
Multiple Volumes or Editions
If the work you are citing is other than the first edition it is important to note that just before the place of publication, separated by a semicolon.
4Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History (2nd ed.; New York, 1995), 61.
It is necessary to do this since the page numberings of different editions will likely be different. Information of the edition is found on the page listing the publication information (place, publisher and date). If there is no reference to an edition you may assume it is the first, and this need not be noted.
There is a distinction between “reprints” and new editions. Reprinting simply means that additional copies were published at a later date with no change in its format; thus it is unnecessary to report if a work has been reprinted.
If a work is published in multiple volumes (with the same author) it is first necessary to note if the different volumes come with different titles. If the title is the same for both volumes, then it is only necessary to list the number of volumes in the space preceding publication information and to identify the specific volume number (in roman numerals) just before citing the page.
10James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (2 Vols.; New York: 1891), II, 383.
Multi-volume works by a single author with different subtitles for each volume:
11Perry Miller, The New England Mind, 2 vols. (Boston: 1953), vol. 2, From Colony to Province, 119-129.
Place of Publication
The name of the city of publication is what is required. If, as in most cases, it is a well known city (New York or Boston) it is sufficient to leave it at that. If the city is in the U. S. and is somewhat more obscure, it is necessary to list the state in abbreviation, separated by a comma.
9Thomas J. Schlereth, ed., Material Culture Studies in America (Nashville, TN: 1982).
Works published abroad (in places other than such well known cities as London, Paris, Havana etc.) may need the name of the country (but not the province) in addition to that of the city.
If, as rarely happens, no place of publication appears on the work, use “n. p.”.
15Charles Sitgreaves, Warren County Politics: A Reminiscence (n.p.: 1898).
Date
Do not confuse the date of a work’s initial copyright with the date of the edition cited. Use only the later. If no date appears use “n. d.”.
16Alden Freeman, A Year in Politics (East Orange, NJ: n.d.), 33.
REYNOLDS STYLE GUIDE
FOOTNOTES:
For Articles
The citations required of articles that appear in scholarly journals are different from essays that appear in magazines. (Newspaper articles are treated as primary sources for the purposes of this website.) The different information required for magazines and journals is a consequence of the different ways these sources are stored in the library. Articles in books and encyclopedias are also treated in this section, as are dictionaries.
Scholarly journals appear typically only a few times a year, often quarterly. Each issue is assigned a volume number, which usually changes yearly, and an issue number, along with a date that might be a month or a season (i. e., “Spring”). After a year or so, all the journals for a particular volume are bound together in a single “book” and shelved in the library. The binder will list the name of the journal and the volume number, and perhaps the year it was published, but ordinarily little else. Hence, when scholars go to look for journal articles in the stacks, they are most in need of the volume number and perhaps the year published. Magazines and newspapers, on the other hand, are usually accessed differently. Old issues of U. S. News and World Report or The Wall Street Journal are more likely to be found on microfilm, and it suffices merely to know the date and page.
Many scholarly articles are now available on line through “JSTOR”. You can access JSTOR on the UTSA campus (and not from home) through the library’s website. (JSTOR is also an excellent way to get a full citation for an article.) It will likely be some time before we see old issues of newspapers and magazines digitized – though this has already begun with Harper’s Weekly. Someday, when the way we look up information changes the way we document it will as well. Until then, we will make use of a citation system that assumes we look stuff up by walking around the library rather than by clicking a mouse. It is unnecessary to specify if you consulted a printed version of the article or one in microfilm form or on the web.
Scholarly Journals
In their simplest form, footnote citations for journal articles take the following format:
Author(s): (first, middle and last name) followed by a comma.
Title of the Article: In quotation marks and followed by a comma
Title of the Journal: Underlined or Italicized
Volume Number
Date of Publication: Month/Season and year within parentheses
Page(s): preceded by a colon and concluded with a period
Months under Date of publication are commonly abbreviated, unless they are short (“May” or “June”).
At one time it was common to list the volume using Roman numerals; this practice is falling from favor but still acceptable.
21Steven R. Boyd, “The Contract Clause and the Evolution of American Federalism, 1789-1815,” The William and Mary Quarterly 44 (Sept. 1987): 529-48.
Some journals report a season in lieu of a month.
25Gregg L. Michel, “Union Power, Soul Power: Unionizing Johns Hopkins University Hospital, 1959-1974,” Labor History 38 (Winter 1996-97): 28-66
If two or three authors are listed, be sure to do so in the order in which they appear in the journal.
22John Michael Giggie and Diane Winston, “The Place of Religion in the Modern City,” Journal of Urban History 28 (Jan. 2002): 1-9.
If more than three authors are listed, use “et. al.” as explained in the section on footnotes for books.
21Allan G. Bogue et. al., “Members of the House of Representatives and the Process of Modernization, 1789 – 1960,” Journal of American History 63 (Sept. 1976): 291-93.