how to reference a history essay

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History: Citing & Referencing

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Citing and referencing in History

Demonstrating that you have read the major writers and acknowledging their ideas is a fundamental skill of academic work.

There are two common methods of referencing in history. These are:

In-text referencing: where the Author and Year of publication are identified in the essay and a list of References which have been cited are placed at the end of the essay. Examples of this style are Harvard; APA 7th; Chicago 17th (B); and MLA.

Footnote referencing: where a number is allocated to each reference which is usually listed in full at the bottom of the page or section.  A bibliography is usually added at the end of the work which includes all the works read rather than just those cited. Examples of this style include Chicago 17th (A).

Traditionally the footnote style has been preferred in the humanities as it is less disruptive to the flow of writing.

In History it is recommended that students use the Essay writing guide for citing and referencing where examples of the two methods are described.  For more detailed information and plenty of referencing examples refer to the relevant tab of the  Citing and Referencing Library Guide .

EndNote: How to keep tabs on your references

Keeping track of what you have read for the different subjects, from a variety of sources can be time-consuming.

There are bibliographic software packages available which help with these tasks.

The University supports the EndNote software package which can be downloaded and used freely by students and staff at Monash.

The programme is a sophisticated system aimed at postgraduate and research needs, however undergraduate students are welcome to use it if they wish. The information needed to get started is on our website , with further  online tutorials available from the makers of EndNote.

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics

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Guidelines for referring to the works of others in your text using MLA style are covered throughout the  MLA Handbook  and in chapter 7 of the  MLA Style Manual . Both books provide extensive examples, so it's a good idea to consult them if you want to become even more familiar with MLA guidelines or if you have a particular reference question.

Basic in-text citation rules

In MLA Style, referring to the works of others in your text is done using parenthetical citations . This method involves providing relevant source information in parentheses whenever a sentence uses a quotation or paraphrase. Usually, the simplest way to do this is to put all of the source information in parentheses at the end of the sentence (i.e., just before the period). However, as the examples below will illustrate, there are situations where it makes sense to put the parenthetical elsewhere in the sentence, or even to leave information out.

General Guidelines

• The source information required in a parenthetical citation depends (1) upon the source medium (e.g. print, web, DVD) and (2) upon the source’s entry on the Works Cited page.
• Any source information that you provide in-text must correspond to the source information on the Works Cited page. More specifically, whatever signal word or phrase you provide to your readers in the text must be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of the corresponding entry on the Works Cited page.

In-text citations: Author-page style

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads . Oxford UP, 1967.

In-text citations for print sources with known author

For print sources like books, magazines, scholarly journal articles, and newspapers, provide a signal word or phrase (usually the author’s last name) and a page number. If you provide the signal word/phrase in the sentence, you do not need to include it in the parenthetical citation.

These examples must correspond to an entry that begins with Burke, which will be the first thing that appears on the left-hand margin of an entry on the Works Cited page:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . University of California Press, 1966.

In-text citations for print sources by a corporate author

When a source has a corporate author, it is acceptable to use the name of the corporation followed by the page number for the in-text citation. You should also use abbreviations (e.g., nat'l for national) where appropriate, so as to avoid interrupting the flow of reading with overly long parenthetical citations.

In-text citations for sources with non-standard labeling systems

If a source uses a labeling or numbering system other than page numbers, such as a script or poetry, precede the citation with said label. When citing a poem, for instance, the parenthetical would begin with the word “line”, and then the line number or range. For example, the examination of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” would be cited as such:

The speaker makes an ardent call for the exploration of the connection between the violence of nature and the divinity of creation. “In what distant deeps or skies. / Burnt the fire of thine eyes," they ask in reference to the tiger as they attempt to reconcile their intimidation with their relationship to creationism (lines 5-6).

Longer labels, such as chapters (ch.) and scenes (sc.), should be abbreviated.

In-text citations for print sources with no known author

When a source has no known author, use a shortened title of the work instead of an author name, following these guidelines.

Place the title in quotation marks if it's a short work (such as an article) or italicize it if it's a longer work (e.g. plays, books, television shows, entire Web sites) and provide a page number if it is available.

Titles longer than a standard noun phrase should be shortened into a noun phrase by excluding articles. For example, To the Lighthouse would be shortened to Lighthouse .

If the title cannot be easily shortened into a noun phrase, the title should be cut after the first clause, phrase, or punctuation:

In this example, since the reader does not know the author of the article, an abbreviated title appears in the parenthetical citation, and the full title of the article appears first at the left-hand margin of its respective entry on the Works Cited page. Thus, the writer includes the title in quotation marks as the signal phrase in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader directly to the source on the Works Cited page. The Works Cited entry appears as follows:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs . 1999. www.climatehotmap.org/. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.

If the title of the work begins with a quotation mark, such as a title that refers to another work, that quote or quoted title can be used as the shortened title. The single quotation marks must be included in the parenthetical, rather than the double quotation.

Parenthetical citations and Works Cited pages, used in conjunction, allow readers to know which sources you consulted in writing your essay, so that they can either verify your interpretation of the sources or use them in their own scholarly work.

Author-page citation for classic and literary works with multiple editions

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work, like Marx and Engels's  The Communist Manifesto . In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:

Author-page citation for works in an anthology, periodical, or collection

When you cite a work that appears inside a larger source (for instance, an article in a periodical or an essay in a collection), cite the author of the  internal source (i.e., the article or essay). For example, to cite Albert Einstein's article "A Brief Outline of the Theory of Relativity," which was published in  Nature  in 1921, you might write something like this:

See also our page on documenting periodicals in the Works Cited .

Citing authors with same last names

Sometimes more information is necessary to identify the source from which a quotation is taken. For instance, if two or more authors have the same last name, provide both authors' first initials (or even the authors' full name if different authors share initials) in your citation. For example:

Citing a work by multiple authors

For a source with two authors, list the authors’ last names in the text or in the parenthetical citation:

Corresponding Works Cited entry:

Best, David, and Sharon Marcus. “Surface Reading: An Introduction.” Representations , vol. 108, no. 1, Fall 2009, pp. 1-21. JSTOR , doi:10.1525/rep.2009.108.1.1

For a source with three or more authors, list only the first author’s last name, and replace the additional names with et al.

Franck, Caroline, et al. “Agricultural Subsidies and the American Obesity Epidemic.” American Journal of Preventative Medicine , vol. 45, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 327-333.

Citing multiple works by the same author

If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the particular work from which you are quoting to distinguish it from the others. Put short titles of books in italics and short titles of articles in quotation marks.

Citing two articles by the same author :

Citing two books by the same author :

Additionally, if the author's name is not mentioned in the sentence, format your citation with the author's name followed by a comma, followed by a shortened title of the work, and, when appropriate, the page number(s):

Citing multivolume works

If you cite from different volumes of a multivolume work, always include the volume number followed by a colon. Put a space after the colon, then provide the page number(s). (If you only cite from one volume, provide only the page number in parentheses.)

Citing the Bible

In your first parenthetical citation, you want to make clear which Bible you're using (and underline or italicize the title), as each version varies in its translation, followed by book (do not italicize or underline), chapter, and verse. For example:

If future references employ the same edition of the Bible you’re using, list only the book, chapter, and verse in the parenthetical citation:

John of Patmos echoes this passage when describing his vision (Rev. 4.6-8).

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited within another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Note that, in most cases, a responsible researcher will attempt to find the original source, rather than citing an indirect source.

Citing transcripts, plays, or screenplays

Sources that take the form of a dialogue involving two or more participants have special guidelines for their quotation and citation. Each line of dialogue should begin with the speaker's name written in all capitals and indented half an inch. A period follows the name (e.g., JAMES.) . After the period, write the dialogue. Each successive line after the first should receive an additional indentation. When another person begins speaking, start a new line with that person's name indented only half an inch. Repeat this pattern each time the speaker changes. You can include stage directions in the quote if they appear in the original source.

Conclude with a parenthetical that explains where to find the excerpt in the source. Usually, the author and title of the source can be given in a signal phrase before quoting the excerpt, so the concluding parenthetical will often just contain location information like page numbers or act/scene indicators.

Here is an example from O'Neill's  The Iceman Cometh.

WILLIE. (Pleadingly) Give me a drink, Rocky. Harry said it was all right. God, I need a drink.

ROCKY. Den grab it. It's right under your nose.

WILLIE. (Avidly) Thanks. (He takes the bottle with both twitching hands and tilts it to his lips and gulps down the whiskey in big swallows.) (1.1)

Citing non-print or sources from the Internet

With more and more scholarly work published on the Internet, you may have to cite sources you found in digital environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's  Evaluating Sources of Information  resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source on your Works Cited page.

Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers. However, these sorts of entries often do not require a page number in the parenthetical citation. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:

• Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).
• Do not provide paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.
• Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like  CNN.com  or  Forbes.com,  as opposed to writing out http://www.cnn.com or http://www.forbes.com.

Miscellaneous non-print sources

Two types of non-print sources you may encounter are films and lectures/presentations:

In the two examples above “Herzog” (a film’s director) and “Yates” (a presentor) lead the reader to the first item in each citation’s respective entry on the Works Cited page:

Herzog, Werner, dir. Fitzcarraldo . Perf. Klaus Kinski. Filmverlag der Autoren, 1982.

Yates, Jane. "Invention in Rhetoric and Composition." Gaps Addressed: Future Work in Rhetoric and Composition, CCCC, Palmer House Hilton, 2002. Address.

Electronic sources

Electronic sources may include web pages and online news or magazine articles:

In the first example (an online magazine article), the writer has chosen not to include the author name in-text; however, two entries from the same author appear in the Works Cited. Thus, the writer includes both the author’s last name and the article title in the parenthetical citation in order to lead the reader to the appropriate entry on the Works Cited page (see below).

In the second example (a web page), a parenthetical citation is not necessary because the page does not list an author, and the title of the article, “MLA Formatting and Style Guide,” is used as a signal phrase within the sentence. If the title of the article was not named in the sentence, an abbreviated version would appear in a parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence. Both corresponding Works Cited entries are as follows:

Taylor, Rumsey. "Fitzcarraldo." Slant , 13 Jun. 2003, www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/fitzcarraldo/. Accessed 29 Sep. 2009. 

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL , 2 Aug. 2016, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. Accessed 2 April 2018.

Multiple citations

To cite multiple sources in the same parenthetical reference, separate the citations by a semi-colon:

Time-based media sources

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

When a citation is not needed

Common sense and ethics should determine your need for documenting sources. You do not need to give sources for familiar proverbs, well-known quotations, or common knowledge (For example, it is expected that U.S. citizens know that George Washington was the first President.). Remember that citing sources is a rhetorical task, and, as such, can vary based on your audience. If you’re writing for an expert audience of a scholarly journal, for example, you may need to deal with expectations of what constitutes “common knowledge” that differ from common norms.

Other Sources

The MLA Handbook describes how to cite many different kinds of authors and content creators. However, you may occasionally encounter a source or author category that the handbook does not describe, making the best way to proceed can be unclear.

In these cases, it's typically acceptable to apply the general principles of MLA citation to the new kind of source in a way that's consistent and sensible. A good way to do this is to simply use the standard MLA directions for a type of source that resembles the source you want to cite.

You may also want to investigate whether a third-party organization has provided directions for how to cite this kind of source. For example, Norquest College provides guidelines for citing Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers⁠ —an author category that does not appear in the MLA Handbook . In cases like this, however, it's a good idea to ask your instructor or supervisor whether using third-party citation guidelines might present problems.

The Mechanics of Citation

The following guidelines are loosely based on The Chicago Manual of Style , now in its 17th edition. Any student thinking of going to graduate school in history or any other learned discipline should acquire and use the most recent version of this basic reference work.

A. Citing sources in footnotes B. Quotations C. Bibliographical entries D. Interviews E. How to Cite Internet Sources F. Writing for the Web

A. Citing Sources in Footnotes

Footnote or endnote.

Word processing programs nowadays let you choose footnotes (which appear at the bottom of each page of text) or endnotes (which appear at the end of the paper, after the text). In this guide we will speak of footnotes, but endnotes are equally acceptable.

When to footnote?

A reference showing the source of your information must accompany each important statement of fact, each quotation, each citation of statistics, and every conclusion borrowed from another writer — unless the fact or quotation is so well known as to be universally recognized or accepted. Thus you need not footnote a statement that the American Civil War began in 1861 or that the headwaters of the Mississippi River lie in Minnesota; and while you may wish to quote the exact wording of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, you need not footnote the source as long as you mention that phrase “Fourteenth Amendment” in your text.

When the matter in any paragraph comes from several sources , one footnote may contain all these references. To reduce clutter, it is usually a good idea to collect all the references for the statements in a paragraph into a single footnote at the end of a paragraph.

Why do we use footnotes?

Basically, historians footnote their sources for two reasons. First, footnotes are a way to acknowledge the help we have received from others who have worked on this subject before we began on it. No historian ever works in isolation; scholarly inquiry is an endeavor carried on within a community of historians. This community extends through time — we often learn from the works of writers long dead.

Second, we footnote our sources as a courtesy to our readers. A reader may become interested in an idea you are presenting or in some information you discuss. The reader may wish to learn more about this matter, and your footnotes get him or her started on the investigation.

The proper way to cite books and articles

Single-space your footnotes and number them consecutively; start over with number 1 in a new chapter. Footnotes may appear at the bottom of the page or at the end of your essay on a separate page or pages. A good word processing program such as Microsoft Word can easily format your manuscript either way.

Note the form of the following footnote reference:

1 Adeeb Khalid, Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present , (Princeton University Press, 2021), 261.

The first footnote citation of a work should supply the full name of the author with given name appearing before surname, the exact title as found on the title page (unless it is excessively long), the edition (if later than the first), the city of publication (the name of the publisher is optional), the date of publication, and the pertinent page reference. The title should be underlined or italicized. The citation is a single expression that ends with a period.

Subsequent citations of the same work should be shortened so as to give merely the author’s surname and the key word (or words) of the title:

2 Khalid, Central Asia , 206-08.

The use of ibid . (“in the same place”), op. cit . (“in the work cited”), and other Latin terms is falling out of favor and we no longer recommend their use.

Articles in Journals

Note the form of the following reference:

3 Meredith L. McCoy, “Without Destroying Ourselves: A Century of Native Intellectual Activism for Higher Education,” Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association 10, no. 2 (2023): 128–29.

This citation follows the same general pattern as the earlier citation for a book: author’s full name, title of the article (and note that article titles are placed in quotation marks), title of the journal (underlined or italicized, as with a book title), the volume number, year (month or season is optional), and pages. Again, the entire citation is a single expression that ends with a period.

A subsequent citation:

4 McCoy, “Without Destroying Ourselves,” 128.

Here the form is a hybrid of the last two:

5 Serena R. Zabin, “Intimate Ties and the Boston Massacre,” in Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World , ed. Barbara B. Oberg (University of Virginia Press, 2019), 192-210.

6 Zabin, “Intimate Ties and the Boston Massacre,” 193-204.

Two or more references in a single footnote

In a footnote mentioning two or more authorities, the various items should be connected by semicolons:

7 Rebecca Brückmann, Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation , Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South (The University of Georgia Press, 2021); Antony Adler, “Deep Horizons: Canada’s Underwater Habitat Program and Vertical Dimensions of Marine Sovereignty,” Centaurus 62, no. 4 (2020): 763–82.

Page Citations

Wherever possible, give exact page citations. Occasionally, however, you may wish to indicate generally that your material comes from a particular page and the pages following. Here the abbreviation ff. (not underlined or italicized) should be employed:

8 Khalid, Central Asia , 32ff.

If you wish to indicate that the material is derived from scattered parts of a work, the Latin expression passim (“here and there”) is convenient though not widely used any longer:

9 Khalid, Central Asia , chapters 4-6, passim .

Note: The conventions discussed above are generally employed in history books and journals. The department strongly recommends that you follow these conventions for research papers including comps papers. Historians occasionally follow the conventions of other disciplines in citing sources; if an instructor in a particular history course asks you to use a different set of rules, you should follow his or her instructions.

B. Quotations

When to quote.

There are two main situations when a quotation is appropriate: when you intend to discuss the actual wording of a passage (for example, a section of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address), or when the original writer states an idea much more memorably than you ever could. But there is no need to quote extensively from books and articles by historians. Instead, paraphrase — put the idea in your own words, footnoting the source.

When you quote, remember that all quotations should be plainly so indicated and should be made with scrupulous accuracy. There are two ways to tell your reader that you are quoting another writer. The first is to put the statement inside quotation marks; the second is to format the quoted material as a block quotation:

A block quotation is appropriate only when the quoted material exceeds about sixty words (say five lines). With a block quotation, you don’t use quotation marks; instead, you signal that you are quoting by indenting the passage on both right and left sides and by single-spacing it. (In books and journals you will generally find that block quotations are printed in a smaller typeface too.) Of course you should footnote the quotation.

You may omit words and phrases within a quoted passage provided you don’t distort the sense of the passage. Indicate omissions by three periods or omission marks , separated by spaces, thus . . . ; when the final words of a sentence are omitted, four omission marks are used instead of three. Editorial comment within a quotation should be enclosed in brackets, not parentheses. For example: “For each said district there shall be appointed by the President [of the United States] a provost-marshal, . . . who shall be under the direction and subject of the orders of a provost-marshal-general, . . . whose office shall be at the seat of government. . . .”

Citing Quotations

In the case of quotations, you should always cite the actual work you consulted. If a passage is copied not from the original source but as quoted by some other person, the footnote should follow this form:

10 Letter from Francis Lieber, Columbia, S.C., to Dorothea L. Dix, 5 November 1846, quoted by Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890), 149.

C. Bibliographic Entries

A formal bibliography of all the essential materials you have used comes at the very end of the paper. List works in alphabetical order by author’s last name. If you have quite a number of works (ten or more, perhaps), list them in separate sections for “Primary Sources” and “Secondary Works.” If the number of titles is quite large, you might wish to subdivide the citations further under these main headings: “Manuscripts,” “Pamphlets,” “Public Documents,” “Newspapers and Periodicals,” “Interviews,” etc. Under each subheading, arrange the items alphabetically by author’s last name. Note the form of citation in the following:

Adler, Antony. “Deep Horizons: Canada’s Underwater Habitat Program and Vertical Dimensions of Marine Sovereignty.” Centaurus 62, no. 4 (2020): 763–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12287 .

Brückmann, Rebecca. Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation . Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South. The University of Georgia Press, 2021.

Khalid, Adeeb. “Islam in Central Asia 30 Years after Independence: Debates, Controversies and the Critique of a Critique.” Central Asian Survey 40, no. 4 (2021): 539–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1923458 .

McCoy, Meredith L. “Without Destroying Ourselves: A Century of Native Intellectual Activism for Higher Education.” Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association 10, no. 2 (2023): 128–29. https://doi.org/10.1353/nai.2023.a904195 .

McCoy, Meredith L., and Jeffrey D. Burnette. “An Exploratory Analysis of Elementary and Secondary Education Funding Levels for American Indians and Alaska Natives from 1980 to 2017.” Journal of Education Finance 48, no. 2 (2022): 138–65.

Zabin, Serena R. “Intimate Ties and the Boston Massacre.” In Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World , 192–210. University of Virginia Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvfc56hw.14 .

Unlike the practice in footnotes, last names should appear first. (If the work is anonymous, the first important word of the title determines its place in the alphabetical list.) A bibliographical reference is not a single expression like a footnote; instead, periods or full stops separate author’s name from title and title from publishing information.

The New York Herald , 1868-1878.

The Ohio State Journal (Columbus, Ohio) April 1-20, 1900.

Public Documents

“Certain Illegal Tonnage Duties.” House Report , 48 Cong., 2 Sess., no. 457 (March 10, 1880), 1-16.

Malloy, William M. (comp.). Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776-1909 . 2 vols.: Washington: U.S. Gov’t Printing Office, 1910-1938.

[In the above citation, “comp.” stands for “compiler.”]

Manuscripts

References to unprinted material obviously can follow no rigid form, but in every case should include the name of the author (when ascertainable), the number of volumes if more than one, the inclusive dates, and the place of deposit. Do not underline the titles of manuscripts and manuscript collections. Example:

Boston Committee of Correspondence. Minutes of the Committee of Correspondence, November, 1772-December, 1774. 13 vols. mostly in the handwriting of William Cooper. George Bancroft Collection, New York Public Library.

D. Interviews

Furman, Seymour. Telephone interview with author, January 12, 1992.

Jackson, Henry M. Interview, February 5, 1968. Oral History Collection, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

Zoll, Paul M. Interview with author, February 5, 1990, Boston, Mass.

E. How to Cite Internet Sources

Humanities style.

To cite online works, give the author’s name, last name first (if known); the full title of the work, in quotation marks; the title of the complete work (if applicable), in italics; any version or file numbers; and the date of the document or last revision (if available). Next, list the protocol (e.g., “http”) and the full URL, followed by the date of access in parentheses.

Amy Hollywood, “Spiritual but Not Religious: The Vital Interplay between Submission and Freedom,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin , Winter/Spring 2010, https://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/winterspring2010/spiritual-not-religious. (Accessed April 10, 2019)

F. Writing for the Web

Carleton’s Web Services Group offers tips on writing for online readers .

Research Guides

Gould library, history research guide.

• Definitions & Background
• Citing Old Newspaper Articles (Readex)
• Citing an old newspaper (Gale)
• Citing Old Pamphlets / Broadsides
• Citing Rare Books
• Visit Carleton Archives & Special Collections
• How to find a relevant archive
• Finding Rare Books
• Digitized Archival Material
• Regional MN Archives
• Primary Sources
• East Asian primary sources
• South Asian primary sources
• Partition (1947)
• Secondary Sources
• EU Government Information
• 1918 Flu Pandemic
• Reference and Context
• Secondary & US Gov Sources
• Indigenous People and Minnesota
• Maritime History
• Historical US Government Documents
• Carleton's History

Citations for Historians

• Carleton History Department Mechanics of Citation The Carleton History department guidelines are based on The Chicago Manual of Style, now in its 17th edition.

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Chicago Quick Guide: Notes & Bibliography!

• Chicago Manual of Style: Annotated bibliography example Remember that your annotated bibliographies are not simply lists. They are creative, rhetorical devices that map out the scholarly conversation on a topic.
• How to Cite Your Sources by Research/IT Desk Last Updated Oct 7, 2024 41541 views this year

Archival material & FAQ

• General Rules for Citing Archival Material (14.119: Overview and additional resources)

Elements to include ( Rule )

Footnotes: format ( rule ,  examples ), bibliography: format ( rule & examples ), frequently asked difficult questions.

• Citing republished/bound primary sources (14.160: Citations taken from secondary sources) When possible, always find and cite the original. If this is absolutely impossible, you may need to cite a primary source that is republished in a secondary source.
• On anonymous works (13.81: No listed author (anonymous works)) Guidance about when to use "Anonymous", and when to put in an inferred author's name.
• See for more info: Citing Records in the National Archives of the United States Need more examples or helpful information? The Chicago Manual of Style also recommends looking at this "pamphlet" produced by the National Archives on citing archival material.
• Include a URL, but don't do full "website" format (13.6: Uniform resource locators (URLs)) If it's a letter that was digitized and put online, cite it as a letter with a URL at the end; don't cite it like a website just because it's online. Don't include a URL for a finding aid; just for a digitized version of the item itself.
• Messy database URL? Just include the database name (14.72: URLs for journal articles) For databases that don't have short URLs for articles, just include the database name in place of the URL.
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Guide to Citing Primary Sources

Citing manuscripts, citing images.

• Course guides
• Guide from the Library of Congress Helpful guide to citing various textual and visual materials with examples of maps, photographs, entire websites, etc.

Cite sources correctly and thoroughly in order to credit the original records creators and to lead other scholars to the materials. Proper citation should lead your readers directly and unambiguously to the sources you have consulted.

The crucial points to cover in your citation should include the following:

• Author or creator's name
• Title of the work
• Publication information
• Collection name
• Box and folder
• Repository (archive that houses the material)

Remeber that your citation should include as much identifying information as possible. Start with the most specific detail--the item title or description--and end with the broadest piece of information--the name of the respository.

Here's an example of a citation of a speech from one of our collections :

Abbott, Edith, " Excerpts of Address at National Women's Trade Union League Nebraska," 1934.    Abbott, Edith and Grace. Papers, [Box 24, Folder 13], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. 

1. Image scanned from a book reproduced in a paper: 

Fig. 1. Palermo Exhibiton. February 6-March 1 1968, archive of Galerie Konrad Fischer, Dusseldorf. From: Blinky Palermo: Abstraction of an Era. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Figure 41.

 2. Image downloaded from ARTstor reproduced in a paper: 

Fig. 2. Frank Lloyd Wright, Frederick C. Robie House. 1906-1909, Architectural Model, 23.2 x 125.3 x 54.3 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, Architecture and Design Collection, New York, New York. Available from: ARTstor, http://www.artstor.org (accessed September 18, 2012).

3. Image downloaded from museum website reproduced in a paper:

Fig. 3. Caravaggio, The Denial of Saint Peter. Early 15th century. Oil on canvas, 94 x 125.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org (accessed September 20, 2012)

4. Image downloaded from Flickr Commons reproduced in a paper:

Fig. 4. Thomas Eakins, William Rudolf O'Donovan. 1981, Black and white photographic print, 6 x 8 cm. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Available from: Flickr Commons, http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2547841439 (accessed September 19, 2012).

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• Subjects: History , Humanities , Social Sciences
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• Referencing
• In-text Referencing

How to create an in-text reference

Whenever you use a direct or indirect quote in a sentence, you need to indicate what source the information came from. You do this with in-text referencing.

The APA System’s in-text referencing requires three elements, each separated by a comma:

the creator's surname

the year of publication/creation

the page number in the source (if there is one)

For example:

(Stanner, 1977, 24)

Watch a video explanation on the History Skills YouTube channel:

Rules About In-text Referencing

• Appears at the end of the sentence where a direct or an indirect quote has been used, just before the full-stop
• Must be placed in circular brackets “( )”.
• If you state the creator’s surname in the sentence, it can be left out of the in-text reference.

The Cathars were a heretical religious sect that was ultimately misunderstood and persecuted by the political establishment of the day (Stanner, 1977, 24).

• The three elements (surname, year, page) must match the bibliographical reference for the source as it appears in your bibliography .
• If there is not a page number in your source (like on many webpages), simply place "n.p." instead of the number (which is an abbreviation for "no page").

If you use multiple quotes from the same source in the same sentence, the in-text only needs to appear once.

If you use multiple direct quotes from different sources in the same sentence, the in-text references for each source need to appear after each direct quote.

The Cathars were a "seditious political entity" (Stanner, 1977, 24) that caused continual "rebellious uprisings in southern France" (Lombard, 1997, 45).

If you use multiple indirect quotes from different sources in the same sentence, the in-text references for each source need to appear together in the in-text reference at the end of the sentence, with each source being separated by a semi-colon.

The Cathars were a heretical religious sect that was ultimately misunderstood and persecuted by the political establishment of the day (Stanner, 1977, 24; Lombard, 1997, 45).

Referencing Ancient Sources

When studying Ancient History, in-text referencing ancient authors is slightly different.

  Rather than the rules set out above, all you need to provide in the brackets are:

• the author's name
• the name of their work
• the book number in Roman numerals
• the paragraph number in normal numerals.

Herodotus reports that the Persians were ill prepared for the battle ahead (Herodotus, Histories , VII.24).

Referencing Appendices

If you are providing evidence from a source that is not written, you need to provide an image of the source for the reader to see.

The easiest way to do this is to use appendices . In the text of your essay, simply state the appendix number that the image can be found in.

The tomb itself was decorated in an opulent fashion in order to display his political influence, even after Akhenaten's death  (Appendix 2).

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