Formatting and Sample Paper
The formatting guidelines listed on this page, provide general best practices for formatting your work using the Chicago style. Detailed information about formatting your title page, using quotes and signal phrases, and creating a bibliography, can be found by navigating to various sub-pages of this "Formatting Your Paper" page.
Learning how to correctly format your research paper into Chicago style can seem overwhelming, especially if the style is new to you. One of the best ways to help visualize what your paper needs to look like is by checking out an example of a paper that has already been formatted correctly.
View this sample Chicago style research paper (notes and bibliography/humanities system) from Purdue OWL for examples on how to format:
For a sample paper in the Chicago author/date style, visit the "Author/Date (Scientific) System" page in this guide.
Paragraphs
The first line of all new paragraphs should begin with an indent. You can use either the tab key or your word processor's indentation tool to make your indentations–just be sure to be consistent and use the same process throughout your paper.
Spacing
Your paper should be double spaced throughout its main body, with the following exceptions:
Entries in the bibliography and footnotes/endnotes are single spaced within entries, but double-spaced between entries (unless your instructor prefers double-spacing throughout).
Notes
To insert a footnote in a Microsoft Word document:
Some instructors may ask you to use endnotes, instead of footnotes. For information on inserting endnotes, see the Microsoft Office Tutorial.