The Chicago Manual of Style presents two basic documentation systems, the Humanities style (notes and bibliography) and the Author-Date system. Choosing between the two often depends on subject matter and nature of sources cited, as each system is favored by different groups of scholars.

The Humanities style is preferred by many in literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in notes and, often, a bibliography. It accommodates a variety of sources, including esoteric ones less appropriate to the author-date system.The dropdown page provides some common examples of materials cited in the Humanities style. 

The more concise Author-Date system is used in the physical, natural, and social sciences. We won't cover it here, but you can find information in the online Chicago Style guide, should you need it. 

Online sources that are analogous to print sources (such as articles published in online journals, magazines, or newspapers) should be cited similarly to their print counterparts but with the addition of a URL. Some publishers or disciplines may also require an access date. For online or other electronic sources that do not have a direct print counterpart (such as an institutional Web site or a Weblog), give as much information as you can in addition to the URL.

The Chicago and Turabian styles are nearly identical.

"Turabian" (named after its author), synthesizes the rules most important for students' papers and other scholarly research not intended for publication, and omits some of the publishing details and options that "Chicago" provides. 

Additional information on Chicago/Turabian style may be found at these websites:

The library has several Chicago and Turabian handbooks available in print:

When adding a title that is in a foreign languge, follow these basic rules regardless of citation style:

For German, capitalize the first word and all nouns.

For French, capitalize THROUGH the first noun in the title.

For Italian and other languages, capitalize just the first word.

(NOTE: Always capitalize all proper nouns.)