history essays footnotes

Handbook for Historians

• Choosing a Paper Topic
• Thesis Statement
• What Sources Can I use?
• Gathering sources
• Find Primary Sources
• Paraphrasing and Quoting Sources
• How to create an Annotated Bibliography
• Formatting Endnotes/Footnotes

Documenting your Sources

Endnote/footnote references: books, endnote/footnote references: journal articles, endnote/footnote references: websites, endnote/footnote references: other sources.

• Formatting Bibliographies
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Sample Papers
• Research Paper Checklist

If the source you wish to cite differs from all of the models given here, please consult Chicago Style Citation Quick Guide . If none of those seem to fit, ask your professor or the History Librarian.

DOCUMENTATION: FOOTNOTES/ENDNOTES

The History Department requires that papers contain endnotes or footnotes for proper documentation. Chicago style, as found in the Chicago Manual of Style is mandatory; the choice between footnotes and endnotes may vary from one professor to another. MLA, APA, and AMA documentation is unacceptable for use in History papers.

The examples on this page provide models for use in your own paper. Please note that the first reference to a book or periodical is very detailed; the second and all subsequent references to the same book or periodical are very brief. If none of those seem to fit, ask your own professor, the history librarian, or consult the Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html .

PRO TIP : When formatting endnotes/footnotes in Chicago style think of the note as a sentence! The elements of the sentence are separated by commas, not periods, like in the bibliography. Also, in a sentence, you'd never refer to an author last name first, right?

Example: Citing a book

John Sullivan , Why I Wrote this Book (London: Oxford University Press, 2010), 185.

Bibliography:

Sullivan, John . Why I Wrote this Book. London: Oxford University Press. 2010.

A. A Book by a Single Author.

Author, first name first, Title (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

1 Douglas R. Egerton, Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 123.

2 Barbara J. Blaszak, The Matriarchs of England's Cooperative Movement: A Study in Gender Politics and Female Leadership, 1883-1921 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000), 63.

After you provide a full citation for a given source, such as seen in notes 1 & 2, you only need to provide the author’s last name, a portion of the book’s title, and page number for all subsequent citations from that same work.

3 Blaszak, Matriarchs , 64.

4 Egerton, Death or Liberty , 14.

NOTE: For all types of books, if more than one city of publication is listed, you need only cite the first city that is listed.

B. Books by Two, Three or Four Authors.

Authors, first name first, Title (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

5 Edward H. Judge and John W. Langdon, A Hard and Bitter Peace: A Global History of the Cold War (New York: Prentice Hall, 1996), 168.

6 Judge and Langdon, Hard and Bitter Peace , 314.

7 Joseph P. Sánchez, Bruce A. Erickson, and Jerry L. Gurulé, Between Two Countries: A History of Coronado National Memorial, 1939-1990 (Los Ranchos de Albuquerque: Rio Grande Books, 2007), 54.

8 Sánchez, Erickson, and Gurulé, Between Two Countries , 119.

NOTE: If a Book has more than Four authors, list the first author, followed by et al.

9 Smith, John et al., Red Dawn (New York: Prentice Hall, 1996), 155.

C. Books by Corporate Authors.

Author, Title , edition (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

10 American Historical Association Institutional Services Program, The Introductory History Course: Six Models , 2nd ed. (Washington: American Historical Association, 1984), 67.

11 American Historical Association, Introductory History Course , 33.

D. Edited Books/Parts of Collections of Writings by Different Authors .

Author(s), first name first, “Title of article,” in Title , ed(s). Name of editor(s) (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

12 Robert Scully, "Saint Winefride's Well: The Significance and Survival of a Welsh Catholic Shrine from the Early Middle Ages to the Present Day," in Saints and Their Cults in the Atlantic World , ed. Margaret Cormack (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 132.

13 Scully, “Saint Winefride’s Well,” 134.

D2. Edited Books (no other author) .

Author, first name first, ed., Title (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

14 Jack Beatty, ed., Colossus: How the Corporation Changed America (New York: Broadway Books, 2001), 127.

15 Beatty, Colossus , 129.

E. Multivolume Books with a Single Title by a Single Author.

Author, first name first, Title , volumes (City of Publication: Publisher, year), volume number:page number.

16 William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution , 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1935), 1:26.

17 Chamberlin, Russian Revolution , 2:318.

NOTE: The number preceding the colon is the number of the volume.

F. Multivolume Books by a Single Author with a Separate Title for Each Volume.

Author, first name first, Title , Volume number of Series title , Number of volumes. (City of Publication: Publisher, Year), volume number:page number.

18 Pierre Viansson-Ponté, Le temps des orphelins , Vol. 2 of Histoire de la République Gaullienne , 2 vols. (Paris: Fayard, 1976), 2:199.

19 Viansson-Ponté, Le temps , 2:227.

G. Multivolume Books with a Different Author and Title for Each Volume.

Author, first name first, Title , Volume number of editor’s name, ed. Series Title , Number of volumes (City of Publication: Publisher, Year), volume number:page number.

20 Lewis B. Spitz, The Protestant Reformation , Vol. 3 of William L. Langer, ed. The Rise of Modern Europe , 20 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), 3:189.

21 Spitz, The Protestant Reformation , 3:176.

H. Two or More Parts of a Collection of Writings by Different Authors. (Use this format if you are citing from several different sections of a multi-author book.)

Author, first name first, “Article’s title,” in Title , ed. Editor’s name (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

22 Martin Hinterberger, “Emotions in Byzantium,” in A Companion to Byzantium , ed. Liz James (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 127.

23 Hinterberger, “Emotions,” 129.

For subsequent citations from the same book, but from a different author, use a shortened version of the collected work.

24 Andrew Louth, “Christology and Heresy,” in James, Companion to Byzantium , 189.

25 Louth, “Christology,” 190.

I. Books With More than One Edition.

See Section C above. Second and subsequent references omit the number of the edition.

Author, first name first, Title , trans. Translator’s name (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

26 Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions , trans. Marian Jackson (New York: Norton, 1975), 271.

27 Fischer, War , 344.

K. A Letter (or diary entry, memo, etc.) in a published collection. (If it is a letter, you do not need to specify that, but another type of document should be specified.)

Name of sender and recipient, date, in Title , ed. Editor’s name (City of Publication: publisher, year), page number.

28 Henry Adams to Charles Milnes Gaskell, 22 September 1867, in Letters of Henry Adams, 1858-1891 , ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), 133-34.

29 Ford, Letters , 136.

30 Berchtold to Tisza, telegram, 8 July 1914, in July 1914: The Outbreak of the First World War , ed. Imanuel Geiss (New York: Norton, 1974), 102.

31 Geiss, July 1914 , 103.

32 Ronald Reagan, The “Evil Empire” Speech, 1983, in Speeches in World History , ed. Suzanne McIntire (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 496.

33 Reagan, Speeches , 497.

L. A Primary Source Quoted by a Second Source.

Note: It is preferable that the original source is consulted and cited on its own, but if the original source cannot be obtained, use this format.

Author of original source, first name first, Title (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number, quoted in Author of secondary source, first name first, Title (City of Publication: Publisher, year), page number.

34 Hastings Ismay, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay (New York: Viking, 1960), 199, quoted in James Holland, The Battle of Britain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010), 476.

35 Ismay, The Memoirs , 210, quoted in Holland, The Battle , 480.

M. Books published electronically.

Note: Cite the book as you would normally, but include the online format that you used, i.e., Kindle, Nook, pdf. If you accessed the book online (such as in Google Books or through an e-book in the library), include the date accessed and the URL. If your E-book does not provide page numbers, you should include the section title or chapter number instead.

36 Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 167, accessed 21 May 2009, http://escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft7n39p1dn;query=;brand=ucpress .

37 Kayali, Arabs , 186.

38 Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), 35, Kindle edition.

N. Articles in Print Journals.

Author, first name first, “Article title,” Journal Title Volume number: Issue number (Year): page number.

39 Yamin Xu, “Policing Civility on the Streets: Encounter with Litterbugs, ‘Nightsoil Lords,’ and Street Corner Urinators in Republican Beijing,” Twentieth-Century China 30:2 (2005): 45.

NOTE : 30:2 signifies volume 30 and issue number 2.

40 Xu, “Policing Civility,” 48.

NOTE : If a work has four authors or more , cite the first author's name followed by et al in the notes.

In the bibliography, cite all the authors names. DO THIS FOR BOOKS AND ARTICLES

41 John Smith, et al., "Red Empire Nation," Journal of American History 30:2 (2005): 55.

A Word about CITING ELECTRONIC SOURCES

Citations of electronic resources are different from citations for published sources. The following elements must be included:

• Electronic full-text Journal articles and E-Books from the library’s databases, though they are accessed online, are regarded as published sources. Citations for these must contain full documentation of the publication as well as electronic access information.
• Subscription databases, such as JSTOR or Proquest , must be accessed through a subscribing library or other institution.
• Because material on the internet can change without notice, the last date on which the material was accessed is part of the citation.
• The web address, or URL, is a required part of the citation. Most databases will include a stable URL, a permalink, or a DOI (digital object identifier) that you should use.

Proper citation formats, with examples, are shown below:

O. Articles from Online Journal.

Note: Many online publications use a DOI (digital object identifier) to create a persistent link to the article’s information. If no DOI is available, use the URL and the date accessed.)

Author, first name first, “Title of article,” Title of Journal or Website Volume:Issue Number (Year): page number (if specified), Date accessed, URL.

42 Douglas R. Egerton, “The Material Culture of Slave Resistance,” History Now: American History Online 2 (December 2004), accessed 20 June 2011, www.historynow.org/12_2004/historian2.html.

43 Egerton, “The Material Culture.”

44 Timothy S. Heubner, “Roger B. Taney and the Slavery Issue: Looking Beyond –and before- Dred Scott,” The Journal of American History 97:1 (2010): 17, doi: 10.2307/jahist/97.1.17.

45 Heubner, “Roger B. Taney,” 18.

P. Full-text newspaper articles

Author, first name first, “Title of Article,” Title of Newspaper, Date of newspaper article, page number (if available), Date accessed, URL.

46 Juan Forero, “Turbulent Bolivia Is Producing More Cocaine, the U.N. Reports,” New York Times on the Web, 15 June 2005, accessed 16 June 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/international/americas/15coca.html.

For subsequent citations of this source cite the author’s last name and part of title.

Note: For regular print editions, omit date accessed and URL.

Q. Articles/Newspapers retrieved from a Database.

Note: Include all journal information and provide database name and a permanent link to the article from the database.

Format with url (seen in articles retrieved from ProQuest databases):

Author, first name first, “Title of Article,” Journal Title Volume:Issue Number (year): page number, Database name, url.

47 Robert Zens, “In the Name of the Sultan: Haci Mustapha, Pasha of Belgrade and Ottoman Provincial Rule in the Late 18th Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44:1 (2012): 132, ProQuest Central, http://0-search.proquest.com.library.lemoyne.edu/docview/1531929597/4F00F029CDF14BBBPQ/16?accountid=27881

48 Zens, “In the Name of the Sultan,” 134.

Format with permalink (seen in articles retrieved from Ebsco databases):

Author, first name first, “Title of Article,” Journal Title Volume:Issue number (year): page number, Database name, Permanent link.

49 Barbara Blaszak, “Martha Jane Bury (1851-1913): A Case of Class Identity,” Labour History Review 67:2 (2002): 131, Historical Abstracts, http://0-search.ebscohost.com.library.lemoyne.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hia&AN=9502395&site=ehost-live

50 Blaszak, “Martha Jane Bury,” 132.

Format with stable url link: (seen in articles retrieved from the JSTOR database)

51 Stephen Tisza and Hamilton Fish Armstrong, “A Letter of Count Tisza’s,” Foreign Affairs 6:3 (1928): 503, JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/20028631.

52 Tisza and Armstrong, “Letter,” 504.

Format for Newspaper with Permanent URL link:

Author, first name first (leave blank if no author), “Article Title,” Publication Title, Date, Database name, Permanent link.

53 “General Discussion of the Contest,” New York Times (1857-1922), 22 May 1861, ProQuest Historical Newspapers, http://0-proquest.umi.com.library.lemoyne.edu/pqdweb?did=78657656&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=1518&RQT=309&VName=HNP.

Web-based sources should be used sparingly and very carefully. Students must have all sources, Internet or otherwise, approved by the instructor before they are used.

R. Primary source documents found online. (Use this format when using approved websites containing primary source material.) Include as many of the following elements as are available. Include page numbers when appropriate before the URL.

Author of original document, first name first, “Title of document,” Date of document, Title of Web Site where document is found, Author, Editor, or Producer of site, accessed date, URL.

54 Sydney Smith, “Fallacies of Anti-Reformers,” 1824, Internet Modern History Sourcebook , Paul Halsall, ed., accessed 22 June 2011, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/smithantireform.html.

55 Smith, “Fallacies of Anti-Reformers.”

56 Thorstein Veblen, “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” 1899, Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Paul Halsall, ed., accessed 22 June 2011, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1899veblen.html.

57 Veblen, “Theory of the Leisure Class.”

Example (no author given):

58 “Codex Justinianus: Protection of Freewomen Married to Servile Husbands,” 530 A.D., Internet Medieval Source Book , Paul Halsall, ed., accessed 25 February 2002, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/codexVIl-24-i.html.

59 “Codex Justinianus.”

Note: Many print primary sources are reproduced in digital format on various websites, such at the ones above. Most sites should give original publication information, but if not, you can try to locate original source information by searching online (try google books or worldcat.org). When possible, cite your sources according to the appropriate print format, and include the date accessed and the URL. For example, Veblen’s book The Theory of the Leisure Class can now be found in Google Books and would be cited similar to section M as follows:

60 Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Instituions, London: Macmillan & Co., 1912, accessed 22 June 2011, http://books.google.com/books?id=2kAoAAAAYAAJ&dq=inauthor%3A%22Thorstein%20Veblen%22&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false.

S. Other Approved Websites. (Include as much information as available.)

Author of webpage, “Title of Webpage,” Title of entire website , Publication Date, accessed Date, URL.

61 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, “May Day: On the Current Conditions of the Palestinian Working Class,” Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine , 21 May 2009, accessed 13 April 2010, http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=may-day-current-conditions-struggle-palestinian-wo.

62 Popular Front, "May Day".

T. Book Reviews.

Book Review found in a journal:

Author of review, “Title of Review,” (if available) review of Title of Book, by Author of book, Title of Journal Volume: Issue (year), page, url.

63 Audrey Elisa Kerr, “Everybody’s Oprah,” review of Embracing Sisterhood: Class Identity and Contemporary Black Women, by Katrina Bell McDonald, The Women’s Review of Books 26:2 (2009), 31, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20476833

64  Kerr, “Everybody’s Oprah.”

Book Review found on a website:

Author, “Title of Review” (if available) review of Title of Book, by Reviewer Name, Website where review appeared, date, URL.

65  David Ponton, III, review of Spatializing Blackness: Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago, by Rashad Shabazz, H-Net Online, June 2016, https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=46538.

66  Ponton, III, review of Spatializing Blackness.

U. Audio/Visual Materials (films, photographs, images, etc.)

Note: In most cases, visual sources are not acceptable; however some primary sources, such as the Watergate trials or Nazi propaganda, are appropriate and must be cited correctly. All sources must be approved by your instructor. The Library of Congress has an excellent set of example citations that you should consult.

General Format:

Author (or Creator) of image or video, “Title,” format, date, source , accessed date, URL.

Example: (primary video accessed from library)

67  The WPA Film Library, “Nazi Anti-Semitic Propaganda,” video, 1939, Films on Demand , accessed 14 September 2014, http://library.lemoyne.edu/record=b1418786

Example: (speech/video found online)

68  Harry S. Truman, “Speech after Hiroshima Bombing,” video, August 6, 1945, Critical Past, accessed 13 August 2016, https://youtu.be/e3Ib4wTq0jY

• << Previous: How to create an Annotated Bibliography
• Next: Formatting Bibliographies >>
• Last Updated: Apr 15, 2024 10:08 AM
• URL: https://resources.library.lemoyne.edu/guides/history/handbook

• Skip to search box
• Skip to main content

Princeton University Library

Footnotes made easy, why footnotes, where to start, where to get more help, automate the process with reference managers.

• Secondary sources
• Primary sources
• Frequently-asked questions
• Using Zotero at Princeton This link opens in a new window

Librarian for History and African American Studies

The footnotes and bibliography in any scholarly work have two purposes:

• to acknowledge the author's debt to the work of others
• to enable the reader to locate the sources consulted by the author

To do that, your footnotes and bibliography need to include complete and accurate information about your sources, arranged in a consistent way that does not confuse your reader. At this point in your research, you will all have encountered unhelpful footnotes with mysterious abbreviations, incorrect information, or other problems. 

There are many ways to arrange the information. This is called "style" and there are several common styles in use. Historians generally prefer the style defined by The Chicago Manual of Style , now in its 16th edition. You may have been asked to use other styles for courses in other departments, for example MLA or APA. Always check with your reader to find out if he/she cares about which style you use. When you write for publication, the publisher or journal editor will tell you which style they want you to use.

Why does it matter? Correct style will make things easier for your reader. And you want the reader to think about your ideas, not the messy punctuation at the bottom of the page.

History department guidelines:

• JP Guidelines  
• Thesis Guidelines

The Chicago Manual of Style Online

Chicago Manual of Style (print edition)

• Marquand Library - Reference: Z253 .U69 2017
• Stokes Library (SPIA): Writing Shelf. Z253 .U69 2017
• retrieve print copy from ReCAP

An overview and summary of Chicago style is found at Purdue OWL Research and Citation Resources

• Chicago Manual of Style citations PowerPoint PowerPoint that explains citations according to Chicago Manual of Style
• Citation Generator For certain sources, this website can help formulate citations
• Using Zotero at Princeton Zotero is software that can help organize your references and prepare citations and bibliographies

Need more help? Ask!

• Writing Center
• History Writing Group, led by the undergraduate writing advisor
• your advisor

These products allow you to store your references in a database, then automatically generate citations and bibliographies.

Zotero  (see the library's Guide to using Zotero )

And there are others as well

• Next: Secondary sources >>
• Last Updated: Dec 19, 2023 1:33 PM
• URL: https://libguides.princeton.edu/history/footnotes

ORDER YOUR PAPER

15% off today

from a verified trusted writer

The Secrets of Doing Footnotes for History Paper

It's thought that styling and formatting rules depend on the formatting style that's used, but it's only partly true. The discipline also defines the rules. For example, when you write a biology report, you shouldn't consider how to include this or that table in your paper, format equations, and so on. At the same time, working on an essay in humanities implies that you know how to include quotations properly. If you're assigned to write a history paper, be ready to face a unique set of demands. History departments in colleges and universities often require students to include footnotes and endnotes in their papers, so be ready to face this requirement.

Note: The information below was taken from the Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition because this style is most widely used in history papers. If your teacher required you to use another formatting guide (MLA, APA), note that the rules will differ, and you may need additional information.

Footnotes VS. Endnotes

Footnotes are necessary for an academic paper because they are the means of citing. It's a number inserted into the text that directs the reader's attention to another location in the paper where they can find more information about what they've just read. In history papers, footnotes serve as a way to cite sources, and the note is usually a bibliographic entry that details the source material for a quote or idea. However, these notes can also be used to expand on ideas in your paper.

Ok, but what's the difference between foot- and endnotes? The first ones are usually placed at the bottom of a page, whereas the latter is placed in a separate section at the very end of your paper. History teachers opt for using footnotes because it's more convenient for readers. They don't need to open the end of the paper again and again to check the note. This option is suitable only if the number of notes isn't huge and they won't take half of the page. Anyway, you can contact your professor and get a consultation on what notes you should use. It's better to ask a question in advance than to get a poor grade and rewrite the paper. The information we'll discuss below will relate mainly to footnotes, but it also applies to endnotes.

What Is Included in Footnote?

Bibliographic citation.

By far, the most common type of information provided in a footnote will be citations - information about the sources you use in your text. The number of citations in history papers is huge, so each time you refer to a paper done by others, it should be added in a footnote. The right note is the one containing all the necessary information a reader needs to find the source.

What information should be cited: It's hard enough to choose what to cite. On one side of this spectrum, you've got direct quotations-material typed word-for-word from the source text-that should always list the source. On the other hand, you have your own personal arguments and ideas; obviously, these won't have any source. Then you have everything else in between. Often it can be difficult to find the line of demarcation between the source of information and your own ideas. Moreover, a fact or idea can be considered common enough to skip the footnote. When you're in this gray area, it's a matter of personal discretion, but there are a few guidelines that can help:

• Direct quotes. Material that is copied word for word from another source should always include a citation. Note that direct quotations should be used sparingly. Unless the writer's language is of interest or you feel they expressed an idea in a way that you can't paraphrase, it's better to summarize it.
• Paraphrasing. If you're paraphrasing someone else's ideas, you're not quoting word-for-word, but you're restating an original idea that came from another person's work-then you need to cite it.
• Controversial ideas. If it's difficult to identify the source of your idea and it can be considered controversial, you must cite it.
• General knowledge. General facts (for example, dates and names) don't require citations. Likewise, the citation isn't necessary if it's possible to find them in any book or website.
• Everything else. If you're unsure, it's always better to play it safe and provide a citation. Remember, anything that doesn't have a citation you're taking credit for will be better off if your paper has too many citations than if it looks like you're intentionally plagiarizing somebody else's work.

Footnotes can also include additional information about a certain source. If you want to tell your readers a description of the book's or paper's background, you can add it to your footnote. It's not obligatory, and it should be used only when necessary to answer potential questions the reader might have that would lead them to question your work.

You can use footnotes to add some additional information relevant to the issue you're describing. Let's imagine that your paper is devoted to any historical figure. If you consider a fact, story, or even anecdote useful for your readers or even your research, don't hesitate to include it in a footnote. It's a perfect place to include details that can't be added to the text but are still necessary. Remember that this technique is good only if you don't overdo it. Please, think twice before adding this kind of paragraph to your paper.

The Secrets of Using Footnotes

Footnotes should be marked in the paper with a superscript number like this.1 The corresponding notes should be numbered at the bottom of each page under a line separating them from the main text.

1 Footnote one.

Footnotes should always be placed at the end of a sentence, never in the middle, and should come after the sentence's ending punctuation.

Jefferson was unable to complete the requirements of the will due to legal complications 1, but he never commented on the matter directly.

Jefferson was unable to complete the requirements of the will due to legal complications, but he never commented on the matter directly.

Adams claimed the affair to be "an injustice of the most heinous sort.

More than one footnote should never be included side-by-side. If you must include a few sources, include them all to one and the same note, avoid using multiple footnotes. In fact, it's often a good idea to cite several sources, particularly when writing on a controversial topic: the more evidence you can provide for your argument, the more credible your paper will be.

Jefferson never publicly acknowledged the paternity of his children with Hemings, and they were only freed after his death

2 Source 1., 3 Source 2.

Jefferson never publicly acknowledged the paternity of his children with Hemings, and they were only freed after his death.

The Difference Between 2 Source 1 and Source 2.

Citing one and the same source several times is allowed, but you'd better put one footnote at the end of the paragraph. Sometimes it's required to use a shortened bibliographic entry for this purpose. Ibi abbreviation must be used for citing one and the same research paper, book, or another source in two footnotes in succession. Here is a reference for you to understand how should it look:

3 Tracy Olleps, "Jefferson and Adams: A Political Friendship," Journal of American History 59, no. 2 (2001), 59.

4 ibid, 37.

5 Alice Brown-Hilt, Master of Monticello: The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Knopf, 2006), 119.

6 Olleps, Jefferson and Adams, 351.

Citation style

Below are the rules of formatting common sources for footnotes citing.

One author book (print)

1 Alice Brown-Hilt, Master of Monticello: The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Knopf, 2006), 119.

Book with more than one author (print)

2 Michael Holmes and Samantha S. White, Jefferson and France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 263.

Journal article (print)

Newspaper or magazine article (print).

4 Stuart Meijck, "Can Jefferson's Image Be Restored?," New York Times, 12 June 1993, A4.

One author book (online)

5 Alice Brown-Hilt, Master of Monticello: The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Knopf, 2006), 119. http://www.universitylibrary.edu/history/2165 (accessed 26 Aug 2011).

Journal article (online)

6 Tracy Olleps, "Jefferson and Adams: A Political Friendship," Journal of American History 59, no. 2 (2001), par. 4, http://www.JAH.org/59-2/Jefferson (accessed 24 Feb 2010).

Website (original content)

7 Juliet Ethelmann, "Who Was Thomas Jefferson?," Society of Jefferson Scholars, http://www.SJS.com/mainsite/Jefferson (accessed 12 Jan 2011).

Remember that your paper must have a bibliography page: this section is usually located at the very end of your paper and serves for enumeration of all the sources you cited in footnotes. These references will look slightly different: page numbers aren't included, and the order of names is changed. For example:

Brown-Hilt, Alice. Master of Monticello: The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Knopf, 2006.

The list should be alphabetized by the author's last name.

Our TOP writers

Master's in Project Management, PMP, Six Sigma

7778 written pages

700 a+ papers

My Master’s degree and comprehensive writing experience allow me to complete any order fast and hit the nail on the head every time.

MBA, PMP, ITIL

1525 written pages

448 a+ papers

I am experienced writer with an MBA, PMP, ITIL, that consistently delivers unique, quality papers. I take pride in my experience and quickness.

MS in Human Resource Management

1696 written pages

505 a+ papers

I hold a MS degree in Human Resource and my goal is to help students with flawless, unique papers, delivered on time.

RN, MSN, PCN, PHN

5392 written pages

540 a+ papers

As Registered Nurse (RN, PCN), I can quickly deal with any medical paper. My expertise and writing skills are perfect for this job.

6863 written pages

2288 orders

2219 a+ papers

I have MPA, MHA degrees but, most importantly, experience and skills to provide unique, well-written papers on time.

DNP, BA, APN, PMHNP-BC

1886 written pages

275 a+ papers

I can write about multiple areas and countless topics, as I have a DNP and BA degrees. High-quality writing is my second name.

PhD in American History

22186 written pages

2466 orders

2244 a+ papers

A PhD in American history comes handy. Unique papers, any topics, swift delivery — helping with academic writing is my passion.

MA, PsyD, LMFT

3919 written pages

470 a+ papers

Incredibly fast PsyD writer. Efficient paper writing for college. Hundreds of different tasks finished. Satisfaction guaranteed.

MEd, NCC, LPC, LMFT

518 written pages

122 a+ papers

Top-ranked writer with tons of experience. Ready to take on any task, and make it unique, as well as objectively good. Always ready!

MSW, LICSWA, DSW-C

15951 written pages

2660 orders

2580 a+ papers

Experienced Social Work expert focused on good writing, total uniqueness, and customer satisfaction. My goal — to help YOU.

• Stats & Feedback

Have your tasks done by our professionals to get the best possible results.

NO Billing information is kept with us. You pay through secure and verified payment systems.

All papers we provide are of the highest quality with a well-researched material, proper format and citation style.

Our 24/7 Support team is available to assist you at any time. You also can communicate with your writer during the whole process.

You are the single owner of the completed order. We DO NOT resell any papers written by our expert

All orders are done from scratch following your instructions. Also, papers are reviewed for plagiarism and grammar mistakes.

You can check the quality of our work by looking at various paper examples in the Samples section on our website.

Didn’t expect to receive my research paper so fast, but you guys have impressed me. I didn’t even have to move a finger! The formatting wasn’t exactly what I asked for, but it was all revised and corrected on demand. Thank you!

Thank you for the services. I did have to request for revision, and ask for sources review. Like ur free revision option, it guarantees that the instructions would be followed in the final paper.

• High School $11.23 page 14 days
• College $12.64 page 14 days
• Undergraduate $13.2 page 14 days
• Graduate $14.08 page 14 days
• PhD $14.59 page 14 days

Free samples of our work

There are different types of essays: narrative, persuasive, compare\contrast, definition and many many others. They are written using a required citation style, where the most common are APA and MLA. We want to share some of the essays samples written on various topics using different citation styles.

• Essay Writing
• Term Paper Writing
• Research Paper Writing
• Coursework Writing
• Case Study Writing
• Article Writing
• Article Critique
• Annotated Bibliography Writing
• Research Proposal
• Thesis Proposal
• Dissertation Writing
• Admission / Application Essay
• Editing and Proofreading
• Multiple Choice Questions
• Group Project
• Lab Report Help
• Statistics Project Help
• Math Problems Help
• Buy Term Paper
• Term Paper Help
• Case Study Help
• Complete Coursework for Me
• Dissertation Editing Services
• Marketing Paper
• Bestcustomwriting.com Coupons
• Edit My Paper
• Hire Essay Writers
• Buy College Essay
• Custom Essay Writing
• Culture Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Citation Styles
• Cause and Effect Essay
• 5 Paragraph Essay
• Paper Writing Service
• Help Me Write An Essay
• Write My Paper
• Research Paper Help
• Term Papers for Sale
• Write My Research Paper
• Homework Help
• College Papers For Sale
• Write My Thesis
• Coursework Assistance
• Custom Term Paper Writing
• Buy An Article Critique
• College Essay Help
• Paper Writers Online
• Write My Lab Report
• Mathematics Paper
• Write My Essay
• Do My Homework
• Buy a PowerPoint Presentation
• Buy a Thesis Paper
• Buy an Essay
• Comparison Essay
• Buy Discussion Post
• Buy Assignment
• Deductive Essay
• Exploratory Essay
• Literature Essay
• Narrative Essay
• Opinion Essay
• Take My Online Class
• Reflective Essay
• Response Essay
• Custom Papers
• Dissertation Help
• Buy Research Paper
• Criminal Law And Justice Essay
• Political Science Essay
• Pay for Papers
• College Paper Help
• How to Write a College Essay
• High School Writing
• Personal Statement Help
• Book Report
• Report Writing
• Cheap Coursework Help
• Literary Research Paper
• Essay Assistance
• Academic Writing Services
• Coursework Help
• Thesis Papers for Sale
• Coursework Writing Service UK

I have read and agree to the Terms of Use , Money Back Guarantee , Privacy and Cookie Policy of BestCustomWriting.com

Use your opportunity to get a discount!

To get your special discount, write your email below

Best papers and best prices !

Want to get quality paper done on time cheaper?

Resources for History & Humanities Students

by David Voelker, Professor of Humanities and History, UW-Green Bay

• Table of Contents

Introduction

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Writing Process
• Using Topic Sentences
• Avoiding a Pseudo-Thesis
• Integrating Quotations
• Sample Paragraph

Using Footnotes

• Complete Sentences
• Gender-Inclusive Language
• Using Consistent Tenses
• Additional Resources
• Note-Taking

Resources for History & Humanities Students > Writing Handbook for History & Humanities > Using Footnotes

Historians generally use the footnote citation style outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style to cite their sources—and for good reason.  First, historians often use footnotes to carry on a conversation with other historians whose work they are building upon or criticizing.  Second, historians know that other historians are likely to read their footnotes and to seek out their sources to verify their interpretations.  Many historical sources are difficult to find and therefore require a more specific description than can be accomplished through other citation methods.  In short, footnotes or endnotes make good sense for historians.

A Few Basics

• Learn to use the “insert footnote” function in your word processing software, which automatically takes care of footnote superscripts and numbering. Do not type notes into the footer of the document, as every note will then appear on every page.  This approach will not allow you to give specific page numbers for each citation. Get help:  Microsoft Word  ||  Google Docs .
• Footnotes are normally rendered in 10-point font (or two points smaller than the font for the main text). I have used 12-point font in the examples below, however, for your reading comfort.
• If a source is paginated, you must include a specific page number for each citation for a paraphrase or quotation. If there are no page numbers but some other means of identifying specific locations, use that marker instead (i.e., location number, paragraph number, etc.).
• As a general rule, if your first footnote citation of each source is a complete citation, you do not need to provide a bibliography or works cited page, though some instructors may beg to differ.
• Make sure that you use footnote rather than bibliography format in your footnotes. Bibliography format is designed to create a list that can be alphabetized.  Footnotes, however, are in a sentence-like format.
• For additional examples and citation formats, see the Chicago Manual of Style citation page at the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) (use the menu on the left side of the OWL page). Also useful is the  Citation Quick Guide at CMS Online.
• UWGB students have free access to the NoodleTools citation manager.

Getting Started

• The first citation of a source needs to give complete information about the source.  When you cite an article or source that is part of a larger work, you need to provide both the page range for the complete article or source (in the first citation) and the specific page numbers that you refer to or quote from.  See the sample footnotes below.
• 4 Fox, “Niebuhr,” 254.
• 5 McDonnell, Masters of Empire,  3.
• Note that ibid.  (an abbreviation for the Latin  ibidem , which means “in the same place”) is no longer recommended, as of the 17th edition of the  Chicago Manual of Style.  While  ibid worked fine for typewriter manuscripts, with the rise of word processing and electronic texts there is a risk of jumbling citations if sentences or paragraphs are moved around, or if new sentences and citations are inserted. Please use the shortened format noted above instead.
• In footnotes as well as in the body of an essay, you should italicize titles of books, journals, magazines, newspapers, plays, and films.  The titles of shorter works, such as articles, short stories, and poems (that are not book-length), should be placed inside quotation marks.
• Rachel Carson,  Silent Spring (1962), quoted in . . . [Insert full citation of source in which the quotation appears, using the formats below. Give as much information as you have about the quotation, such as the date, etc., and cite the book or article and the page number.]
• Margaret Fuller, Sept. 4, 1841, letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in . . .  [Insert full citation of source in which the quotation appears, using the formats below. Give as much information as you have about the quotation, such as the date, etc., and cite the book or article and the page number.]

Citing Books

Single-author book.

6 Andrew Delbanco, The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1995), 45.

Chapter or Essay in Edited Collection

7  Nathan O. Hatch, “The Second Great Awakening and the Market Revolution,” in Devising Liberty: Preserving and Creating Freedom in the Early American Republic , edited by David T. Konig (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1995), 243-64, see 245.  [Note:  The page range is for the entire essay, and it should be included with the first, complete citation.  The “see 254” refers to the specific page being cited.]

8  Karen Halttunen, “Early American Murder Narratives,” in The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History , edited by Richard W. Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993), 66-101, see 68-72.

Book with an Editor and Introduction

9  Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist , edited with introduction by Jay Fliegelman (New York: Penguin, 1991), 67.

10  David S. Reynolds, John Brown: Abolitionist (New York: Vintage, 2006), Kindle edition, chap. 5.  [Give the citation of the paper version and then note the kind of e-book edition (Kindle, Nook, Google, etc.) and the chapter number, assuming page numbers are not available.]

 Primary Source in Edited Collection

11  Lidian Emerson, “Transcendental Bible,” in The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings , edited by Lawrence Buell (New York: Modern Library, 2006), 175-77.

Editor’s Headnote on Primary Source in Edited Collection

12  Lawrence Buell, headnote for Lidian Emerson, “Transcendental Bible,” in The American Transcendentalists: Essential Writings , edited by Lawrence Buell (New York: Modern Library, 2006), 175.

Citing Articles

Article in scholarly journal.

13  Neal Salisbury, “The Indians’ Old World: Native Americans and the Coming of Europeans,” William and Mary Quarterly 53 (1996): 435-458.  [Note: 53 is the volume number.  Note that if you are citing an article from a scholarly journal, you don’t need to cite the online database, such as Ebscohost or JSTOR, and you do not need to provide the link.  Instead, give the full citation for the journal.]

Article in Reference Work

14  James T. Kloppenberg, “Enlightenment,” in A Companion to American Thought , edited by Richard W. Fox and James T. Kloppenberg (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995), 207-09.

Article in Magazine

15  Thomas Adolphus Trollope, “Some Recollections of Hiram Powers,” Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine , Feb. 1875, 205-15, see 207-08.

Book Review

16  David J. Voelker, “The Rise and Fall of American Transcendentalism,” review of American Transcendentalism: A History , by Philip F. Gura, H-SHEAR, 13 Oct. 13, 2009), http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25634.

Citing Online Resources

Online document.

17  Abraham Lincoln, “The Emancipation Proclamation,” January 1, 1863, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=34&page=transcript.

Online Photograph

18  Alison Smith, “The Fox River,” March 18, 2013.  http://www.gblocalreports.com/waterways/riverwatch.html

Online Audio or Video

19  Hannah Tiedt, “Baird Creek Greenway: Local Wilderness,” Part 1.  Dec. 10, 2012.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tA1L5DL3ms

20 Krista Tippett, interview with Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence in All Kinds of Life,”  On Being , podcast audio, Feb. 25, 2016, https://onbeing.org/programs/robin-wall-kimmerer-the-intelligence-in-all-kinds-of-life/.

Citing Course Materials

Class lectures, slides, and handouts, etc..

21  David Voelker, class lecture, 15 October 2012.

22  David Voelker, “Transcendentalism,” PowerPoint slides, 15 October 2012.

23  David Voelker, “The Enlightenment,” History 302 Handout, Fall 2012.

Article in Coursepack

24  Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Divinity School Address,” in Problems of American Thought Reader, edited by David J. Voelker (Green Bay, Univ. of Wisconsin–Green Bay, 2005), 67.  [Note: If you are using a published secondary source that appears inside a coursepack or on D2L, please cite the original source using the citation information provided with the source, usually on the first page.  Do not provide links to D2L.  Instead, give the most complete citation that you can with the information available.]

Coursepack Article Authored by Instructor

25  David Voelker, introduction to William Ellery Channing, “‘The Moral Argument Against Calvinism’ (1820) and ‘Likeness to God’ (1828),” in Problems in American Thought Reader (2007) , 32.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Citing sources

What Are Footnotes? | Guide with Word Instructions

Published on March 28, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on June 7, 2022.

Footnotes are notes placed at the bottom of the page in a piece of academic writing and indicated in the text with superscript numbers (or sometimes letters or other symbols). You can insert footnotes automatically in Word or Google Docs . They’re used to provide:

• Citations in certain styles
• Additional information that would disrupt the flow of the main text

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Table of contents

How to insert footnotes in word and google docs, numbering and placement of footnotes, footnotes in chicago style, footnotes in apa style, footnotes in mla style, frequently asked questions about footnotes and endnotes.

If you’re writing in Microsoft Word or in Google Docs, it’s easy to insert footnotes automatically using the built-in functionality of the software.

Most style guidelines are flexible enough that these automatically inserted footnotes meet their requirements, so that you don’t have to worry about the specifics of formatting.

Inserting footnotes in Word

It’s straightforward to insert footnotes in Word. Just follow these steps:

• Click on the point in the text where you want the footnote number to appear.
• Select the “References” tab at the top, and then select “Insert Footnote.”
• Type whatever text you want into the footnote that appears.

Inserting footnotes in Google Docs

You can also easily add footnotes in Google Docs. Follow the steps below:

• Click on the point in the text where you want to add a footnote.
• At the top, click on “Insert” and then on “Footnote” in the drop-down menu.
• Type the text you want into the footnote.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Footnotes should be numbered consecutively in the order they appear throughout your paper. Each note should have a unique number; don’t use the same number again even if you cite the same source repeatedly.

Footnote numbers are usually placed at the end of the relevant clause or sentence. The number appears after any punctuation, except when the clause ends with an em dash , in which case the number appears before it. Don’t add a space before the number.

Chicago style uses footnotes for citations (unless you’re following Chicago author-date ). Footnotes can also be used to add extra information such as commentary on the source cited, or elaborations on a point you touched on in the main text.

In Chicago footnotes , you place a footnote at the end of the clause or sentence that needs a citation. The footnote contains full information about each source the first time you cite it, and shortened information for subsequent citations of the same source.

       1. Tegan George and Jack Caulfield, “Academic Integrity vs. Academic Dishonesty,” March 10, 2022, https://www.scribbr.com/plagiarism/academic-dishonesty/.

 2. George and Caulfield, “Academic Integrity.”

Full information about all your sources is usually included in a bibliography at the end, except in very short papers, where footnote citations may be used alone if your institution allows it.

Chicago recommends using your word processor’s built-in footnote function to add footnotes, but a couple of formatting details may need to be changed manually:

• Add an indent at the start of each footnote (before the number).
• Write the number at the start of the note in normal text (not superscript), followed by a period and then a space.
• Leave one blank line between footnotes, and make sure footnotes are single-spaced.

APA footnotes are used only for providing extra information, since APA in-text citations appear in parentheses instead.

You can use them to provide supplemental information such as additional examples or clarifications; do this sparingly, as APA warns against including nonessential information. Footnotes are also used to provide copyright attribution when it’s needed.

               1 From What Parents Can Expect in Behavior Therapy , by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017 (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/infographics/what-parents-expect.html). In the public domain.

              2 A second round of testing was initially planned, but this idea was abandoned due to …

APA recommends using your word processing software to automatically insert footnotes, but add an indent at the start of each footnote if this isn’t done automatically. The footnote begins with the superscript footnote number followed by a space.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing - try for free!

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Try for free

MLA footnotes are used to provide supplemental information such as extra examples, clarifications of citation practice, or elaborations on ideas.

MLA in-text citations appear in parentheses, not in notes, but where a lot of citations are needed at once, they can be placed in a footnote to avoid cluttering the text.

           1 Citations of marginalia refer to George’s edition and include page numbers. Citations of the poem refer to Davis’s edition and include line numbers.

        2 This remains a controversial point. Researchers in the field have debated this issue since …

            3 See Crittenden 5–11; Kent 17–34; Smith 44–50; and Jones 36.

MLA recommends using your word processor to automatically insert footnotes, styling the number at the start of the citation in superscript, followed by a space. An indent should also be added at the start of the footnote (before the number).

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page they refer to. This is convenient for the reader but may cause your text to look cluttered if there are a lot of footnotes.

Endnotes appear all together at the end of the whole text. This may be less convenient for the reader but reduces clutter.

Both footnotes and endnotes are used in the same way: to cite sources or add extra information. You should usually choose one or the other to use in your text, not both.

Footnotes are notes indicated in your text with numbers and placed at the bottom of the page. They’re used to provide:

• Citations (e.g., in Chicago notes and bibliography )

Be sparing in your use of footnotes (other than citation footnotes), and consider whether the information you’re adding is relevant for the reader.

To insert a footnote automatically in a Word document:

• Click on the point in the text where the footnote should appear
• Select the “References” tab at the top and then click on “Insert Footnote”
• Type the text you want into the footnote that appears at the bottom of the page

If you need to change the type of notes used in a Word document from footnotes to endnotes , or the other way around, follow these steps:

• Open the “References” tab, and click the arrow in the bottom-right corner of the “Footnotes” section.
• In the pop-up window, click on “Convert…”
• Choose the option you need, and click “OK.”

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2022, June 07). What Are Footnotes? | Guide with Word Instructions. Scribbr. Retrieved April 15, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/what-are-footnotes/

Is this article helpful?

Jack Caulfield

Other students also liked, citation styles guide | examples for all major styles, how to avoid plagiarism | tips on citing sources, the basics of in-text citation | apa & mla examples, what is your plagiarism score.

College of Arts and Sciences

History and American Studies

• What courses will I take as an History major?
• What can I do with my History degree?
• History 485
• History Resources
• What will I learn from my American Studies major?
• What courses will I take as an American Studies major?
• What can I do with my American Studies degree?
• American Studies 485
• For Prospective Students
• Student Research Grants
• Honors and Award Recipients
• Phi Alpha Theta

Alumni Intros

• Internships

Footnotes and Endnotes

GENERAL RULE: WHEN IN DOUBT ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT YOU NEED A CITATION FOR SOMETHING, CITE IT. Historians use Turabian or the Chicago Manual of Style , both of which provide guidelines for the format of the footnote/endnote citations. See the excellent Turabian/ Chicago Manual of Style online guides (for print and electronic resources) prepared by the UMW Library staff by clicking here .

PLACEMENT OF THE FOOTNOTE/ENDNOTE ON THE PAGE Most word processing programs are already set to correctly place footnotes at the bottom of the page or endnotes at the end of your paper. However, you should check to see that the default settings match the discipline’s rules. (For example, MS Word conflicts with the Chicago Manual of Style rules on endnote numbering.)

PLACEMENT OF THE SUPERSCRIPT IN THE TEXT Leave no space between the superscript (note number) in the text and the word or mark of punctuation it follows. Place the superscript before a dash but after all other marks of punctuation.

SPACING OF FOOTNOTES AND ENDNOTES Indent the first line of each note 5-8 spaces (depending on indentation you are using for paragraphs in the text). Subsequent lines start at the left margin. Leave no space between the superscript and the first word in the note. Or type the number on the same line; follow it with a period, two spaces, and the note. REMEMBER!! Single-space within notes; double-space between notes.

LOCATION OF ENDNOTES Endnotes should be placed in a separate section entitled Notes (not Endnotes) at the end of the entire paper and immediately preceding the bibliography. Page numbers of text continue running consecutively through Notes. For example, if the last page of text is page 8, then the first page of endnotes is page 9. Endnotes should use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4), not Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, iv), which is MS Word’s default for endnotes.

SECONDARY SOURCE OF QUOTATION IF YOU ARE QUOTING SOMEONE WHO IS QUOTED IN ANOTHER SOURCE, YOU MUST CITE BOTH SOURCES IN YOUR FOOTNOTE/ENDNOTE. 2. William M. Tredway, Recollections of the Confederate Veterans of Pittsylvania County, Virginia , ed. Maud Carter Clement (Danville, VA: United Daughters of the Confederacy, Rawley Martin Chapter, 1960), 13-14; quoted in G. Howard Gregory, 53rd Virginia Infantry and 5th Battalion Virginia Infantry (Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard, 1999), 8-9.

3. Roger Pitman and Scott Orr, “Psychophysiologic Testing for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Forensic Psychiatric Application,” Bulletin of American Academy Psychiatry and Law 21 (1993): 38; quoted in Kathleen Lynn Gorman, “When Johnny Came Marching Home Again: Confederate Veterans in the New South” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Riverside, 1994), 194-196.

For more information, see Turabian 8.148 and 11.31.

USE OF IBID . When you have two consecutive references to the same work, whether the reference is to the same page or a different page, historians generally use the latin word “ Ibid .” followed by the page number, if a different page.

4. Maxine Janusson, The Way of Things (Boston: Littleman Press, 1989), 67.

5. Ibid . [a second reference to the same book, same page immediately following the first reference]

6. Ibid ., 98. [a third reference to the same book, different page]

For more information, see Turabian 8.85.

SHORTENED REFERENCE When you make a later reference to a work cited earlier, but with references to other sources in between, use a shortened reference that includes the author’s last name, a shortened title of the work, and the page number.

4. Maxine Janusson, The Way of Things: Studying the Beginning of Time (Boston: Littleman Press, 1989), 67.

5. Larry Lipton, Gone Far Away: A Study of Space and Time (Los Angeles: Science Pubs., 1998), 174.

6. Janusson, The Way of Things , 75.

7. Lipton, Gone Far Away , 345.

For more on shortened references see Turabian 8.88-8.96 and the UMW Library Chicago citation guide for print resources (pages 14 and 15).

FOR INFORMATION ON CONTENT NOTES (FOOTNOTES OR ENDNOTES), SEE HERE .

PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION (GENERALLY ONLY USED BY HISTORIANS IN BOOK REVIEWS) Parenthetical references should be considered as part of the sentences in which they appear. All punctuation, either within a sentence or at the end of a sentence, comes after the parenthetical note.

How have History & American Studies majors built careers after earning their degrees? Learn more by clicking the image above.  

Recent Posts

• Fall 2024 Courses
• Fall 2023 Symposium – 12/8 – All Welcome!
• Spring ’24 Course Flyers
• Internship Opportunity – Chesapeake Gateways Ambassador
• Congratulations to our Graduates!
• History and American Studies Symposium–April 21, 2023
• The Poe Museum Internships (Richmond, VA)
• View umwhistory’s profile on Facebook
• View umwhistory’s profile on Twitter

What Are Footnotes and How Do You Use Them?

#scribendiinc

Written by  Scribendi

While reading a book or article, have you ever noticed little numbers placed at the ends of some sentences?

These numbers usually appear as superscripts and correspond with numbers placed at the bottom of the page, next to which appears further information that is both necessary and supplementary. Sometimes this information will come in the form of citations, but sometimes it will simply present additional notes about the topic at hand.

These citations and explanations are called "footnotes" (because they appear in the footer of the page). Take a look at the example below to see where footnotes appear on a page:

We've outlined how to use footnotes below. Check it out!

1. What Are Footnotes?

2. footnotes vs. endnotes, 2.1 should i use footnotes or endnotes, 3. how to do footnote citations, 3.1 in-text citations, 3.2 footnotes, 4. how to use footnotes in essays, 4.1 style guides, 4.1.1 modern language association (mla), 4.1.2  american psychological association (apa), 4.1.3  chicago manual of style (cms), 5. technical guide to using footnotes, 5.1 how to add footnotes in microsoft word, 5.2 how to add footnotes in google docs, 6. final tips and tricks .

Footnotes are notes that are placed at the end of a page and used to reference parts of the text (generally using superscript numbers). Writers use footnotes for several purposes, including  citations , parenthetical information, outside sources, copyright permissions, background information, and more.

Now that you understand what footnotes are, you might be wondering: why use them? The truth is, long explanatory notes can be difficult for readers to trudge through (especially when they occur in the middle of a paper). Providing this information is necessary, but doing so in the main text can disrupt the flow of the writing.

Imagine if every time an author wanted to provide a citation, the entire citation had to be written out at the end of the sentence, like this (Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999] 221). Books would become much longer and reading would be much more tedious. That's why footnotes are so useful: they let authors provide the required information without disrupting the flow of ideas.

While footnotes are a great resource for sharing information without clogging up the writing, it's important to note that certain style guides restrict when footnotes can be used. We'll get into that soon!

Unsure how to edit your paper? Contact the Scribendi team for professional proofreading .

Authors can also use endnotes to avoid disrupting their writing with extraneous information. Both serve similar purposes; the main difference lies in their location in your text. Here's a closer look at how both footnotes and endnotes work.

• Identified in the main text with a small superscript number
• Used for citations, parenthetical information, outside sources, copyright permissions, background information, and more
• Provide the correlating notes at the bottom of the same page
• Identified in the main text with a small superscript number (like footnotes)
• Used for citations, parenthetical information, outside sources, copyright permissions, background information, and more (like footnotes)
• Found collectively at the end of an article, chapter, or document (unlike footnotes)

When deciding  whether to use footnotes or endnotes , authors must consider three main factors:

• The style guide being used (as some require either footnotes or endnotes)
• The number of notes being included (as having too many footnotes on each page can be distracting)
• Which option will be more convenient for the reader

To make a footnote citation, label the area of your text that you need to reference with a number (if it's your first footnote, start with "1."). At the bottom of the page, include this number with the citation. When readers see the number in the text, they know they can find the source by looking for the corresponding footnote.

Here's an example of a quoted piece of text using in-text citations vs. footnotes.

"Like the high whine of the dentist's drill, the low rumble of the footnote on the historian's page reassures" ( The Footnote: A Curious History [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press], 1999. pg. 1).

"Like the high whine of the dentist's drill, the low rumble of the footnote on the historian's page reassures." 1

[Text continues]

Bottom of the page:

1. The Footnote: A Curious History [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press], 1999. pg. 1

The exact format of your footnote depends on   the style guide  you're following. Here are some of the most common style guides for writing papers, as well as the footnote rules for each one.

Of the major style guides, The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) uses footnotes most often. However, footnotes are occasionally employed in other style guides as well. The main difference is that, while CMS uses footnotes for citation purposes, the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) generally rely on them for the provision of additional information.

While MLA style discourages the use of long footnotes or endnotes, the style guide does permit their use for directing readers to other pertinent information on a relevant subject.

The guide recommends that superscript numbers within the text are placed outside any punctuation that might be present (i.e., after a period if the note is at the end of a sentence and after a comma if the note is at the end of a clause). The exception to this is that the superscript numbers should be placed before dashes.

• When a footnote must be placed at the end of a clause, 1 add the number after the comma.
• When a footnote must be placed at the end of a sentence, add the number after the period. 2
• Numbers denoting footnotes should always appear after punctuation, with the exception of one piece of punctuation 3 —the dash.

4.1.2 American Psychological Association (APA)

Like MLA, APA discourages the use of footnotes unless absolutely necessary. Even then, the guide recommends that footnotes only be used to provide content notes (such as providing brief, supplemental information about the text or directing readers to additional information) and to denote copyright permissions. The rules regarding placement of the in-text numbers is the same in APA as in MLA.

4.1.3 The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS)

Of the three main style guides described here, CMS relies on footnotes the most. While CMS does allow the author–date system of in-text referencing (i.e., providing the author's name and the date of publication in parentheses at the end of the phrase, clause, or sentence that references the work), it also offers a citation style in which footnotes or endnotes are employed. In both cases, bibliographies are also required. Whether an author should use the author–date system or footnotes is often decided by the author's professor, journal, or publisher.

As an example, if footnotes are used, the following format should be adhered to when referencing a book in CMS:

Let Us Revise Your Reference Material to Any Style Guide

Try our academic proofreading service , or get a free sample.

To use footnotes in your own book, essay, or article, you must first decide on the most appropriate and logical placement of your footnotes in the text. Add numbers according to your chosen style guide, and be sure to add the numbers directly after the phrase, clause, or sentence to which the corresponding footnote refers.

Most online writing programs (such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs) come with easy-to-use tools for inserting footnotes. Here are step-by-step guides to using footnotes in both these programs.

5.2 How to Add Footnotes in Microsoft Word

Here's how to use footnotes in Microsoft Word 2021:

• Click on the place in the text where you want the first footnote to appear.
• Under the References tab, you'll see the following symbol: AB.1. Beneath this symbol is a button with the words, "Insert Footnote." Click it to create your first footnote.
• After you click that button, two numbers should appear: one number should appear in the main text, and the corresponding number should appear at the bottom of the page.
• Write your citation or additional information next to the number that appears in the footer. Format the information according to the rules of your style guide.
• You can easily return to your place in the text by clicking the number at the beginning of the footnote.

Congrats! You've created your first footnote. You can also adjust the footnote settings (like the numbering) by clicking the arrow beside the Footnotes group. It's really that easy!

Here's how to use footnotes on Google Docs:

• Under the Insert tab, click on "Footnotes."

All you really have to do to create footnotes is click a button—it couldn't be easier!

6. Final Tips and Tricks

To  improve your writing  and avoid cluttering the page, you should use footnotes sparingly and only to provide helpful additions or citations. As previously noted, this information may be considered supplementary, which is why it's best to place it away from the main portion of your writing.

When creating your footnotes, always keep reader convenience in mind, and remember that the footnotes are there to convey helpful information. If your footnotes are excessive or unnecessary, readers are likely to become annoyed—they may even be distracted from the main points of your writing.

Now that you're no longer asking "What are footnotes?" and you know how to use them according to various style guides, footnotes can become a great asset to you as a writer. Be sure to follow the recommendations above, as well as those of your preferred style guide, to ensure that you're using footnotes to their best effect. Don't forget—if you ever need help with writing, our academic articles are here for you!

If you need  professional proofreading , let Scribendi perfect your writing.

Image source: Daria Nepriakhina/Stocksnap.io

Polish Your Writing with Professional Proofreading

About the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing transformed into a great one. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained numerous degrees. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

Have You Read?

"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing"

Related Posts

How to Cite a Website (and Achieve True Unagi)

How to Create a Bibliography Using Word

Turabian Style: How to Use It

Upload your file(s) so we can calculate your word count, or enter your word count manually.

We will also recommend a service based on the file(s) you upload.

English is not my first language. I need English editing and proofreading so that I sound like a native speaker.

I need to have my journal article, dissertation, or term paper edited and proofread, or I need help with an admissions essay or proposal.

I have a novel, manuscript, play, or ebook. I need editing, copy editing, proofreading, a critique of my work, or a query package.

I need editing and proofreading for my white papers, reports, manuals, press releases, marketing materials, and other business documents.

I need to have my essay, project, assignment, or term paper edited and proofread.

I want to sound professional and to get hired. I have a resume, letter, email, or personal document that I need to have edited and proofread.

 Prices include your personal % discount.

 Prices include % sales tax ( ).

Type search request and press enter

The Decline and Fall of Footnotes

Is the footnote still the handmaiden of academia, or has it become the achilles' heel of university publications.

Reading time min

By Bruce Anderson

Little loved by generations of students, readers and writers alike, footnotes are on the wane, say recent articles in the New York Times and Newsweek. The decline of the footnote has been linked to changes in the publishing business. College libraries, corseted by budget squeezes, are no longer the principal buyers for the books produced by some academic presses. These books are now packaged to attract a broader audience, the Times says, with "catchier titles, snappier covers, more and better illustrations and fewer footnotes and bibliographies."

As tedious as footnotes can be to read, they can be even more so to produce. For high school students and undergraduates, footnotes seem less a test of research skills or academic honesty than a trial of one's endurance and equanimity. In the heyday of the typewriter, footnotes could easily turn a five-hour assignment into a 10-hour labor. First, you had to figure out the math: How many lines do I type before I start inlaying the footnotes? Then you had to handle the Latin: Do I mean op. cit. or loc. cit., ibid. or id., q.v. or cf.? Finally, you had to roll the platen just so--no more, no less, exactement--to get the superscript numbers to sit correctly above the line.

Today's students miss out on these joys: Dozens of software programs can now do the calculations for you. It seems a cruel juxtaposition of history that at the very moment that footnotes become relatively painless to produce, they fall out of fashion. But one could argue that the whole point of footnotes--for undergraduates, at least--is the pain. Rendered painless, they have also been rendered pointless.

Footnotes allow us not only to see the prejudices of old sources, but the biases and convictions of the footnoter himself.They provide readers with the intellectual map that the writer has used to arrive at her conclusions. If some see footnotes as tiresome road blocks, others more fairly view them as serendipitous detours that can lead to delightful and unexpected stops not on the original itinerary. Footnotes gave birth--after an extended gestation, mind you--to the hypertext links that are the vis vitae, the life force, of the Internet.

Gibbon wrote the sublime six-volume The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "The footnotes [of Gibbon]," writes historian John Clive in his book Not by Fact Alone, "must not be forgotten. . . . They contain those flashes of wit and humor that help to ease the reader's long trek through the centuries, from the reference to the Abbé le Boeuf as 'an antiquarian, whose name was happily expressive of his talents,' to the comment on the learned Origen, who, eager for perpetual chastity, thought fit to castrate himself ('to disarm the tempter,' in Gibbon's phrase)."

In another footnote, Gibbon skewers St. Augustine, noting that his "learning is too often borrowed and . . . [his] arguments are too often his own." Elsewhere, he jabs at his friend Voltaire: "M. de Voltaire, unsupported by either fact or probability, has generously bestowed the Canary Islands on the Roman empire." The last note is classic Gibbon: accurate, acerbic and informative.

More than anything, Gibbon should make us rethink our attitude toward footnotes and the attendant deathwatch. emphasis in our schools has been to replicate the form rather than the content or style of a good footnote. We should remember that reading Gibbon without the footnotes is like listening to Mozart without the 16th notes; the music of each lacks its distinctive, ineffable magic when the little notes are taken away.

The very word "scholar" has its root in the Latin "schola" or "school" and bespeaks a community or network of people striving together for understanding. "Footnotes are reminders that scholarship is an intrinsically communal enterprise--building on, revising or replacing the work of predecessors," noted Kenneth L. Woodward in Newsweek. Scholars are not "Lone Rangers, going it alone."

1 Bruce Anderson, '79, wrote about campus parking in the November/ December issue of Stanford magazine. back

2 It is peculiar that footnotes should so often bring amorous intimacies to mind. The historian Philip Guedalla once remarked that Edward Gibbon lived out most of his sex life in his footnotes. back

3 Oddly, the most famous footnoter of all, Edward Gibbon, used endnotes in the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. At the encouragement of David Hume and others, Gibbon moved his annotations to the bottom of the page in his final five volumes. back

4 William H. Honan, "Footnotes Offering Fewer Insights," the New York Times, 14 Aug. 1996, B9. back

5 Anthony Grafton, "The Footnote from de Thou to Ranke," History and Theory (Wesleyan University, December 1994), p. 65. back

6 Lawrence S. Lerner, "Nabokov's Revenge," the New York Times, 19 Aug. 1996, A14. back

7 Honan, op. cit., C1. back

8 G.W. Bowersock, "The Art of the Footnote," The American Scholar (Winter 1983/84): 58. back

9 Grafton, op. cit., p. 53. back

10 Ibid., p. 57. back

11 Not only did Newton's work build on that of others, his comment to Hooke did, too. This aphorism was apparently a commonplace in the 17th century. It has been used for almost 2,000 years, by writers ranging from Lucan to George Herbert, from Bernard of Chartres to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Robert K. Merton explored it fully in his short book, On The Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript (Free Press; 1965). back

Trending Stories

Advice & Insights

Law/Public Policy/Politics

You May Also Like

The power within.

A student claims his generation can change the world even though they're not protesting '60s style.

Murder Most Refined

Jane Austen wrote great novels. But did you know she solved mysteries in her spare time?

Book Blurbs

Stanford Alumni Association

• Current Issue
• Past Issues
• Class Notes

Collections

• Recent Grads
• Vintage 1973
• Sandra Day O'Connor
• Mental Health
• Resolutions
• The VanDerveer Files
• The Stanfords

Get in touch

• Letters to the Editor
• Submit an Obituary
• Accessibility
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Code of Conduct

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Non-Discrimination

© Stanford University. Stanford, California 94305.

• Emergency Info
• Directories
• UR Self-Service
• Academic Calendars & Schedules

• Find a Person
• Search Classes & Build Schedule

Guidelines for Footnotes and Bibliography

• Scholarships & Awards
• Students' Historical Society
• Employment Opportunities

• Faculty and Staff

The Use of Footnotes

Footnotes are the acceptable method of acknowledging material which is not your own when you use it in an essay.  Basically, footnoted material is of three types: 

• Direct quotations from another author's work.  (These must be placed in quotation marks).
• Citing authority for statements which are not quoted directly.
• Material of an explanatory nature which does not fit into the flow of the body of the text.

In the text of an essay, material to be footnoted should be marked with a raised number immediately following the words or ideas that are being cited.

"The only aspect of Frontenac's conduct the king...did not condemn was his care for military security," Eccles stated, condemning Frontenac's administration. 2

The footnotes may be numbered in sequence on each page or throughout the entire essay.

I.    Form and Content of Footnotes:

A.   from a book:.

      1 W. J. Eccles, Frontenac The Courtier Governor (Toronto:  McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1959), 14.

[The information given in a footnote includes the author, the title, the place of publication, the publisher, the date of publication and the page or pages on which the quotation or information is found.]

B.   From an article in a journal: 

      1 Peter Blickle, "Peasant Revolts in the German Empire in the Late Middle Ages," Social History , Vol. IV, No. 2 (May, 1979), 233.

C.   From a book containing quotations from other sources:

      1 Eugene A. Forsey, "Was the Governor General's Refusal Constitutional?", cited in Paul Fox, Politics:  Canada (Toronto:  McGraw-Hill Company of Canada Ltd., 1966), 186.

D.   From a standard reference work: 

      1 Norman Ward, “Saskatchewan,” in The Canadian Encyclopedia , 2 nd ed., Vol. 3, 1935.

      2 J. K. Johnson and P. B. Waite, “Macdonald, Sir John Alexander,” in The Dictionary of Canadian Biography , Vol. 12, 599

E.   From the Internet: 

In citing material read on the Internet, it is not sufficient to indicate the website alone.  You must provide information about author, title, and date of the document you are using, as follows:

      1 T. J. Pritzker, (1993).  "An Early Fragment from Central Nepal" [Online].  Available:  http://www.ingress.com/~astanart/pritzker/pritzker.html [1995, June].

The final date [1995, June] is the date the website was consulted.

For more information about how to cite electronic information see Xia Li and Nancy Crane, The Handbook for Citing Electronic Resources or http://www.uvm.edu/~ncrane/estyles/.

II.     Rules to Remember in Writing Footnotes:

• Titles of books, journals or magazines should be underlined or italicized.
• Titles of articles or chapters—items which are only a part of a book--are put in quotation marks.

III.   Abbreviating in Footnotes:

The first time any book or article is mentioned in a footnote, all the information requested above must be provided.  After that, however, there are shortcuts which should be used:

(a)  Several quotations in sequence from the same book:

The abbreviation to be used is "Ibid.," a Latin word meaning "in the same place."  (Notice that Ibid. is not underlined).  Ibid. can be used by itself, if you are referring to the same page as the previous footnote does, or it can be combined with a page number or numbers.

      1 Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies:  A History (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press, 1984), 78.

      2 Ibid.  

      3 Ibid., 351.

(b)    Reference to a source that already has been cited in full form but not in the reference immediately preceding , is made by using the author's last name (but not the first name or initials unless another author of the same surname has been cited), the title--in shortened form, if desired--and the page number.

      1 William Kilbourn, The Firebrand (Toronto:  Clark, Irwin and Company Limited, 1956), 35.

      2 John L. Tobias, "Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885," in Sweet Promises:  A Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada , ed. J. R. Miller (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press, 1991), 224.

      3 Kilbourn, The Firebrand , 87.

      4 Tobias, "Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree," 226.

Bibliography

The bibliography should be on a separate page.  It should list the relevant sources used in the research for the paper.  This list should be arranged alphabetically by the surname of the author.  (Unlike the footnote reference, the surname is shown first, set off from the rest of the information.)  The information required is:  author, title, place of publication, publisher and date of publication.

NOTE:    The information is separated for the most part by periods (rather than by commas, as in the footnotes) and the parentheses enclosing the facts of publication are dropped.

Eccles, W. J.  Frontenac The Courtier Governor .  Toronto:  McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1959.

Johnson, J. K. and P. B. Waite.  “Macdonald, Sir John Alexander.”  In The Dictionary of Canadian Biography , Vol. 12,            591-612.

Koenigsberger, H. G. and George L. Mosse.  Europe in the Sixteenth Century .  London:  Longmans, 1971.

Laslett, Peter.  "The Gentry of Kent in 1640," Cambridge Historical Journal , Vol. IX, No. 2 (Spring 1948):  18-35.

Pritzker, T. J.  (1993).  "An Early Fragment from Central Nepal," [Online].  http://www.ingress. com/~astanart/pritzker       /pritzker.html.  [1995 June].

Tobias, John L.  "Canada's Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885."  In Sweet Promises:  A Reader on Indian-White       Relations in Canada , ed. J. R. Miller.  Toronto:  University of Toronto Press, 1991:  212-240.

Ward, N.  “Saskatchewan.”  In The Canadian Encyclopedia , 2 nd ed., Vol. 3, 1931-1938.

• Privacy & Terms of Use
• Contact U of R
• Campus Maps
• U of R Home
• For Faculty and Staff
• City of Regina

Study at Cambridge

About the university, research at cambridge.

• Undergraduate courses
• Events and open days
• Fees and finance
• Postgraduate courses
• How to apply
• Postgraduate events
• Fees and funding
• International students
• Continuing education
• Executive and professional education
• Courses in education
• How the University and Colleges work
• Term dates and calendars
• Visiting the University
• Annual reports
• Equality and diversity
• A global university
• Public engagement
• Give to Cambridge
• For Cambridge students
• For our researchers
• Business and enterprise
• Colleges & departments
• Email & phone search
• Museums & collections
• Student information

Department of History and Philosophy of Science

• About the Department overview
• How to find the Department
• Annual Report
• Video and audio
• HPS Discussion email list
• Becoming a Visiting Scholar or Visiting Student overview
• Visitor fee payment
• Becoming an Affiliate
• Applying for research grants and post-doctoral fellowships
• Administration overview
• Information for new staff
• Information for examiners and assessors overview
• Operation of the HPS plagiarism policy
• Information for supervisors overview
• Supervising Part IB and Part II students
• Supervising MPhil and Part III students
• Supervising PhD students
• People overview
• Teaching Officers
• Research Fellows and Teaching Associates
• Professional Services Staff
• PhD Students
• Research overview
• Research projects overview
• Natural History in the Age of Revolutions, 1776–1848
• In the Shadow of the Tree: The Diagrammatics of Relatedness as Scientific, Scholarly and Popular Practice
• The Many Births of the Test-Tube Baby
• Culture at the Macro-Scale: Boundaries, Barriers and Endogenous Change
• Making Climate History overview
• Project summary
• Workstreams
• Works cited and project literature
• Research and teaching fellowships
• Histories of Artificial Intelligence: A Genealogy of Power overview
• From Collection to Cultivation: Historical Perspectives on Crop Diversity and Food Security overview
• Call for papers
• How Collections End: Objects, Meaning and Loss in Laboratories and Museums
• Tools in Materials Research
• Epsilon: A Collaborative Digital Framework for Nineteenth-Century Letters of Science
• Contingency in the History and Philosophy of Science
• Industrial Patronage and the Cold War University
• FlyBase: Communicating Drosophila Genetics on Paper and Online, 1970–2000
• The Lost Museums of Cambridge Science, 1865–1936
• From Hansa to Lufthansa: Transportation Technologies and the Mobility of Knowledge in Germanic Lands and Beyond, 1300–2018
• Medical Publishers, Obscenity Law and the Business of Sexual Knowledge in Victorian Britain
• Kinds of Intelligence
• Varieties of Social Knowledge
• The Vesalius Census
• Histories of Biodiversity and Agriculture
• Investigating Fake Scientific Instruments in the Whipple Museum Collection
• Before HIV: Homosex and Venereal Disease, c.1939–1984
• The Casebooks Project
• Generation to Reproduction
• The Darwin Correspondence Project
• History of Medicine overview
• Events overview
• Past events
• Philosophy of Science overview
• Study HPS overview
• Undergraduate study overview
• Introducing History and Philosophy of Science
• Frequently asked questions
• Routes into History and Philosophy of Science
• Part II overview
• Distribution of Part II marks
• BBS options
• Postgraduate study overview
• Why study HPS at Cambridge?
• MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine overview
• A typical day for an MPhil student
• MPhil in Health, Medicine and Society
• PhD in History and Philosophy of Science overview
• Part-time PhD

PhD placement record

• Funding for postgraduate students
• Student information overview
• Timetable overview
• Primary source seminars
• Research methods seminars
• Writing support seminars
• Dissertation seminars
• BBS Part II overview
• Early Medicine
• Modern Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
• Philosophy of Science and Medicine
• Ethics of Medicine
• Philosophy and Ethics of Medicine
• Part III and MPhil
• Single-paper options
• Part IB students' guide overview
• About the course
• Supervisions
• Libraries and readings
• Scheme of examination
• Part II students' guide overview
• Primary sources
• Dissertation
• Key dates and deadlines
• Advice overview
• Examination advice
• Learning strategies and exam skills
• Advice from students
• Part III students' guide overview
• Essays and dissertation
• Subject areas
• MPhil students' guide overview
• PhD students' guide overview
• Welcome to new PhDs
• Registration exercise and annual reviews
• Your supervisor and advisor
• Progress log
• Intermission and working away from Cambridge
• The PhD thesis
• Submitting your thesis
• Examination
• News and events overview
• Seminars and reading groups overview
• Departmental Seminars
• Coffee with Scientists
• Cabinet of Natural History overview
• Publications
• History of Medicine Seminars
• The Anthropocene
• Calculating People
• Measurement Reading Group
• Teaching Global HPSTM
• Pragmatism Reading Group
• Foundations of Physics Reading Group
• Atmospheric Humanities Reading Group
• Values in Science Reading Group
• HPS Workshop
• Postgraduate Seminars overview
• Images of Science
• Language Groups overview
• Latin Therapy overview
• Bibliography of Latin language resources
• Fun with Latin
• Archive overview
• Lent Term 2024
• Michaelmas Term 2023
• Easter Term 2023
• Lent Term 2023
• Michaelmas Term 2022
• Easter Term 2022
• Lent Term 2022
• Michaelmas Term 2021
• Easter Term 2021
• Lent Term 2021
• Michaelmas Term 2020
• Easter Term 2020
• Lent Term 2020
• Michaelmas Term 2019
• Easter Term 2019
• Lent Term 2019
• Michaelmas Term 2018
• Easter Term 2018
• Lent Term 2018
• Michaelmas Term 2017
• Easter Term 2017
• Lent Term 2017
• Michaelmas Term 2016
• Easter Term 2016
• Lent Term 2016
• Michaelmas Term 2015
• Postgraduate and postdoc training overview
• Induction sessions
• Academic skills and career development
• Print & Material Sources
• Other events and resources

How to organise a history essay or dissertation

• About the Department
• News and events

Sachiko Kusukawa

There are many ways of writing history and no fixed formula for a 'good' essay or dissertation. Before you start, you may find it helpful to have a look at some sample dissertations and essays from the past: ask at the Whipple Library.

Some people have a clear idea already of what they are going to write about; others find it more difficult to choose or focus on a topic. It may be obvious, but it is worth pointing out that you should choose a topic you find interesting and engaging. Ask a potential supervisor for a list of appropriate readings, chase up any further sources that look interesting or promising from the footnotes, or seek further help. Try to define your topic as specifically as possible as soon as possible. Sometimes, it helps to formulate a question (in the spirit of a Tripos question), which could then be developed, refined, or re-formulated. A good topic should allow you to engage closely with a primary source (text, image, object, etc.) and develop a historiographical point – e.g. adding to, or qualifying historians' current debates or received opinion on the topic. Specific controversies (either historically or historiographically) are often a great place to start looking. Many dissertations and essays turn out to be overambitious in scope, but underambition is a rare defect!

Both essays and dissertations have an introduction and a conclusion . Between the introduction and the conclusion there is an argument or narrative (or mixture of argument and narrative).

An introduction introduces your topic, giving reasons why it is interesting and anticipating (in order) the steps of your argument. Hence many find that it is a good idea to write the introduction last. A conclusion summarises your arguments and claims. This is also the place to draw out the implications of your claims; and remember that it is often appropriate to indicate in your conclusion further profitable lines of research, inquiry, speculation, etc.

An argument or narrative should be coherent and presented in order. Divide your text into paragraphs which make clear points. Paragraphs should be ordered so that they are easy to follow. Always give reasons for your assertions and assessments: simply stating that something or somebody is right or wrong does not constitute an argument. When you describe or narrate an event, spell out why it is important for your overall argument. Put in chapter or section headings whenever you make a major new step in your argument of narrative.

It is a very good idea to include relevant pictures and diagrams . These should be captioned, and their relevance should be fully explained. If images are taken from a source, this should be included in the captions or list of illustrations.

The extent to which it is appropriate to use direct quotations varies according to topic and approach. Always make it clear why each quotation is pertinent to your argument. If you quote from non-English sources say if the translation is your own; if it isn't give the source. At least in the case of primary sources include the original in a note if it is your own translation, or if the precise details of wording are important. Check your quotations for accuracy. If there is archaic spelling make sure it isn't eliminated by a spell-check. Don't use words without knowing what they mean.

An essay or a dissertation has three components: the main text , the notes , and the bibliography .

The main text is where you put in the substance of your argument, and is meant to be longer than the notes. For quotes from elsewhere, up to about thirty words, use quotation marks ("...", or '...'). If you quote anything longer, it is better to indent the whole quotation without quotation marks.

Notes may either be at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or at the end of the main text, but before the bibliography (endnotes). Use notes for references and other supplementary material which does not constitute the substance of your argument. Whenever you quote directly from other works, you must give the exact reference in your notes. A reference means the exact location in a book or article which you have read , so that others can find it also – it should include author, title of the book, place and date of publication, page number. (There are many different ways to refer to scholarly works: see below.) . If you cite a primary source from a secondary source and you yourself have not read or checked the primary source, you must acknowledge the secondary source from which the citation was taken. Whenever you paraphrase material from somebody else's work, you must acknowledge that fact. There is no excuse for plagiarism. It is important to note that generous and full acknowledgement of the work of others does not undermine your originality.

Your bibliography must contain all the books and articles you have referred to (do not include works that you did not use). It lists works alphabetically by the last name of the author. There are different conventions to set out a bibliography, but at the very least a bibliographic entry should include for a book the last name and initials/first name of the author, the title of the book in italics or underlined, and the place, (publisher optional) and date of publication; or, for an article, the last name and initials/first name of the author, the title in inverted commas, and the name of the journal in italics or underlined, followed by volume number, date of publication, and page numbers. Names of editors of volumes of collected articles and names of translators should also be included, whenever applicable.

• M. MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• William Clark, 'Narratology and the History of Science', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26 (1995), 1–72.
• M. F. Burnyeat, 'The Sceptic in His Place and Time', in R. Rorty, J. B. Schneewind and Q. Skinner (eds), Philosophy in History , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 225–54.

Alternatively, if you have many works to refer to, it may be easier to use an author-date system in notes, e.g.:

• MacDonald [1981], p. 89; Clark [1995a], p. 65; Clark [1995b], pp. 19–99.

In this case your bibliography should also start with the author-date, e.g.:

• MacDonald, Michael [1981], Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Clark, William [1995a], 'Narratology and the History of Science', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 26, 1–72.

This system has the advantage of making your foot- or endnotes shorter, and many choose it to save words (the bibliography is not included in the word limit). It is the system commonly used in scientific publications. Many feel however that something is historically amiss when you find in a footnote something like 'Plato [1996b]' or 'Locke [1975]'. In some fields of research there are standard systems of reference: you will find that this is the case if, for example, you write an essay/dissertation on classical history or philosophy of science. In such cases it is a good idea to take a standard secondary source as your model (e.g. in the case of classics, see G.E.R. Lloyd's The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practices of Ancient Greek Science , Berkeley 1987).

Whatever system you decide to follow for your footnotes, what matters most is that the end-product is consistent.

Keep accurate records of all the relevant bibliographic information as you do your reading for your essay/dissertation. (If you don't you may waste days trying to trace references when you are close to submission deadlines.)

Consistency of style throughout the essay/dissertation is encouraged. There are many professional guides to thesis writing which give you more information on the style and format of theses – for example the MLS handbook (British) and the Chicago Manual of Style (American), both in the Whipple, and a booklet, H. Teitelbaum, How to Write a Thesis: A Guide to the Research Paper , 3rd ed., 126 pp., New York: Macmillan (& Arco), 1994 (in the UL: 1996.8.2620). But don't try to follow everything they say!

Every now and then you should read through a printout of your whole essay/dissertation, to ensure that your argument flows throughout the piece: otherwise there is a danger that your arguments become compartmentalised to the size of the screen. When reading drafts, ask yourself if it would be comprehensible to an intelligent reader who was not an expert on the specific topic.

It is imperative that you save your work on disk regularly – never be caught out without a back-up.

Before you submit:

• remember to run a spell-check (and remember that a spell check will not notice if you have written, for example, 'pheasant' instead of 'peasant', or, even trickier, 'for' instead of 'from', 'it' instead of 'is', etc.);
• prepare a table of contents, with titles for each chapter of your essay/dissertation, page numbers and all;
• prepare a cover page with the title, your name and college;
• prepare a page with the required statement about length, originality etc.

Email search

Privacy and cookie policies

Study History and Philosophy of Science

Undergraduate study

Postgraduate study

Library and Museum

Whipple Library

Whipple Museum

Museum Collections Portal

Research projects

History of Medicine

Philosophy of Science

© 2024 University of Cambridge

• Contact the University
• Accessibility
• Freedom of information
• Privacy policy and cookies
• Statement on Modern Slavery
• Terms and conditions
• University A-Z
• Undergraduate
• Postgraduate
• Research news
• About research at Cambridge
• Spotlight on...

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: 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 (Athens: 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:

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these honored dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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 (Boston, MA: 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. Athens: 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 .

• Subject guides
• Citing & Referencing

History: Citing & Referencing

• Middle East
• Medieval & Renaissance
• United Kingdom
• For postgraduates

Other useful guides

• Primary sources for Humanities
• Indigenous Cultures & Histories
• Jewish Studies and Holocaust & Genocide Studies
• Religious Studies
• Archaeology & Ancient history
• International Studies
• Citing and referencing

Helpful Links

• Citing & Referencing Library Guide
• Citing and referencing online tutorial
• History Essay Writing Guide
• EndNote Guide
• EndNote tips for Mac users

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 Monash Harvard; APA; MHRA; Chicago 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 are MHRA; Chicago and MLA.

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 2 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 Library offers classes throughout the year on EndNote which can be booked online . I f you have a group of at least 5 students i t is also possible to request a class directly from the History librarian.

Online tutorials are available to help you get started.

• << Previous: United Kingdom
• Next: For postgraduates >>

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game New
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• College University and Postgraduate
• Academic Writing

How to Write a History Essay

Last Updated: December 27, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a private tutor in San Carlos, California. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 243,194 times.

Writing a history essay requires you to include a lot of details and historical information within a given number of words or required pages. It's important to provide all the needed information, but also to present it in a cohesive, intelligent way. Know how to write a history essay that demonstrates your writing skills and your understanding of the material.

Preparing to Write Your Essay

• The key words will often need to be defined at the start of your essay, and will serve as its boundaries. [2] X Research source
• For example, if the question was "To what extent was the First World War a Total War?", the key terms are "First World War", and "Total War".
• Do this before you begin conducting your research to ensure that your reading is closely focussed to the question and you don't waste time.

• Explain: provide an explanation of why something happened or didn't happen.
• Interpret: analyse information within a larger framework to contextualise it.
• Evaluate: present and support a value-judgement.
• Argue: take a clear position on a debate and justify it. [3] X Research source

• Your thesis statement should clearly address the essay prompt and provide supporting arguments. These supporting arguments will become body paragraphs in your essay, where you’ll elaborate and provide concrete evidence. [4] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• Your argument may change or become more nuanced as your write your essay, but having a clear thesis statement which you can refer back to is very helpful.
• For example, your summary could be something like "The First World War was a 'total war' because civilian populations were mobilized both in the battlefield and on the home front".

• Pick out some key quotes that make your argument precisely and persuasively. [5] X Research source
• When writing your plan, you should already be thinking about how your essay will flow, and how each point will connect together.

Doing Your Research

• Primary source material refers to any texts, films, pictures, or any other kind of evidence that was produced in the historical period, or by someone who participated in the events of the period, that you are writing about.
• Secondary material is the work by historians or other writers analysing events in the past. The body of historical work on a period or event is known as the historiography.
• It is not unusual to write a literature review or historiographical essay which does not directly draw on primary material.
• Typically a research essay would need significant primary material.

• Start with the core texts in your reading list or course bibliography. Your teacher will have carefully selected these so you should start there.
• Look in footnotes and bibliographies. When you are reading be sure to pay attention to the footnotes and bibliographies which can guide you to further sources a give you a clear picture of the important texts.
• Use the library. If you have access to a library at your school or college, be sure to make the most of it. Search online catalogues and speak to librarians.
• Access online journal databases. If you are in college it is likely that you will have access to academic journals online. These are an excellent and easy to navigate resources.
• Use online sources with discretion. Try using free scholarly databases, like Google Scholar, which offer quality academic sources, but avoid using the non-trustworthy websites that come up when you simply search your topic online.
• Avoid using crowd-sourced sites like Wikipedia as sources. However, you can look at the sources cited on a Wikipedia page and use them instead, if they seem credible.

• Who is the author? Is it written by an academic with a position at a University? Search for the author online.
• Who is the publisher? Is the book published by an established academic press? Look in the cover to check the publisher, if it is published by a University Press that is a good sign.
• If it's an article, where is published? If you are using an article check that it has been published in an academic journal. [8] X Research source
• If the article is online, what is the URL? Government sources with .gov addresses are good sources, as are .edu sites.

• Ask yourself why the author is making this argument. Evaluate the text by placing it into a broader intellectual context. Is it part of a certain tradition in historiography? Is it a response to a particular idea?
• Consider where there are weaknesses and limitations to the argument. Always keep a critical mindset and try to identify areas where you think the argument is overly stretched or the evidence doesn't match the author's claims. [9] X Research source

• Label all your notes with the page numbers and precise bibliographic information on the source.
• If you have a quote but can't remember where you found it, imagine trying to skip back through everything you have read to find that one line.
• If you use something and don't reference it fully you risk plagiarism. [10] X Research source

Writing the Introduction

• For example you could start by saying "In the First World War new technologies and the mass mobilization of populations meant that the war was not fought solely by standing armies".
• This first sentences introduces the topic of your essay in a broad way which you can start focus to in on more.

• This will lead to an outline of the structure of your essay and your argument.
• Here you will explain the particular approach you have taken to the essay.
• For example, if you are using case studies you should explain this and give a brief overview of which case studies you will be using and why.

Writing the Essay

• Try to include a sentence that concludes each paragraph and links it to the next paragraph.
• When you are organising your essay think of each paragraph as addressing one element of the essay question.
• Keeping a close focus like this will also help you avoid drifting away from the topic of the essay and will encourage you to write in precise and concise prose.
• Don't forget to write in the past tense when referring to something that has already happened.

• Don't drop a quote from a primary source into your prose without introducing it and discussing it, and try to avoid long quotations. Use only the quotes that best illustrate your point.
• If you are referring to a secondary source, you can usually summarise in your own words rather than quoting directly.
• Be sure to fully cite anything you refer to, including if you do not quote it directly.

• Think about the first and last sentence in every paragraph and how they connect to the previous and next paragraph.
• Try to avoid beginning paragraphs with simple phrases that make your essay appear more like a list. For example, limit your use of words like: "Additionally", "Moreover", "Furthermore".
• Give an indication of where your essay is going and how you are building on what you have already said. [15] X Research source

• Briefly outline the implications of your argument and it's significance in relation to the historiography, but avoid grand sweeping statements. [16] X Research source
• A conclusion also provides the opportunity to point to areas beyond the scope of your essay where the research could be developed in the future.

Proofreading and Evaluating Your Essay

• Try to cut down any overly long sentences or run-on sentences. Instead, try to write clear and accurate prose and avoid unnecessary words.
• Concentrate on developing a clear, simple and highly readable prose style first before you think about developing your writing further. [17] X Research source
• Reading your essay out load can help you get a clearer picture of awkward phrasing and overly long sentences. [18] X Research source

• When you read through your essay look at each paragraph and ask yourself, "what point this paragraph is making".
• You might have produced a nice piece of narrative writing, but if you are not directly answering the question it is not going to help your grade.

• A bibliography will typically have primary sources first, followed by secondary sources. [19] X Research source
• Double and triple check that you have included all the necessary references in the text. If you forgot to include a reference you risk being reported for plagiarism.

Sample Essay

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://www.historytoday.com/robert-pearce/how-write-good-history-essay
• ↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/writing-resources/writing-a-good-history-paper
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/thesis_statement_tips.html
• ↑ http://history.rutgers.edu/component/content/article?id=106:writing-historical-essays-a-guide-for-undergraduates
• ↑ https://guides.lib.uw.edu/c.php?g=344285&p=2580599
• ↑ http://www.hamilton.edu/documents/writing-center/WritingGoodHistoryPaper.pdf
• ↑ http://www.bowdoin.edu/writing-guides/
• ↑ https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/hppi/publications/Writing-History-Essays.pdf

About This Article

To write a history essay, read the essay question carefully and use source materials to research the topic, taking thorough notes as you go. Next, formulate a thesis statement that summarizes your key argument in 1-2 concise sentences and create a structured outline to help you stay on topic. Open with a strong introduction that introduces your thesis, present your argument, and back it up with sourced material. Then, end with a succinct conclusion that restates and summarizes your position! For more tips on creating a thesis statement, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Lea Fernandez

Nov 23, 2017

Did this article help you?

Matthew Sayers

Mar 31, 2019

Millie Jenkerinx

Nov 11, 2017

Oct 18, 2019

Shannon Harper

Mar 9, 2018

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Don’t miss out! Sign up for

wikiHow’s newsletter

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

20 When to use Citations and Quotations

Basic rules for both:.

A good historical essay keeps the support for its argument transparent and its readers engaged. These two priorities—allowing readers to follow the evidence and judge it for themselves, while reminding them why they should care, as the story involves real people and their thoughts—can help students decide when they must use a citation and/or when they should use a quote from their sources, whether primary or secondary.

When to include a footnote (or endnote):

In terms of citations (footnotes or endnotes, depending on your professor’s instructions or your preference in the absence of instructions, as they are the same), the general rule is that you need to help your readers check your evidence to see if your evidence supports your thesis, should they choose to so. However, there are some specific occasions when you must use a footnote/endnote:

• Direct quotes from a primary or secondary source
• P araphrased information from either a primary or secondary source. Even if you are changing the words, you are still responsible for showing where you got your information. Mature scholars name the source (or, more likely, sources) that laid the groundwork for their own analysis. Doing so doesn’t make you seem unknowledgeable, but rather helps your readers understand how you are building knowledge.
• Facts that are not well known . You do not have to cite a source for noting when the US joined World War I, or for the route that Lewis and Clark took—as those are knowable facts from any number of sources. But if you cite specific conversations held between cabinet officials prior to the War, or detail the Native groups met at each bend in the river—material another scholar found by research primary sources—you must cite that scholar. Show your readers where you found new, or not widely known information.
• Another scholar’s controversial opinion . If you refer to a claim about the past that isn’t widely accepted—that is, not concerning when the Civil War began, but rather which politicians were to blame for its outbreak—you need to cite where you got that opinion. (Of course, you do not need to provide citations for your own analysis, controversial or otherwise.)
• Statistics – these are like lesser-known facts, given that statistics can vary depending upon who compiled them. For this reason, you need to cite where you found your numerical facts and figures.

Two other footnote/endnote rules:

• “Talking” or annotated notes: If it’s helpful for readers to understand additional information that’s not so critical that it belongs in the text, you may provide an explanatory foot/end note with information beyond the source citation. Beware though—some editors and instructors don’t approve, as they believe that any information not critical to the argument is not critical to the essay.
• Condensing foot/end notes: Many journals and instructors allow you to provide a citation at the end of a paragraph with the multiple sources that helped you create that paragraph, rather than providing a citation at every sentence, or portion of sentence that rested on a secondary source.

When to quote directly:

In many ways, the same situations that call for a citation to the general source also make for a good situation in which to include a direct quotation (as opposed to paraphrasing your information). At the same time, you don’t want to overquote—we’re interested in your thoughts, not those of five other experts. You should also use your own words unless there’s a compelling need to quote, such as bringing in a unique voice or capturing a controversial fact or opinion. A good essay offers variety in a number of ways—word choice, sentence structure, and which sources provide quotations. Here are some places where a direct quotation from the source are warranted:

• An authoritative source—the main book on a topic—says something important or controversial.
• When any source uses language that is compelling, and thus should not just be paraphrased.
• In order to get the “flavor” or language of the wording from a primary source.
• Most quotes in your paper should come from primary sources, not secondary ones.

How to quote:

• Avoid “block quotes” unless the reader must see a large portion of the primary source to understand your analysis, and all of that explanation must be in the source’s voice. That is, when quoting, include just enough of the quotation to make sense, without adding parts of the quote that don’t pertain to your analysis or go into more detail than needed. But on the whole, phrases or a single sentence cover your bases.
• When you do need to use a block quote, indent it and use single spacing.
• Never let any quote—including a rare block quote—stand on its own. You must explain what the source means. The requirement that all sources must be analyzed in the text means that you should not begin or end a paragraph with a quotation, except perhaps in a very rare stylistic moment when doing so will not leave the reader confused.
• If you do not want to use all your source’s words, you may use ellipses, which are three spaced dots like this (make sure you put a space between each period, never put them directly beside each other): . . .
• If you would like to use a source’s words, but need to change something to make it fit into your sentence (such as a verb tense or a pronoun) use square brackets for a word you changed. You may NOT change an entire word.
• However, if you need to change several words in a quotation, it’s usually best to quote only a phrase, rather than burdening a quote with ellipses and brackets.
• Make sure that your quote supports the point you’re trying to make and doesn’t read like a random quote from the individual under examination.

Some examples from Mary Rowland’s Captivity Narrative [1682]

Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Phillip’s War and held captive for eleven weeks. When she returned to her home, she wrote a narrative about her experiences. What follows are some examples of how you might use parts of one quotation from Rowlandson’s book. From that primary source:

“It is not my tongue, or pen, can express the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit that I had at this departure: but God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail. One of the Indians carried my poor wounded babe upon a horse; it went moaning all along, ‘I shall die, I shall die.’ I went on foot after it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed.”

• Double quotation marks [“] signal the beginning and end of a quotation. If there are quotations within what you are quoting—in this case, the words of the child [“I shall die, I shall die”]—mark them with single quotation marks [‘]. The use of double quotations are standard in American English (but not British English). Single quotes within double quotes indicate interior quotes the passage.
• See the indent in the example above, which counts as “long.”

If I wanted to use the quote to discuss Rowlandson’s state of mind :

Early in her captivity, Mary Rowlandson experienced enormous fear and loss. As she put it, her “pen [could not] express the sorrows of my heart, and bitterness of my spirit” upon leaving her community.

• In the state of mind quote above, the part of the quote that covers her faith isn’t necessary to make this point and is omitted.
• In the above example, the altered verb tense ( could not , rather than can ) flows better with the sentence but does not change Rowlandson’s meaning.
• Changing verb tenses and substituting or clarifying a pronoun that is not clear in the original mark the limits of altering a quote, for the most part.
• Any source quoted must fit the point .
• This passage is about her feelings, not what the Indians were doing.
• It’s also incorrect because there are no “stitching” words or a colon to link the primary source quote to the analytical statement of the author.
• Correct : The Indians who captured Rowlandson were particularly cruel. As Rowlandson noted, while her child moaned, she “went on foot after it, with sorrow that cannot be expressed.”
• For example, in a sentence about how Rowlandson used language that suggested a physical experience of faith: Rowlandson referred to physical, rather than emotional, manifestations of her faith frequently. For example, she spoke of “God . . . carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit.”
• Note that brackets were not necessary because all words are in original.
• Note that the language of “poor wounded babe” is an expressive phrase that captures Rowlandson’s voice.
• Substituting [the child] for “it” makes the sentence clearer.

How History is Made: A Student’s Guide to Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the Discipline Copyright © 2022 by Stephanie Cole; Kimberly Breuer; Scott W. Palmer; and Brandon Blakeslee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

The Point Conversations and insights about the moment.

• Share full article

David French

Opinion Columnist

When a Mob Gets to Veto a Valedictorian’s Speech

On Tuesday the University of Southern California canceled a planned graduation speech by its valedictorian, a young woman named Asna Tabassum. My newsroom colleague Stephanie Saul reported that the “school said the decision stemmed from security concerns based on emails and other electronic communications warning of a plan to disrupt the commencement, including at least one that targeted Ms. Tabassum.”

Shortly after Tabassum had been named valedictorian, two student groups, Trojans for Israel and Chabad, objected. Her social media bio apparently included a link to a group that condemns Zionism as a “racist settler-colonial ideology.” Trojans for Israel said Tabassum “openly traffics antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.”

Oddly enough, Andrew T. Guzman, the university’s provost, claimed the decision to cancel Tabassum’s address “has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement.” While Guzman may be correct as a matter of broad legal principle — there is no right to be a graduation speaker — he is completely wrong that the decision to cancel has nothing to do with free speech.

In fact, canceling a speech because of future safety concerns is a more egregious form of censorship than the classic “ heckler’s veto ,” when protesters silence speakers by disrupting their speeches. U.S.C.’s decision to cancel Tabassum’s speech was a form of anticipatory heckler’s veto. U.S.C. canceled the speech before the heckling could even start.

To support Tabassum’s ability to speak is not to minimize very real safety concerns in a tense and volatile time. In February, for example, a violent mob at the University of California, Berkeley, forced attendees to evacuate an event featuring a speaker from Israel. But it is the responsibility of the state and the university to protect both the liberty and the security of their students and guests.

I disagree strongly with condemnations of Zionism as racist, and I think it would be a serious mistake if Tabassum chose to commandeer her commencement platform to express such views. But I’m far more concerned about setting yet another precedent showing that threats and intimidation work than I am about the content of a single graduation speech. It is exactly when security feels most precarious that American institutions must be most vigilant in the defense of freedom.

The alternative is grim. If a fail-safe method of silencing speech is summoning a mob, or even merely threatening to summon a mob, then expect to see more mobs.

Jesse Wegman

Editorial Board Member

The Supreme Court May Side With Jan. 6 Rioters, and Their Leader

Because of a couple of ambiguous words in a federal law, a majority of the Supreme Court seems poised to throw out hundreds of convictions of Jan. 6 attackers. That was the main takeaway after oral arguments Tuesday morning in a case challenging the Justice Department’s reliance on an Enron-era law in prosecuting some of the more than 1,200 rioters who broke down barricades and stormed the Capitol in a violent effort to overturn the 2020 election.

The right-wing justices, who sound increasingly like they are dictating replies to a MAGA social media thread, expressed concern about the risk of selective prosecution. Why, they asked, hasn’t this same law been used against Black Lives Matter protesters or, say, Representative Jamaal Bowman, the Democratic lawmaker who pulled a fire alarm in Congress last year?

It’s fair to ensure that laws are applied equally, but this line of questioning, and from these particular justices, was at best disingenuous. They seemed to forget that there is no precedent for a violent mob invading Congress in an attempt to block a constitutionally mandated vote count and overthrow an election. (Bowman, in contrast, was censured by his colleagues for his stupid and reckless but not insurrectionist act.)

The bigger question looming behind Tuesday’s arguments involved the man who incited the Jan. 6 mob: Donald Trump, the former and perhaps future president. Jack Smith, the special counsel, included violations of the same law in one of his federal indictments of Trump, and if the court tosses the charge in the cases of the relatively low-level attackers, Trump will surely exploit that in his case.

Of course, Trump’s own Jan. 6 trial, which was supposed to begin in early March, has been on hold for months, thanks to his outrageous claim of absolute immunity, which the justices agreed last month to hear on an oddly relaxed schedule . Oral arguments are more than a week off, and a ruling might not come until late June.

If there’s any silver lining in all this, it’s that Smith will know by then what the court thinks of this obstruction charge, and he can adapt his Jan. 6 prosecution accordingly.

In the meantime, Congress may want to update the federal criminal code for the age of Trumpism.

Advertisement

Jonathan Alter

Contributing Opinion Writer

Trump’s Plan to Expose the Secret Bias of Jurors Isn’t Working

It isn’t easy being orange in Manhattan, but it helps to have a bunch of jury consultants scouring the web for anyone with a sense of humor about you. Even spouses making bad orange jokes.

Donald Trump’s legal team isn’t wrong to be concerned about bias. In the first batch of potential jurors in his hush-money trial, more than half volunteered that they could not be fair and were dismissed. And when a former Lands’ End employee was found to have posted in 2017 on Facebook to “lock him up,” Justice Juan Merchan rightly dismissed the potential juror for cause. Same for a bookseller who posted an A.I. parody video of Trump saying he is “dumb as ….”

But as the court seated seven jurors on Tuesday (out of 12, plus a half-dozen alternates), Trump and his lawyers tried the judge’s patience.

I wish there were audio footage of the angry voice from the bench when Merchan told Trump’s lawyers that the defendant “was audible, he was gesturing and he was speaking in the direction of the juror. I will not tolerate that. I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom.”

A few minutes later, the still-irritated judge said he thought that Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, was using the jury selection process to — wait for it — delay the proceedings. When Blanche tried to have a high school teacher from the Upper West Side dismissed for cause because she had taken a cellphone video of a street dance party on 96th Street celebrating Joe Biden’s victory, the judge summoned the potential juror. After ascertaining that she was sincere in her assurance that she could be fair, he refused to dismiss her for cause.

And Merchan rebuked Blanche for also offering a video the juror took of New Yorkers saluting health care workers by banging pots and pans each night at the start of the Covid pandemic. Blanche suggested the video was disqualifying, but the judge said there was “nothing offensive” about it, adding that making such irrelevant challenges was a waste of everyone’s time.

When the defense wanted Juror No. 3 dismissed for cause because her husband posted three joking photos (one during the transition from Barack Obama to Trump with the caption “I don’t think this is what they meant by ‘orange is the new black’”), the judge was not amused.

“If this is the worst thing you were able to find,” he said, “that her husband posted this not very good humor from eight years ago, it gives me confidence that this juror could be fair and impartial.”

Will Trump finally get the message that he’s not calling the shots? Not likely, but the judge will almost certainly keep delivering it for the duration of this trial.

Bret Stephens

The Assault on American Jews Is Getting Worse

Ten years ago, the Anti-Defamation League released its annual audit of antisemitic incidents in the United States. The group reported just 751 incidents targeting Jews in 2013, a 19 percent drop from the previous year.

“In the last decade we have witnessed a significant and encouraging decline in the number of antisemitic acts in America,” Abraham Foxman, the A.D.L.’s director at the time, said in a news release. “The falling number of incidents targeting Jews is another indication of just how far we have come in finding full acceptance in society.”

That was then. On Tuesday, the A.D.L. released its audit for 2023 . It recorded 8,873 antisemitic incidents in the United States — a 140 percent increase over 2022 and a tenfold increase over a decade ago. The numbers include 161 physical assaults, 2,177 acts of vandalism and 1,009 bomb threats against synagogues and other Jewish institutions, as compared to 91 bomb threats for 2022. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated 13 times last year, up from four times the year before.

Much of the increase came after Hamas’s massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, and the A.D.L. changed its methodology somewhat to take account of anti-Zionist expressions it deemed to be effectively antisemitic. But even without the methodology changes, the A.D.L. would still have recorded 7,523 antisemitic incidents last year.

What do some of these incidents look like? The report offers dozens of examples.

In February 2023, a man shot two Jewish men as they were leaving a synagogue. In May, “swastikas made of feces were smeared in a residence hall bathroom at the University of California, San Diego.” In July, a group of about 20 people assaulted three Jewish teens at New York’s Rockaway Beach after noticing that one of the teens was wearing a Star of David. In October, Jemma DeCristo , a professor in American studies at the University of California, Davis, threatened “Zionist journalists”: “they have houses w addresses, kids in school,” she wrote, before signing off with knife, hatchet and blood emojis.

Antisemitism can be difficult to define — a fact that has long offered antisemites an opportunity to hide their prejudice behind terminology. But as Justice Potter Stewart once said about pornography — “I know it when I see it” — so it could be said about hatred of Jews.

To see it in America today, you don’t have to look very far.

New York’s Flawed Housing Deal Still Deserves Approval

New York’s politicians have finally struck a deal to address the state’s disastrous housing crisis, the most pressing issue facing the region.

The deal, announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers Monday, is solicitous of real estate interests. But it may help accomplish some of what the state and its tenants need anyway.

Under the compromise, which would be included in the state budget, developers would receive generous tax incentives to build more housing. In exchange, developers would make 20 percent of the units affordable. A limit on building sizes would be raised, providing an incentive for more construction in New York City. Owners of rent-stabilized buildings could charge higher rents for making improvements. Hochul officials say the plan would lead to just under 190,000 units of new housing in the state over the next decade.

Tenants in New York City would win new protections against evictions, a long-sought goal. But other benefits for tenants are weak. Municipalities outside the city would have to opt in to the protections, which would prohibit owners of market-rate buildings from increasing the rent by more than 10 percent over the previous year, or 5 percentage points above the rate of inflation. There is a feast of exemptions, including properties with 10 or fewer units, and new units built wouldn’t be covered under the protections for the first 30 years. The weakness of these tenant protections, which have been fought hard by groups like the Real Estate Board of New York, is a reflection of the industry’s continued outsize sway on state politics.

But as flawed as this compromise is, walking away from it entirely would be irresponsible.

Four in 10 New York State residents are spending 30 percent of their income or more on housing. More than half of New York City residents are doing the same. Evictions are up nearly 200 percent .

Doing nothing isn’t an option. Instead, lawmakers and state officials can work quickly to make the deal better. Tenant protections can be strengthened. Allowing residents to rent accessory dwelling units, known as in-law apartments, would also be a win.

Truly facing this crisis will require bigger fights, like confronting restrictive zoning laws in Westchester and Long Island that have made it almost impossible to build multifamily housing. It’s also past time to reform New York City’s embarrassingly regressive property tax system, in which renters get stuck with most of the bill.

Residents, voters and businesses invested in New York City need to build a powerful pro-housing coalition, one that not even Albany can ignore.

Opinion Writer

Trump Beats Biden on the Economy, Voters Say. Are They Right?

President Biden must be tearing his hair out over the latest New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters. Half of the respondents describe economic conditions as “poor.” Only 20 percent say they strongly approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, while 45 percent strongly approve of Donald Trump’s handling of the economy as president.

This would make sense if the economy were in recession, but the opposite is true. The Covid-19 recession happened while Trump was still in office, and the economy has snapped back powerfully since. On Monday, the Census Bureau released retail sales data for March that economists described as “solid,” “strong” and “booming.”

To be clear, what this means is that there are some likely voters whose opinions and actions don’t line up. They’re saying the economy is poor, but they’re behaving as if things are really good. How is Biden supposed to respond to this in his economic speech in Scranton, Pa., on Tuesday, without antagonizing voters by telling them they’re wrong?

Here’s a chart I made based on the Times/Siena poll about the two presidents’ handling of the economy:

And here’s one about economic conditions, which only 5 percent of likely voters rate as excellent:

I asked Ludovic Subran, the chief economist of Allianz Research in Germany, for his explanation of the divergence between the economy’s performance and voters’ perceptions. He put it into an international perspective. Around the world, he said, voters have turned against people who were in office when the inflation shock hit. Biden’s predicament doesn’t look unusual from that point of view.

Subran also said that inequality has increased during the recovery from the pandemic because the strong stock market has lifted the wealth of the stock-holding class. He attributed part of the stock market gains to the Biden administration’s policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which directed government aid to companies that are investing in the fight against climate change. (Partially offsetting that, wage gains have been strongest at the bottom end of the income scale.)

The good news for Biden in the Times/Siena poll is that the two candidates are nearly tied in terms of whom voters would pick if the election were held today. But if Biden can’t persuade voters that he’s better than Trump on the economy — or at least somewhere in that neighborhood — his re-election campaign will remain in peril.

Justice Merchan Starts to Hold Trump Accountable

Beyond seeing its historical importance, those of us covering the Trump trial expected the first day to be relatively uneventful, with housekeeping details and rules of the road for jury selection. But it turned out that the morning also had the first stirrings of accountability for Donald Trump.

As part of the pretrial housekeeping, Justice Juan Merchan delivered the so-called Parker warnings on courtroom behavior directly to the defendant, reminding him that he could be jailed if he disrupted the proceedings.

Trump, who earlier seemed to be dozing, muttered, “I do,” when asked if he understood this and the other elements of the warning, which Merchan was delivering to Trump for a second time — now orally — just to make sure it sank in.

Then the former president had to sit and listen to a discussion of the admissibility of his years of witness intimidation, his arguably illegal social media posts and his efforts to use The National Enquirer to destroy his rivals. The jury didn’t hear any of this, but Trump and everyone else in the courtroom did.

All morning, Trump’s side only won once: when Merchan ruled that during the testimony of Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, there could be no mention in front of the jury of Trump’s wife being pregnant and then being with a newborn (Barron Trump) at home when McDougal says they were having a long-running affair.

At one point, Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, saw that his slumped client was looking straight ahead, dejected. He reached out and patted Trump on the back.

Merchan said he would hold a hearing on April 23 on the prosecution’s motion that Trump be held in contempt of court and possibly jailed for three Truth Social posts attacking Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, which seemed to be a clear violation of Merchan’s gag order preventing Trump from trying to intimidate witnesses.

Merchan indicated that he would reject Trump’s go-to argument that he was just responding in kind.

In the meantime, Merchan was also concerned about the logistics of accommodating Trump’s desire to be heavily involved in jury selection. Part of that process can take place in conference, outside the courtroom, if a potential juror wants to talk to Merchan and the lawyers in private. The unspoken worry hanging over the courtroom: Would a potential juror feel intimidated if Trump, exercising his right, was there, too?

Merchan is working that out. He reminds me of the old deodorant ad for Ice Blue Secret. The bespectacled, snow-haired Merchan is “cool, calm and collected” and will do a terrific job in this trial.

Frank Bruni

Have Voters Really Forgotten Trump’s Presidency?

Memory plays tricks on us. It’s famously unreliable. That’s the bane of estranged lovers weighing the wisdom of reconciliation. Of jurors determining the credibility of a witness.

And of Americans deciding how to vote in a presidential election? The latest poll by The New York Times and Siena College makes me wonder.

The poll, published Saturday, shows Donald Trump holding on to a slight edge of 46 percent to 45 percent over President Biden. And it includes this detail: When survey respondents were asked whether they remember the years of Trump’s presidency as “mostly good,” “mostly bad” or “not really good or bad,” 42 percent said “mostly good,” while just 33 percent said “mostly bad.”

Mostly good? Which part? His first impeachment? His second? All the drama at the border (because, yes, there was drama at the border then, too)? All the drama in the West Wing? The revolving door of senior administration officials, his good-people-on-both-sides response to the violence in Charlottesville, Va., his wishful musings about violent attacks on journalists and Democrats, his nutty soliloquies at news conferences early in the coronavirus pandemic, his recklessly cavalier handling of his own Covid infection, his incitement of the Jan. 6 rioting, the rioting itself?

Those were the days.

I realize that the “mostly good” camp comprises many MAGA loyalists who will simply answer any Trump-related question in a Trump-adoring way. Tribalism triumphs. I realize, too, that Americans tend to prioritize economic realities in assessments of this kind, and that much of what they’re remembering and referring to are the lower prices of housing, food and other essentials during Trump’s presidency.

But I fear that they’re forgetting too much else in a wash of voter nostalgia . A fresh presidential bid by someone who was in and then away from the White House isn’t just highly unusual. It’s a memory test — and, in the case of a politician as potentially destructive as Trump, a profoundly important one.

Americans unhappy with Biden’s presidency need no reminders about why. They’re living it every day. But their present discontent may be claiming the space on their mental hard drives where their past discontent was stored, purging all the discord and disgrace that created Biden’s opening.

Absence makes the Trump grow stronger.

As History Is Made, Trump Can Only Glare in Silent Fury

On Monday morning, those of us fortunate enough to have a seat in the courtroom will feel the hush of history as Justice Juan Merchan opens the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump. This will be the first time since the founding of the American republic that a president of the United States has gone on trial in a criminal court.

As jury selection begins, my thoughts will inevitably turn to this striking lack of precedent. Richard Nixon was pardoned, Bill Clinton was disbarred, and Ulysses S. Grant paid a ticket for speeding in his carriage, but none faced a criminal trial.

This case is about highly credible charges that Trump falsified business records as part of a scheme to silence an adult film star and tilt the outcome of the 2016 election.

The prosecution’s argument that this is a 2016 election interference case is prompting Trump to pursue his usual I’m-rubber-you’re-glue strategy and claim that it’s really the judge and the Manhattan district attorney who are interfering — in the 2024 election. But he won’t be able to make that argument inside the courtroom.

Trump will probably have to settle for sitting silently and glaring at the judge. He is a domineering client, even when it’s not in his interest, and he’ll probably weaken his case by forcing his lawyers to back his ridiculous claim that the whole extramarital affair is made up. They’ll have a better shot arguing that the hush-money payments were not illegal and Trump did not intentionally break tax and campaign finance laws.

Among the witnesses expected to testify are Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer turned major accuser, whose credibility will be a big issue; Hope Hicks, Trump’s former press secretary, who could help corroborate Cohen’s testimony; Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels), the porn star who received $130,000 in payments Trump is charged with laundering through Cohen; Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate of the year who also received hush money; and David Pecker, the National Enquirer chief testifying for the prosecution, whose catch-and-kill scheme to bury dirt on Trump will open a window on how tabloid journalism, well, changed world history.

Trump claimed on Friday that he’s willing to testify, but that may be just his usual posturing. If he rejects the pleading of his attorneys and takes the stand, cross-examination about his many lies would be admissible.

I’ll be back on Monday afternoon with a report on how the day went.

Patrick Healy

Deputy Opinion Editor

Could These Two Twists Change the 2024 Race?

Every Monday morning on The Point, we kick off the week with a tipsheet on the latest in the presidential campaign. Here’s what we’re looking at this week:

Donald Trump has spent this year projecting political strength. His renomination was inevitable , and he has been ahead of Joe Biden in many battleground state polls and national polls. Keep in mind: Trump rarely led in general election polls 2016 and 2020, making his strength in the first quarter of 2024 notable. It’s one reason there’s so much talk of him winning the presidency this year.

But this week? It’s the start of the Trump vulnerability chapter of the campaign. I haven’t seen him looking this vulnerable since his 2022 Senate endorsements blew up in his face. The reasons are two twists in the race: the Trump trial and abortion.

As everyone knows, Trump’s trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial is set to start Monday in Manhattan. Trump has never faced a criminal jury trial in his life. I don’t think he ever thought one of these criminal trials would actually happen — he’s been an escape artist his whole life. The big question: Will this trial actually change anyone’s opinion of Trump when so much about his bad behavior is already baked into our brains? I think a conviction might — there’s some polling that suggests that independents and some Trump leaners would be less likely to vote for him if he’s convicted, especially of a criminal cover-up. Based on a lot of years reporting with voters, and our Times Opinion focus groups, I think voting for a recently convicted criminal for president will be a bridge too far for some Americans otherwise inclined to back him.

On issues, Trump has boxed himself into a position on abortion that he thought was awfully clever when he rolled it out: Let each state decide its abortion law. Then Arizona’s Supreme Court did just that, upholding a ban from 1864. I’ve rarely seen Trump look as slippery and untrustworthy with his own base, and he’s running away from abortion as far as he can. Do swing voters really believe him when he says he wouldn’t sign a national abortion ban if he had the chance? Doubt it.

As you’ll keep hearing, the election is more than six months away, and so much can change: we barely know how the Iranian attack on Israel might affect things, for instance. But for all those known unknowns, one thing is clear: Trump is entering his riskiest phase yet of the race.

Trump and O.J.: Antiheroes in a Cracked Mirror

In the mid-1990s, I spent an afternoon in the courtroom covering O.J. Simpson’s criminal trial in Los Angeles. The effect of being there — like the effect of seeing Donald Trump in court during pretrial proceedings in New York — was to shrink the whole spectacle into something more quotidian. In person, the carnival looks not just smaller than it does on TV but also a little pathetic.

I’ll be covering Trump’s hush-money trial in New York beginning Monday for Times Opinion. It won’t be televised, but the comparisons between the two cases and two men are already so common that The Los Angeles Times made a typo — or Freudian slip — on Thursday, referring to Trump when the obit writer meant Simpson.

Yes, both cases are media circuses revolving around shameless and manipulative antiheroes who have exploited race for their advantage. Both tap into the weakness Americans have for toxic celebrities who play victim as they stick it to the man. Both lead millions to despair over whether justice can ever prevail.

But the similarities can be misleading and not just because the Simpson trial was for murder and the Trump case is about falsifying business records.

While murder is obviously more serious legally and morally, the fate of a former president of the United States indicted on 88 counts across four criminal cases in four jurisdictions is more serious and important historically than the fate of a former N.F.L. star who did TV ads for Hertz.

Simpson’s epic journey — with its mix of fame, race and violence — was a quintessentially American story. The Trump saga has all of that plus immense political stakes, but the fundamental question remains: Is he un-American or in the American grain?

Trump’s shocking victory in 2016 did not settle the matter. We will learn in this trial what almost every political consultant in both parties agrees on: that Trump would have lost that year and been reduced to a footnote if Stormy Daniels had told her story on the heels of the “Access Hollywood” debacle, which sent his campaign reeling. He won only because the 2016 election ended with the focus on Hillary Clinton’s emails.

So beyond legal culpability and political maneuvering, what’s at stake in this trial and this election is whether Trump is an aberration or the embodiment of a new, darker American identity.

Both Simpson and Trump are mirrors reflecting two images of America — one Black, one white, in Simpson’s case; one Democratic, one Republican, in Trump’s. All of the mirrors are cracked and coming apart, with the shards sharp enough to puncture any remaining illusions we have about ourselves.