LibGuides: Citations: Citation Styles

Overview

Kenrick-Glennon Seminary does not officially mandate a specific citation style, but papers and theses should make use of a major style, and be consistent in using it. Because they are the two main systems used in the humanities and theology, this guide focuses on the Chicago/Turabian and MLA citation styles.

The Chicago and Turabian styles are virtually identical.

The Chicago Manual of Style presents two basic documentation systems, the humanities style (notes and bibliography) and the author-date system. Choosing between the two often depends on the subject matter and nature of sources cited, as each system is favored by different groups of scholars.
The humanities style is preferred by many in literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in notes and, often, a bibliography. It accommodates a variety of sources, including esoteric ones less appropriate to the author-date system.
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (published by the University of Chicago Press and often referred to simply as Turabian), is a style guide for writing and formatting research papers (such as the arrangement and punctuation of footnotes and bibliographies). The style described in this book is commonly known as Turabian style, after the book's original author, Kate L. Turabian.
The primary difference from Chicago is that Turabian is shorter and contains fewer instructions and that it does not contain information about the publication, but otherwise they are virtually identical.

For a quick guide to and examples of Turabian, click here.

For an overview of the Chicago style, click here.

MLA format was developed by the Modern Language Association to provide a uniform way for academics in the arts and humanities fields to format their works and cite their sources. MLA format, like other academic styles, includes specific guidelines for a paper’s heading, in-text citations, works cited page, quotations, abbreviations, and even the size of the margins.

You can use MLA style to make in-text parenthetical citations using the author's last name and page number (e.g., Anatolios, 37).
For a useful overview of MLA formatting for a bibliography (what MLA prefers to call "Works Cited"), click here.
For an overview of MLA formatting for footnotes/endnotes, click here.
A hard copy of the most recent edition (9th) of the MLA Handbook is available in the library's reference collection.

EXAMPLES

MLA citation of a book in the bibliography, which is called "Works Cited:"

Anatolios, Khaled. Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine. Baker Academic, 2011.
In-text citation: (Anatolios, 37)
Correct order: (1) Author last name, (2) author first name, (3) title of book in italics, (4) publisher, (5) year of publication.

MLA Citation of an article:

Van Engen, John. “The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem.” The American Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 3, June 1986, pp. 519–52.
In-text citation: (Van Engen, 536)
Correct order: (1) Author last name, (2) author first name, (3) title of article in quotation marks, (4) title of journal in italics, (5) volume and issue numbers of journal, (6) date of publication, (7), page numbers.