Overall Structure of a Chicago Paper
Your Chicago paper should include the following basic elements:
- Title page
- Body
- References (if using the Author–Date method)
- Bibliography (if using the notes and bibliography method)
General Formatting Rules
Typeface
Your paper should be written in a legible font such as Times New Roman, and should be at least 10-pt in size (12-pt is recommended).
Line Spacing
All text in your paper should be double-spaced except for block quotations and image captions. On your citations page, each citation should be single-spaced, but there should be a blank line between each citation.
Margins
All page margins (top, bottom, left, and right) should be at least 1 inch and no more than 1.5 inches. All text, with the exception of headers, should be left-justified.
Indentation
The first line of every paragraph and footnote should be indented 0.5 inches.
Page Numbers
Page numbers in Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3…) should appear right-justified in the header of every page, beginning with the number 1 on the first page of text. Most word-processing programs have the ability to automatically add the correct page number to each page so you don’t have to do this by hand.
General Grammar Rules
The Oxford Comma
The Oxford comma (also called the serial comma) is the comma that comes after the second-to-last item in a series or list. For example:
The UK includes the countries of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
In the above sentence, the comma immediately after "Wales" is the Oxford comma.
In general writing conventions, whether the Oxford comma should be used is actually a point of fervent debate among passionate grammarians. However, it's a requirement in Chicago style, so double-check all your lists and series to make sure you include it!
Capitalization After Colons
In most cases, the first word after a colon should not be capitalized:
I know exactly what happened: he stole the cookies.
However, if what follows a colon is a series of multiple sentences, or a quotation, you do need to capitalize the first word after the colon:
If you have a colon in the middle of a sentence, and what follows after is a quotation or multiple sentences, the first word after the colon should be capitalized. For example:
I know exactly what happened: He stole the cookies. She snatched the cupcakes. You took the brownies.
Sentence Spacing
It used to be convention to type two spaces after every period—for example:
"Mary went to the store. She bought some milk. Then she went home."
This convention was developed when typewriters were in use; the space on a typewriter was quite small, so two spaces were needed to emphasize the end of a sentence. However, typewriters, and therefore this practice, are now obsolete—in fact, using two spaces after sentences is now generally frowned upon. Chicago style in particular includes an explicit rule to use only single spaces after periods:
"Mary went to the store. She bought some milk. Then she went home."
A Note on the Table of Contents
Chicago style does not provide guidelines for tables of contents for individual papers themselves. If your professor asks you to include a table of contents in your paper, they will give you their own guidelines for formatting.