Turabian Style is used by the humanities, social and natural sciences. There are two citation methods within Turabian style, traditional method of footnotes with a bibliography and the method of parenthetical references with a reference list at the end of the paper. The humanities favor the footnote method and the sciences the parenthitical references.

Kate L. Turabian’s Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations presents two basic documentation systems, notes-bibliography style (or simply bibliography style) and parenthetical citations–reference list style (or reference list style). These styles are very similar as those presented in The Chicago Manual of Style, with slight modifications for the needs of student writers.

Curious about who Kate was and how she developed a citation style? Click here to learn more.

The difference between Chicago Style and Turabian Style citations differ in the numbering of their notes. In Turabian Style citations, a superscript ¹ is used for endnote and footnote numbers in the text and at the beginning of each note. In Chicago Style Citations, the in-text numbering is in parentheses (1) and is followed by a period. Within the footnote, it is the number followed by a period.

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