SSCA Student Portal
Turabian Format Quick Guide
Templates
Discussion Board Posts
A discussion board is designed to mimic a real-time
discussion between two or more parties, so it
should be fairly formal (i.e., proper citations and academic tone), but most can
be slightly informal in the sense that if you wanted to refer to something
another party said, you’d just write something like “As Christy wrote in her initial
thread, xyz” or “I appreciate how Mike clarified xyz in his response to Marsha.”
Be sure to check with your instructor for his or her
expectations if you are required to cite this type of content. Below is a basic template.
Remember to include footnote
citations to credit your scholarly sources, along with a corresponding
bibliography list.
Discussion Board basic template (dotm)
Helpful Resources
Page Formatting
- Use one-inch margins on all sides.
- The preferred font/size is Times New Roman, 12 pt.
- Indent all paragraphs in the body of the paper
½”.
- Double-space the entire paper, except block quotes,
footnotes, bibliography entries, reference lists, table titles, and figure
captions. Those elements should be single-spaced, with one extra blank line
before/after to separate them from other elements.
Style
- The paper should be written in the 3rd person (he, she, it)
with an active voice, rather than
passive voice (pdf).
- Unless a instructor specifically asks for a paper in 1st
person (I, me, we, us, our) or 2nd person (you, your) language, avoid these in a
paper.
- Be specific and concise.
- In historical writing, use simple past tense verbs. When
referring to an author’s written work, use the present tense.
- Note that Turabian requires additional spacing before each
heading level, which is already programmed into the templates.
- Headline case = all significant words, usually those with
4+ letters, must be capitalized. Use headline case for titles of works; names of
journals; and first-, second-, and third-level headings.
- Sentence case = only the first letter of the first word,
proper nouns, and the word following a colon, if any, should begin with capital
letters. Use sentence case for fourth- and fifth-level headings.
- Add quotation marks around the titles of shorter works
(i.e., articles or poems); use italics for the names of larger works (i.e.,
books or plays).
Title Page
- SSCA now uses Turabian’s “student” title page
format for all programs and levels of study except dissertations and theses,
which follow Turabian’s “dissertation” title page format.
- See the links to all templates and sample papers above.
Pagination
- The title page is technically page one, but it never has a
page number
- Pagination for the fore matter, if any (including the table
of contents), uses lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii), in the center bottom of the
page. Begin with ii, to account for the title page position.
- The body of the paper for all SSCA classes
uses Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3) in the top-right corner. It begins with page 1.
All templates provided by SSCA are already programmed with proper
pagination.
Main Body
- The word Introduction is no longer included in student
papers unless the instructions specifically require such.
- The first paragraph in the body of academic papers should
include an introductory paragraph (with no label, title, or heading above it).
- Incorporating research that is credible and relevant helps to support
and validate a paper’s argument.
- With plagiarism, it’s better to be safe than sorry: if it’s
not yours, cite it!
Subheadings
Turabian uses up to five heading and subheading levels.
Though Turabian provides significant flexibility in formatting, all departments
across SSCA have universally adopted the following formats:
- First level: centered, boldface, in headline case
- Second level: centered, not bolded, in headline case
- Third level: left-justified, boldface, in headline case
- Fourth level: left-justified, not bolded, in sentence case
- Fifth level: indented ½”, not bolded, italicized, in
sentence case with a period, then one space, and begin your content on the same
line
Citations
Footnotes versus Parenthetical Citations
- Include a citation whenever another author’s work is
directly quoted or paraphrased.
- There are two formats in Turabian: author-date and
notes-bibliography. SSCA allows only notes-bibliography format,
except for book reviews (which use author-date format).
- In notes-bibliography, include relevant publishing details
along with the author’s name and year of publication as footnotes.
- All programs of study at SSCA still require
the use of ibid. for consecutive footnotes of the same resource on the same page
in notes-bibliography format, and shortened notes for non-consecutive subsequent
citations, even though the Turabian 9th edition manual recommends not using
ibid.
- See the
Turabian Chart of Citations (pdf) for visuals of
the citations and reference entries in notes-bibliography format. The section of
this Quick Guide on author-date format (permitted at SSCA only for
book reviews) includes a link to a chart of citations in that format.
Notes-Bibliography Citation Style
-
Used in all programs of study using Turabian
format (except book reviews, which use Author-Date format).
-
Footnotes are the preferred method to indicate
in-text citations throughout this format. SSCA does not permit
endnotes.
-
A bibliography is used to compile sources in
one list at the end of the paper.
Author-Date citation style
Bible
-
The Bible is only cited parenthetically at
SSCA.
- It is not necessary to write out full quotes of
verses from the Bible since your readers can find the references that you cite.
When an author needs to make a specific observation, however, he or she will
include a direct quote.
- When your paper cites from only one
translation, you only name the version with the first citation in your paper. If
you use multiple translations or versions of the Bible, then you would have to
spell out the version used the first time you use each, and then use a series of
abbreviations for subsequent citations in parentheses (NASB, ESV, KJV)
sufficient for your reader to discern which version you are citing from in
subsequent citations.
- The abbreviations for the books of the Bible
can be used only in parentheses within the text or in footnotes. For example,
you may make a reference to Romans 1:16, but if you state that Christians should
not be ashamed of the gospel (Rom. 1:16), then you should use the abbreviation
within parentheses.
- Turabian includes a comprehensive list of
abbreviations for the books of the Bible in sections 24.6.1-24.6.4. See the
Sacred Book Reference List
(pdf) and
Capitalization Glossary (pdf).
Bibliography
-
Use the word Bibliography for
notes-bibliography format.
-
Center and bold the word “Bibliography”
(without quotation marks) on the top line of a new page following your
conclusion.
-
Single-space entries, with one blank line
separating each.
- Use hanging indents (left-justify the first
line of each entry and indent lines two+ of each entry ½” from the left margin).
- Alphabetize all entries by the first word in
each (usually the first author’s last name for each).
- Invert the first author’s name (last name,
first, middle), but not the remaining authors’ names in each entry.
- Cite classical works (including the Bible) and
personal communications in the body of the paper, but do not include them in the
reference or bibliography list.
- Include periods after both URLs and DOIs.
- Check Google Scholar or
crossref.org for DOIs
of all articles published since 2007, if one is not readily denoted on the
article itself.
- Only include the access date for online content
that is likely to change (such as wikis).
- Material on this page adapted from Kate L.
Turabian’s
A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations,
9th ed.
