Citing Theological Sources: How to do a Bibliography: General Citations: Books, Articles, Websites, etc.

Turabian (9th ed.)

The Chicago Manual of Style/ Turabian citation style includes two systems for citations: a notes and bibliography system and the author-date system. The notes and bibliography system is most commonly used in theology courses here. This system uses footnotes and works cited bibliographies at the end of papers.

Turabian is shorter, contains fewer instructions, and does not contain information about publishing your paper in academic journals and publications.

The Chicago Manual of Style is designed for professionals in the field who are publishing and has a great deal of instruction on formatting and other advanced features.

Which should you use?

Ask each of your professors which style they want you to use. If they have no preference you can follow any of these styles (just be consistent). However, a humanities style manual like MLA or Turabian works best.  Here our graduate level divinity students are asked to use a guide based on the Chicago / Turabian Style Manual.

• APA: psychology, education, and other social sciences.
• MLA: literature, arts, and humanities.
• AMA: medicine, health, and biological sciences.
• Turabian: designed for college students to use with all subjects.
• Chicago: used with all subjects in the "real world" by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-scholarly publications.

Print versions of these style manuals contain examples of citing more sources than these web pages do, as well as other things you may need to know, such as margins, font size, etc.

Zotero is a free tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. Zotero collects all your research in a single, searchable interface. You can add PDFs, images, audio and video files, snapshots of web pages, and really anything else. Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your library, enabling you to find exactly what you're looking for with just a few keystrokes.

Check with your instructors on the preferred style they want you to use and be sure to consult the most up-to-date edition of that style manual.

Would you like some expert assistance with writing and editing your paper? 

Check out the resources available from the Writing Center.

Why should I care about copyright?

See the UST Copyright website for answers.