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Chapter 3: The Research Proposal | 49
easy to format. All notes are numbered consecutively and, when first cited, contain all the information of the
bibliographical entry—author, title, and in parentheses, place of publication, publisher, and date—plus the page
number of the citation. Unlike entries in a bibliography, notes do not invert first name and last name. The author’s
name is given in a normal fashion, since notes are not alphabetized. Each citation should end with a period.
Please observe that, for purposes of economy in the ALM proposal and thesis, we ask that both bibliography
and notes be formatted thus: single-spacing within entries and double-spacing between entries. The
citations for the four works mentioned above, following CMS method, would thus read:
1
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973), 17.
2
Henry David Thoreau, “A Natural History of Massachusetts,” The Portable Thoreau, ed. Carl Bode
(New York: Viking, 1964), 83.
3
Alan E. Newsome, “The Abundance of Red Kangaroos in Central Australia,” Australian Journal of
Zoology 13 (1965): 270.
4
Michelle Landauer, “Images of Virtue: Reading , Reformation, and the Visualization of Culture
in Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloïse.” Romanticism on the Net 46 (2007): n.pag. Accessed November 8, 2010.
doi:10.1086/589754. [A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is preferable to a URL.]
Journal citations (as in example number 3 above) contain a volume number that precedes the date (or month
plus date) in parentheses. Page citations do not include a “page” or “p.” or “pp.,” but are given as the page
number(s) alone. Thus a quotation from Newsome’s article is cited as “Australian Journal of Zoology 13 (1965): 270.”
Notice that here the first line of each entry is indented ½ inch before typing the superscripted number; the second
line of the entry occurs flush with the left margin.
After the initial complete citation of a work, CMS-style notes can be reduced in length. In the second and
subsequent citations of each work, it is customary to cite simply the author’s name plus the page number. Thus if
note two were also a reference to Geertz’s book, the entry would read:
2
Geertz, Interpretation, 19.
Sometimes it may be necessary to quote multiple times from works of particular importance to your study (such
as one or more novels, a collection of letters, the work of a historian whose theories you are opposing). In such
cases, it may be more economical (and will certainly reduce the number of interruptions experienced by the
reader) to cite the work fully in an endnote or footnote the first time you quote from it; then, at the end of the
note, add a statement such as, “Hereafter cited parenthetically in the text”; or in the case of multiple citations
of a work you wish to abbreviate (such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), “Hereafter cited parenthetically in
the text as HF.” From that point on, when this work is quoted, a brief citation in the text—often simply a page
number—will suffice.
The general rule to follow in notes is that they are designed to allow the reader to find the source of the
quotation easily. So the notes’ greatest virtue is clarity and consistency.
The CMS system provides for many other possibilities in citing references. Although it is impossible to anticipate
all potential situations, here are some of the most frequently encountered, showing the different forms required
for bibliography and notes:
A Guide to the ALM Thesis