Chicago Footnote Style (CFS) is a style of referencing that is common in the Humanities. The primary difference between CFS and APA 7th Style is that CFS employs footnotes. A footnote can easily be created in Word by clicking ‘References’ in the menu bar, and then clicking ‘Insert Footnote.’ Mac users that use Pages can use the Footnotes tab of the sidebar to insert a footnote.

 

Whilst APA 7th Edition distinguishes two kinds of references (the citation and the ‘full’ reference), CFS employs three different kinds – the ‘full’ footnote reference, the ‘abbreviated’ footnote reference, and the ‘full’ bibliography reference. It also employs one ‘trick’ to save footnote space; the Ibid. tag.

Let’s explain these four elements with an example, using the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on the Greek philosopher Plato. Paraphrasing the information you’ve read, you write the following:

 

Plato was a Greek philosopher known for his greatly influential work on topics such as ethics, metaphysics, moral psychology, political philosophy and more. 

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Similar to APA 7th, as you based this statement on a source, you must include a reference. This time however, rather than including a citation, we’ve added a footnote. Since this is the first time this exact source is used in our writing, we must use the full footnote reference. It has been pre-filled on the bottom of this page for now – templates on how this is done will follow on the next page.

Now let’s add a second source on Plato, being the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. As this is a new source and we’re using it for the first time, we use the full footnote reference.  

 

Plato was a Greek philosopher known for his greatly influential work on topics such as ethics, metaphysics, moral psychology, political philosophy and more. He is considered “one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy." 

 

Now imagine that after referring to the Stanford Encyclopedia, we refer once more to the Britannica source. As we used this source before, we can now use an abbreviated footnote reference. This abbreviated version contains only {1} the author(s) last name(s), {2} the abbreviated title in quotation marks (max. 4 words), and {3} the page number(s)/paragraph(s) if applicable.

 

Plato was a Greek philosopher known for his greatly influential work on topics such as ethics, metaphysics, moral psychology, political philosophy and more. He is considered “one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy.”   He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle.

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Finally, imagine that immediately after referring to the Britannica page, we refer to that same source again. This is where the aforementioned ‘trick’ can be used. Rather than repeating the footnote reference (abbreviated or not), we use Ibid. This comes from the Latin ‘ibidem’, meaning ‘in the same place’.

 

Plato was a Greek philosopher known for his greatly influential work on topics such as ethics, metaphysics, moral psychology, political philosophy and more.   He is considered “one of the most penetrating, wide-ranging, and influential authors in the history of philosophy.”  He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. Characteristic of Plato’s works is the form of dialogue, which includes dramatic elements and humor to spur readers’ engagement.

 

A few things that are important to note about Ibid.:

1. If you refer to the exact same source and page as your previous footnote number, you only write Ibid. As this is a way to say that you changed nothing from the previous reference.

2. If you refer to the exact same source, but to a different page/paragraph there in, you can still use Ibid., but must follow it with the correct page/paragraph. See below.

3. APA 7th Edition does not use Ibid. You may be tempted to replace your citations in APA 7th by (Ibid.) citations to indicate that the source you’re referring to hasn’t changed. However, this is not officially allowed by the rules and standards of the referencing style.

 

Now as for the ‘full’ footnote reference templates: