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Turabian's Parenthetical / Reference List Style Guide

What is a parenthetical citation?

Using the parenthetical / reference list Turabian citation style you correctly identify a source in the text (in-text) of your paper by including  key source information next to the reference to that source in parenthesis. You can consult Section 18.3 of the manual for additional information if needed.

See Turabian's A Manual For Writers fugure A.11 in the appendix for a sample page of text with parenthetical citations.

Parenthetical Citation Example Index:

Accepted Modifications

  • If there is no page number for a print information source, leave it out. 
  • If there is no author, editor, translator, or organization, use the title.
  • Authors with same last name, add author's first initial even if dates are different, if initials same spell out author's first name
  • No date, use n.d.

Standard Format

 

Turabian in text citation examples

 

In most cases the standard and online parenthetical formats shared here will be used for the following information sources:

  • Books
  • Chapters in a book
  • Journal articles - free web, library database, or print
  • Magazine articles - free web, library database, or print
  • Theses and dissertations

View parenthetical citation subpages in this guide for common exceptions.  If you are uncertain, refer to chapters 18.3 and 19 in the manual.

Parenthetical Placement

For a quotation, put the parenthetical citation immediately following regardless if the quote is in the text or as part of a block quote (See Section 25.2.2 of manual).  All other parenthetical citations occur at the end of the sentence or clause.

Common Examples:

1. Direct Quote: 

"What on introspectrion seems to happen immediately and without effort is often a complex symphony of processes that take time to complete" (LeDoux 2003, 116).

OR

"While one school claims that "material culture maybe the most objective source of information we have concerning America's past" (Deetz 1996, 259), others disagree.

2.  Paraphrase:

The color blue became more prominent in the eighteenth centure (Pastoureau 2001, 124).

3.  Author Mentioned:

Chang then describes the ocupation of Nanking in great detail (1997, 159-67).

4. Multiple Works Cited:

Several theorists disagreed strongly with this position (Armstrong and Malacinski 1989; Pickett and White 1995; Beigl 2004).