How to Footnote

HOW TO FOOTNOTE:

 

Once you have learned how to create a footnote within Microsoft Word, it is necessary to know what to write. A citation to an outside source must include specific information in a certain order; history students are not free to create their own style! Follow these directions for each kind of source that you may use.

 

Each example explains how to set up the first reference to a work. It is not necessary to repeat all of the information in each reference. Use a shortened version of the citation for the second and subsequent references to a source.

 

Books

Books are probably the most common sources used by history students in their papers. Citations should include the author’s name (first name first), the title of the book (underlined or in italics; use the same system throughout the paper), publishing information (in parentheses), and the pages consulted, all separated by commas.

 

Here are a few examples of books by a single author:

 

¹Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 2nd  ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 45.

 

If you refer to the same source second time - Second reference:

 

²Baxandall, 34.

⁴M. T. Clanchy, Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997), 45-46.

 

If you have cited more than one work by the same author, include a short title in the second reference:

 

³Baxandall, Painting and Experience, 34.

⁵Clanchy, Abelard, 67.

 

Here are some examples of books by more than one author:

 

¹Lina Bolzoni and Pietro Corsi, The Culture of Memory (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 1992), 45.

¹Robert E. Lerner et al., Western Civilizations: Their History and Culture, 13th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), 1: 87-88.

[Here “1” stands for the volume number and “88-89” stands for the page numbers cited.]

 

 

Second reference:

 

²Lerner, 1:76.

or

²Lerner, Western Civilizations, 1:76.

²Bolzoni, The Culture of Memory, 78.

 

Book in a Series

 

²Marianne G.  Briscoe and Barbara H. Jage, Artes Praedicandi and Artes Orandi, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 61 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), 45.

(Here, Artes Praedicandi is the name of the book, and Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, 61 represents the name of the series and the book’s number in that series).

⁴Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Stephen McKenna, The Fathers of the Church, 18 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 56.

 

Journal Articles

 

³Peter Brown, “Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change,” Daedalus 104, no. 2 (1975): 133-151.

[Here “104" is the volume number, “no. 2" is the issue number, and 133-151 are the page numbers.]

 

Second reference:

⁴Brown, “Society and the Supernatural,” 136.

or

⁴Brown, 136.

  

Internet Sites

Basic citation components and punctuation

 

Author's Last Name, First Name, [author's internet address, if available] "Title of Work" or "title line of message," In "Title of Complete Work" or title of list/site as appropriate, [internet address] Date, if available.

 

Article by a modern historian on a Web Site

¹Peter Limb, “Relationships between Labour & African Nationalist/Liberation Movements in Southern Africa,” [https://neal.ctstateu. edu/history/world_history/archives/limb_html], May 1992.

 

Primary Source on a Web Site

²Vasco da Gama,“Round Africa to India, 1497_1498 CE,” in “Modern History Sourcebook,”  [https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1497degama.html], 6 September 2002.

³Salvian. “Romans and Barbarians, c. 440,” in “Medieval Sourcebook,” [https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salvian1.html], 6 September 2002.