Even if you put information in your own words by summarizing or paraphrasing, you must still use a footnote just as you would with a direct quotation. All the information required in the footnote for a paraphrased sentence is the same as if you were using a direct quotation.
Numbers in parentheses refer to specific pages in the Chicago 17th Edition manual.
Footnotes
Double-Spaced
If you use information from another source, that source must be cited. This includes:
When don't I need to cite?
You don't need to cite information that is considered "common knowledge." Common knowledge includes facts that are known by a lot of people and can be found in many sources. For example, you do not need to cite:
What is considered "common knowledge" can change based on a person's culture, academic discipline, or peer group.
To decide whether information is "common knowledge," consider:
Not sure?
When in doubt, cite the source! Citation adds credibility to your writing and highlights the accuracy of your information.
Numbers in parentheses refer to specific pages in the Chicago 17th Edition manual.
Numbering
Note numbers in text are set as superscript numbers (section 14.19).
At the bottom of the page, the note numbers are normally full size and followed by a period (section 14.19).
Notes should be numbered consecutively, beginning with 1 (section 14.25).
Tip: Use your word processor's "footnote" feature to assist with formatting.
Full Note vs. Shortened Note
The first note referring to a work must be a full note, but subsequent citations for that same work can be shortened. The shortened form should include just enough information to remind readers of the full title or lead them to the bibliography; usually the last name of the author(s), the key words of the main title, and the page number. Check with your instructor to determine whether this shortened form is acceptable. (p. 757-761)
Example:
1. Salman Rushdie, The Ground beneath Her Feet (New York: Henry Holt, 1999), 25.
2. Valerie Bunce, "Rethinking Recent Democritization: Lessons from the Postcommunist Experience," World Politics 55, no. 2 (2003): 168, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25054217.
3. Rushdie, The Ground beneath, 28.
Consecutive footnotes for the same work
When citing the same source in multiple footnotes one after the other, cite the source in full the first time, and then use the abbreviated form for all subsequent citations until another source is cited (section 14.34).
Example:
1. Rushdie, The Ground beneath, 25.
2. Rushdie, 28.
URLs
When the note entry includes a URL that must be broken at the end of a line, the break should be made after a colon of double slash (//); before a single slash (/), a tilde (~), a period, a comma, a hyphen, an underline (_), a question mark, a number sign, or a percent symbol; or before or after an equal sign or an ampersand (section 14.18).