Chicago Guide

Chicago Writing Style Guide

The Chicago writing style guide is a key aspect of American English writing styles that is coupled by proper grammar and punctuation for that specific genre of writing. Similarly, fundamental elements of editorial practice in American English and document preparation are based on comprehensive use of the Chicago writing style guide. This writing style guide was compiled in 1906 and has undergone subsequent editions with the recent one being the 16th edition to ensure that research; methodologies are standardized, as well as, incorporation of appropriate citation styles. Consequently, the Chicago writing style guide is mandatory when compiling literature, arts and history academic papers among students, as well as, their supervisors.

In text Chicago writing style

Term papers or assignments which are written using the Chicago guide often encompass certain aspects that are specific to this writing style. One of the key elements is alignment of the text which is solely left justification unless indentions are used in the course of compiling the Chicago style academic paper. However, right justifications are at times allowed for Chicago style academic papers and the spacing between the words is kept at minimum. Consequently, Chicago writing style guide requires that hyphens used to break words at the end of the sentence are used sparingly hence increasing consistency in the Chicago style essay. Similarly, words that appear at the end of two consecutive sentences in a Chicago style formatted essay should not be hyphenated at all.

When capitalizing the words that are used in Chicago style essays, caution should be paid on headings as they are essentially capitalized save for articles, certain prepositions and

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conjunctions of the Chicago style term paper. Similarly, the first word of each sentence in a Chicago style custom paper is capitalized, as well as, proper nouns inside the sentence and the words which appear after a colon in the Chicago style academic paper.

There are two significant date formatting styles for Chicago style written custom papers namely; the day-month-year format and the month-day-year format. The guidelines require that the same date format should be used throughout the Chicago style custom paper hence originally adopted format should be avoided. Consequently, the word processing software used to prepare the Chicago style paper should support use of serif fonts such as Times New Romans which is globally accepted and professional. The other aspect of the word processor is that it should support using an average sized point size of 10-12. Italicized words are encouraged in the Chicago style format to create diversity and increased disparity in wording.

Chicago writing style guide encourages the use of numbers are especially words for numbers up to one hundred in the body of the Chicago style custom paper. However, for numbers that are greater than one hundred, numeral are preferred. Words are also used for numbers which are in the beginning of the sentence while numerals are applied for figures which contain decimals and percentages.

Arabic numerals are used to indicate the page numbers of the Chicago style essay which are part of the text that has been compiled in the Chicago style paper. Consequently, the title page is not numbered as it is considered a display page. The location of the page numbers is the

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upper right-hand corner of the page although the page numbers can also be written at the center on the bottom of the page especially if the heading at the top of the page has occupied sufficient space.

The main text of the Chicago writing style paper is usually entirely double-spaced although some parts such as headings and captions are single spaced. Other areas which are equally single-spaced in a Chicago style custom paper are the foot and end notes which are often located after the body of the text. The title page as the first display page into the Chicago style custom essay should have its text centered in terms of horizontal and vertical centeredness. The uppercase is used for all text while double-spacing is recommended for the words in the title page.

Sometimes in the course of compiling a Chicago style essay, the student or writer may seek information from outside sources which entails books, journals and other literary articles. Hence to avoid plagiarism, these sources have to be cited and referenced appropriately in the body of the text. In-text citations in Chicago style papers require use of author’s name and date of publishing which indicate that information has been obtained from that particular author’s work.

The bibliography information for cited text include the authors two names, title of the book, city of publishing, the publisher, year of publishing and the exact page numbers where the information was derived from in that order. Books which are written by more than three authors are often quoted by including the first author and the word “et, al” used to indicate that several authors are present in that book. Similarly, electronically written books or sites which are used to compile Chicago style essays have their URL added to the books details hence the book can be traced easily.