A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, Ninth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2018

Preface

Students writing research papers, theses, and dissertations in today’s colleges and universities inhabit a world filled with digital technologies that were unimagined in 1937—the year dissertation secretary Kate L. Turabian first assembled a booklet of guidelines for student writers at the University of Chicago. The availability of word-processing software and new digital sources has changed the way students conduct research and write up the results. But these technologies have not altered the basic task of the student writer: doing well-designed research and presenting it clearly and accurately while following accepted academic standards for citation, style, and format.

Turabian’s 1937 booklet reflected guidelines found in an already classic resource for writers and editors published by the University of Chicago Press that would ultimately be known as The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). The Press began distributing Turabian’s booklet in 1947 and first published the work in book form in 1955, under the title A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Over time, Turabian’s book has become a standard reference for students of all levels at universities and colleges across the country. Turabian died in 1987 at age ninety-four, a few months after publication of the book’s fifth edition.

Beginning with that edition, members of the Press editorial staff have carried out the revisions to the chapters on source citation, style, and paper format. For the seventh edition (2007), Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams expanded the focus of the book by adding extensive new material adapted from their book The Craft of Research, also published by the University of Chicago Press and now in its fourth edition (2016). Among the new topics covered in their chapters were the nature of research, finding and engaging sources, taking notes, developing an argument, drafting and revising, and presenting evidence in tables and figures. Following the deaths of this remarkable trio of authors, whose collective voice will always animate this work, Joseph Bizup and William T. FitzGerald have with this edition assumed the mantle of revising their chapters for a new generation of students, as they had previously for The Craft of Research.

Part 1, now aligned with the most recent edition of that book, incorporates updated advice for writers and responds to recent developments in information literacy, including the use of digital materials. Part 2 offers a comprehensive guide to the two Chicago styles of source citation—the notes-bibliography format used widely in the humanities and most social sciences and the author-date format favored in many of the sciences and some social sciences. Thoroughly updated guidance related to online citation practices has been supplemented throughout by new examples featuring the types of sources students are most likely to consult. Part 3 addresses matters of spelling, punctuation, abbreviation, and treatment of numbers, names, special terms, and titles of works. The final two chapters in this section treat the mechanics of using quotations and graphics (tables and figures), topics that are discussed from a rhetorical perspective in part 1. Both parts 2 and 3 have been updated for this edition in accordance with the seventeenth edition (2017) of The Chicago Manual of Style. The recommendations in this manual in some instances diverge from CMOS in small ways, to better suit the requirements of academic papers as opposed to published works.

The appendix presents guidelines for paper format and submission that have become the primary authority for dissertation offices throughout the United States. These guidelines have been updated to reflect the nearly universal electronic submission of papers and to feature new examples from recently published dissertations. This appendix is intended primarily for students writing PhD dissertations and master’s and undergraduate theses, but the sections on format requirements and electronic file preparation will also aid those writing class papers. An extensive bibliography, organized by subject area and fully updated, lists sources for research and style issues specific to various disciplines.

The guidelines in this manual offer practical solutions to a wide range of issues encountered by student writers, but they may be supplemented—or even overruled—by the conventions of specific disciplines or the preferences of particular institutions, departments, or instructors. All of the chapters on style and format remind students to review the requirements of their university, department, or instructor, which take precedence over the guidelines presented in this book.

Updating a book that has been used by millions of students over eighty years is no small task, and many people participated in preparing this ninth edition. The Press staff welcomed Bizup and FitzGerald to their new role in revising part 1. Russell David Harper, the principal reviser of the sixteenth and seventeenth editions of CMOS, revised parts 2 and 3 and the appendix. Several recent PhD recipients from the University of Chicago allowed the use of excerpts from their dissertations in the appendix, where they are credited individually.

Within the Press, the project was developed under the guidance of editors Mary E. Laur and David Morrow, editorial director Christie Henry, and editorial associates Rachel Kelly and Susan Zakin. Lucy Johnson and Kristin Zodrow offered additional research support. Ruth Goring edited the manuscript, June Sawyers proofread the pages, and James Curtis prepared the index. Michael Brehm provided the design, while Joseph Claude supervised the production. Carol Kasper, Jennifer Ringblom, Lauren Salas, and Carol Fisher Saller brought the final product to market.

The University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff