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

Parenthetical citations
Author-date style: the basic form
Source citation

Parenthetical citations include enough information for readers to find the full citation in your reference list—usually the author’s name, the date of publication, and (if you are citing a specific passage), a page number or other locating information. The name and date must match those in the relevant reference list entry exactly. (Note that both the elements and the punctuation in parenthetical citations are slightly different from those used in notes-style parenthetical notes, which are described in 16.4.3; do not confuse or combine the two styles.)

18.3.1 Placement in Text

Whenever you refer to or otherwise use material from a source, you must insert into your text a parenthetical citation with basic identifying information about that source. Normally the parenthetical citation should be placed at the end of the sentence or clause containing the quotation or other material. But if the author’s name is mentioned in the text, put the rest of the citation (in parentheses) immediately after the author’s name. The closing parenthesis precedes a comma, period, or other punctuation mark when the quotation is run into the text. See also 25.2.

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

While one school claims that “material culture may be the most objective source of information we have concerning America’s past” (Deetz 1996, 259), others disagree.

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

According to Gould (2007, 428), the song “spreads a deadpan Liverpudlian irony over the most clichéd sentiment in all of popular music.”

With a block quotation, however, the parenthetical citation follows the terminal punctuation mark.

He concludes with the following observation:

The new society that I sought to depict and that I wish to judge is only being born. Time has not yet fixed its form; the great revolution that created it still endures, and in what is happening in our day it is almost impossible to discern what will pass away with the revolution itself and what will remain after it. (Tocqueville 2000, 673)

See figure A.11 for a sample page of text with parenthetical citations.

18.3.2 Special Elements and Format Issues

The basic pattern for parenthetical citations is described in 18.1, and templates for several common types of sources appear in figure 18.1. This section covers special elements that may need to be included and special format issues that may arise in parenthetical citations of all types.

In the following situations, treat the name of an editor, translator, or other compiler of a work as you would an author’s name, unless otherwise specified.

18.3.2.1 AUTHORS WITH SAME LAST NAME. If you cite works by more than one author with the same last name, add the author’s first initial to each parenthetical citation, even if the dates are different. If the initials are the same, spell out the first names.

✵ (J. Smith 2011, 140)

✵ (T. Smith 2008, 25—26)

✵ (Howard Bloom 2005, 15)

✵ (Harold Bloom 2010, 270)

18.3.2.2 WORKS WITH SAME AUTHOR AND DATE. If you cite more than one work published in the same year by an author or group of authors named in the same order, arrange the entries alphabetically by title in your reference list and add the letters a, b, c, and so forth to the year (see 18.2.1.1). Use the same designations in your parenthetical citations (letters in roman type, without an intervening space after the date).

✵ (Hsu 2017a, 74)

✵ (Hsu 2017b, 59—60)

18.3.2.3 NO AUTHOR. If you cite a book or journal article without an author, use the title in place of the author in your reference list (see 18.2.1). In parenthetical citations, use a shortened title composed of up to the first four words from the full title (though you can usually omit a, an, or the), and put the title in italics or roman as in the reference list.

✵ (Account of Operations 1870—1910)

✵ (“Great Trigonometrical Survey” 1863, 26)

For magazine and newspaper articles without authors, use the title of the magazine or newspaper in place of the author in both locations (see 19.3 and 19.4). For other types of sources, see the relevant section in chapter 19 for guidance; if not stated otherwise, use a shortened title in this position.

18.3.2.4 NO DATE. If you cite a published work without a date, use the designation n.d. (no date) in place of the date in both your reference list and parenthetical citations. Use roman type and lowercase letters.

✵ (Smith n.d., 5)

For other types of sources, see the relevant section in chapter 19 for guidance.

18.3.2.5 MORE THAN ONE WORK CITED. If you cite several sources to make a single point, group them into a single parenthetical citation. List them alphabetically, chronologically, or in order of importance (depending on the context), and separate them with semicolons.

Several theorists disagreed strongly with this position (Armstrong and Malacinski 2003; Pickett and White 2009; Beigl 2010).

Additional works by the same author can be cited by date only.

✵ (Wiens 1989a; 1989b)

18.3.3 Footnotes and Parenthetical Citations

If you wish to make substantive comments on the text, use footnotes instead of parenthetical citations. See 16.3.2—16.3.4 for note placement, numbering, and format. To cite a source within a footnote, use the normal parenthetical citation form.

N:

1. 1. As Jill Lepore (2015, 228) observed, “Marston wanted the kids who read his comics to imagine a woman as president of the United States.”