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Turabian Writing Guide: Formatting

This research guide provides a brief introduction to Turabian 9th edition.

Writing Center Help

The Liberty University Writing Center is available to provide writing coaching to students. Residential students should contact the On-Campus Writing Center for assistance. Online students should contact the Online Writing Center for assistance.

Sample Papers

The Writing Center has a sample paper available here and has also made templates available depending on the length of the paper:

  • Turabian Template for papers with no headings. These are typically undergraduate papers with less than ten pages in the body.
  • Turabian Template for papers requiring headings. These are typically graduate or doctoral papers with more than ten pages in the body. See page 9 of the Sample Paper for specific instructions for setting the paper's headings.

General Formatting

Font

  • The paper should use Times New Roman, 12 point font. Footnotes use Times New Roman, 10 point font

Margins

  • 1" margins all around
  • For bound theses or dissertations (rare), include a 1.5" left margin

Spacing and Indentation

  • The body of the paper should be double-spaced.
  • Block quotations, table titles, figure captions, and appendixes are to be single spaced.
    • Quotes should be blocked if the citations are five or more lines.
  • Footnotes should be single-spaced, but add a blank line between individual footnotes.

Footnotes and Bibliography

  • Indent Footnotes on the first line
  • In Word, use “Insert Footnote” under the “References” ribbon (not “Insert Citation”). This will insert a superscripted number in the body text and the footnote below. The Turabian manual shows footnote numbers that are not superscripted and are followed by a period, but Liberty University programs require superscripted numbers with no periods, which is the Word default.
  • For works with chapters (such as dissertations or theses), begin renumbering footnotes with each chapter.
    • To renumber footnotes, add section breaks between chapters.
  • Use hanging indents for bibliography citations.
  • The bibliography is single-spaced, with a blank line between entries.

Page Numbers

  • In general, page numbers in Turabian Style should begin after the title page and any front matter; they should continue through the rest of the paper.  To format your page numbering properly, you would need to add section breaks after the front matter.  You can find a guide to adding page numbers to your paper in Word here.

  • The paper’s body, bibliography, and appendices display Arabic numerals (i.e., 1, 2, 3) placed flush-right in the header, beginning with page 1 on the first page of the body of the paper.