History Department Style Sheet

Department style guide for history papers

Format

• Type your paper in a normal-sized font (Times New Roman 12 is a good size).

• Double-space your text (except for indented quotations).

• Do not skip lines between paragraphs.

• Set your margins at one inch all around (left and right, top and bottom).

• Number your pages (centered at the bottom of each page, or the in the top right corner).

• Proofread your paper to correct spelling, grammatical, and typographical errors.

• Make sure all your verb tenses agree. Basic past tense is usually the way to go.

Title Page

Your paper should have a title page on which you center your title vertically on the page. In a block on the

bottom right, list your name, the course name and number, instructor’s name, and date of submission. Do not

number the title page. Begin page numbering on the first page of text.

Bibliography

All papers must include a bibliography listing all the sources you used to write the paper. The bibliography

is a separate page and it gets a page number. See page 3 for examples of how to list sources in a

bibliography.

Citations

You must provide a citation (reference note) every time you do one of the following three things:

• Use a direct quotation

• Paraphrase the words or ideas of another writer (i.e. put something in your own words).

• Assert as fact any information that is not widely-known

Most students realize that they must cite direct quotations, but some do not know that they must also cite

paraphrases. Anything you derive from the ideas of another writer must be cited. You must also use

common sense to cite information that is not “widely-known.” For example, you do not have to cite the fact

that Trenton is the capital of New Jersey. If you wanted to mention the unemployment rate in Trenton in

2011, you must say where you got that information.

The Importance of Avoiding Plagiarism

Failure to provide a note in these circumstances constitutes plagiarism, a grave academic offense. It is

extremely important that you document your work, both to give proper credit to other writers, and to provide

a map for your reader to re-trace your research.

Claiming authorship of any text that you did not write or style yourself is plagiarism, whether the source

was another person or an automated program. Plagiarism is a form of cheating that can result in your

dismissal from the university, so make sure that you cite anything you take from another source! See page 2

for examples.

Citation Style

Your citation should appear as a footnote at the bottom of the page in which you refer to your source.

Endnotes are also acceptable.

Quotations

A direct quotation is set in double quotation marks (“like this”) unless it is longer than four lines. In this case

single-space and indent the entire quotation (.5 inches on either side), and do not use quotation marks. Single

quotation marks (‘like these’) are only used for quotes within quotes.

Examples of how sources should appear in your footnotes

A book with one author

1. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper &

Row, 1988), 67.

Information to include in the basic format:

#. Author(s), Full Title (Place(s) of publication: Publisher, year of publication), page.

A book with two authors

1. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-

1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 128.

An essay or article in a book

1. Robert B. Westbrook, “Fighting for the American Family: Private Interests and Political

Obligation in World War II,” The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History, eds. Richard

Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears (Chicago, Illinois and London: The University of Chicago Press,

1993), 198.

#. Author, “Title of Piece,” Title of Book, ed. Editor’s Name (Place(s) of Publication: Publisher, year

of publication), page.

An article in a Journal

1. Russell F. Weigley, “The American Military and the Principle of Civilian Control from McClellan

to Powell,” The Journal of Military History 57 (October 1993): 27-58.

#. Author, “Title of Piece,” Name of Journal and volume number (date of issue): page.

An online item

1. Gregory Palast, “Florida’s Flawed ‘Voter-Cleansing’ Program,” Salon.com, December 4, 2000,

http://salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html (accessed November 3, 2003).

#. Author, “title of the piece,” Name of the Site [if different from the URL], date piece written, URL

(date you accessed the site).

Consecutive references to a source

A citation that is exactly the same as the one immediately preceding it (except for the page number), may be

shortened to “Ibid.” For example, if you made three consecutive references to Eric Foner’s book, two from

page 14 and one from page 20, they would appear like this:

1. Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper &

Row, 1988), 14.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., 20.

If you return to cite Foner again after referring to one or more other sources, use a shortened form:

8. Foner, Reconstruction, 162.

Examples of how sources should appear in your bibliography

You include the same basic information in a bibliography entry as you do in your first citation of a source in

your footnotes. However, instead of indenting the entries, you “hang” them, and use periods instead of

commas to separate some of the elements. Note: Unlike footnotes, bibliographical entries are arranged

alphabetically. Therefore, you list the first author of an entry “last name, first.”

A book with one author

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: Harper & Row,

1988.

Author’s last name, First name. Full Title. Place(s) of Publication: Publisher, year of publication.

A book with two authors

Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800.

New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Author Last, First, and Author First Last. Full Title. Place(s) of Publication: Publisher, year of publication.

An essay or article in a book

Westbrook, Robert B. “Fighting for the American Family: Private Interests and Political Obligation in

World War II.” The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History. Edited by Richard

Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears. Chicago, Illinois and London: The University of Chicago

Press, 1993.

Author. “Title of Piece.” Title of Book. Edited by Editor’s Name. Place(s) of publication: Publisher, year of

publication).

An article in a periodical

Weigley, Russell F. “The American Military and the Principle of Civilian Control from McClellan to

Powell.” The Journal of Military History 57 (October 1993): 27-58.

Author. “Title of Piece.” Name of Journal and volume number (date of issue): page range.

An online item

Palast, Gregory. “Florida’s Flawed ‘Voter-Cleansing’ Program.” Salon.com, December 4, 2000.

http://salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html (accessed November 3, 2003).

Author. “Title of the Piece.” Name of the Site [if different from the URL], date piece written. URL (date

you accessed the site).

Complicated Citations

It is likely that at some point you will have to cite material that does not fit one of the above examples. You

can consult The Chicago Manual of Style (17

Edition) or Kate L. Turabian’s shorter guide A Manual for

Writers (9

Edition) to find examples of complicated citations. Even then, you may sometimes find that your

source seems not to fit any correct format. In these cases, just remember to 1) credit your source, 2) give

your reader a way to re-trace your steps, and 3) be as consistent as possible.

Example of a page from a history paper

The image of the American soldier in Vietnam is an unhappy one. It is replete with

disaffection, criminality, loss of confidence in the government and its war aims, and treatment of

Vietnamese civilians ranging from casual abuse to murder. In postwar recriminations over the

American public’s uneven support for the war, it is sometimes forgotten that by 1970, the anti-

war counterculture had taken root in the service itself. Although actual anti-war demonstrations

by troops took place mostly stateside, the Army in Vietnam experienced passive resistance from

infantrymen who shirked missions and faked patrols. In 1970 and 1971, there were ten open

mutinies, some as high as the company level. The Army admitted to over 500 instances of

troops attempting to assassinate their officers (86 successfully), and analysts suspected units

under-reported these attacks.

Political scientist (and Vietnam veteran) Stephen D. Wesbrook argued that the poor

performance of the Army’s political indoctrination program contributed to these failures of

morale:

Perhaps fewer television sets and a little bit of explanation as to why we were

fighting would have lessened the tremendous psychological impact of the war. . . .

It might also have saved a few aggressive officers later in the war from being

assassinated by men who thought that these leaders might get them killed for what

was perceived to be no purpose.

To Wesbrook, neither the political materials nor the morale-boosting ones truly armed the

soldiers with the education they needed to make sense of why they were in Vietnam.

1. David Cortright, Soldiers in Revolt: The American Military Today (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press and

Doubleday, 1975), 35-39, 44; James William Gibson, The Perfect War: The War We Couldn’t Lose and How We

Did (New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, 1986), 230.

2. Stephen D. Wesbrook, Political Training in the United States Army: A Reconsideration, Mershon Center

Position Papers in the Policy Sciences no. 3 (Columbus, Ohio: The Mershon Center of the Ohio State University,

1979), 48.