A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is a style guide for writing and formatting research papers, theses, and dissertations and is published by the University of Chicago Press.

The work is often referred to as "Turabian" (after the work's original author, Kate L. Turabian) or by the shortened title, A Manual for Writers. The style and formatting of academic works, described within the manual, is commonly referred to as Turabian style or Chicago style.

The eighth edition of the manual, published in 2013, corresponds with the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.

Except for a few minor differences, the style and formatting described in the eighth edition of the manual is the same as the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. While The Chicago Manual of Style focuses on providing guidelines for publishing, Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is intended for the creation and submission of academic works; that where the two works differ "in small ways," Turabian's manual is designed to "better suit the requirements of academic papers as opposed to published works." As such, the manual describes itself as the "authoritative student resource on 'Chicago style'."

Part 1 of the manual, in the eighth edition, approaches the process of research and writing. This includes providing "practical advice" to formulate "the right questions, read critically, and build arguments" as well as helping student authors draft and revise a paper. This part is adapted from Booth, Colomb, and Williams' The Craft of Research.

Part 2 of the manual explores the two methods of citing/documenting sources used in authoring a work: (1) the notes-bibliography style; and (2) the author-date style. The note-bibliography style, also known as the "Bibliography style", is "used widely in literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in footnotes or endnotes and, usually, a bibliography." The more-concise author-date style (sometimes referred to as the "Reference List style" and "long been used in the physical, natural, and social sciences") involves sources being "briefly cited in parentheses in the text by author's last name and date of publication" with the parenthetical citations "amplified in a list of references, where full bibliographic information is provided." The manual provides extensive examples of how to cite different types of works (e.g. books, journal articles, websites, etc.) using both citation styles.

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