Turabian · Book
How to cite a book in Turabian
A book citation covers a whole authored book. If you only used one chapter of an edited collection, cite the chapter instead, since credit belongs to the chapter author. Watch the edition: page numbers move between editions, so cite the one you actually read.
Worked example · Turabian
Lovelace, Ada, and Charles Babbage. Foundations of Research Methods. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Example University Press, 2022.
Rendered with the official Turabian style file from a placeholder source (reserved example DOI and domain), so the format is exactly what the style produces. In text: Numbered notes with a bibliography, in the student-focused Chicago tradition.
What to collect before you cite a book
- Author or authors, in the order printed
- Full title and subtitle
- Edition, if not the first
- Publisher
- Year of publication
- Place of publication (some styles still want it)
Have a DOI? Generate the reference instantly
Journal articles, many books and reports carry a DOI. Paste it and get the Turabian entry from the same engine that produced the example above.
Citing a whole thesis, not one source?
CiteDash keeps your bibliography in Turabian automatically, verifies every citation against a real paper, and compiles to DOCX, PDF or LaTeX.
Citing a book in Turabian: FAQ
The book has an editor, not an author. Which slot do they take?
For a book that is a curated collection, the editor takes the author position with an editor marker. If you used a single chapter by a named author, cite the chapter instead.
Which edition do I cite?
The one you read. Page numbers and sometimes content differ between editions, so citing the right one is part of being checkable.
Do e-books cite differently?
Mostly no: same fields, and add a DOI or stable URL if the book lives online. Avoid device-specific locations like Kindle positions when real page numbers exist.
What does the in-text citation look like in Turabian?
Numbered notes with a bibliography, in the student-focused Chicago tradition.
Is the example on this page hand-written?
No. It is rendered by the same citation engine and official CSL style file CiteDash uses for full thesis bibliographies, from a clearly-marked placeholder source, and a test re-renders it on every release so the page can never drift from the engine.