Citation format

So which of the many formats should you use in an advanced history paper? Let me suggest that you try the Harvard or Short Title format, used by most historians today. It is efficient and easy to get used to. It also avoids the annoying parentheses at the end of sentences that the social sciences use.

It goes like this: in the bibliography or Works Cited section at the end (and you will of course have one): last name, first name, title (city of publication, year of publication). For example: Henry, John (or J.), Sumerian Civilization: Mistimed Automata and the Making of Modernity (Garberville, 2018). The title will be underlined, we save italics for the printers. You may chose to capitalize throughout, the old-school American way, or use the British system and write titles as you would write any other sentence. But be consistent.

The first time you cite the book in the paper it will be slightly different: here the first name or initial comes first, then last name, everything else the same with the addition of the page number or numbers: J. Henry, Full title (City, year), p. or pp. Later citations will go into the short title mode: Henry, Sumerian Civilization, p. 2018. You chose the short title, anything that makes it obvious that you are referring to a prior full citation works. Again, titles including short titles will be underlined. I'd do it here but blogspot won't let me.

Articles have the title in closed quotes and the journal title underlined: in the first citation for example it would be C. Weaver, "The Antecedents of al-Jazari's Chess Playing Machine: A Short Note," The Journal of Machine Genealogy [underlined], vol. xviii, no. 2 (May, 2035). Then you can make a short title out of that too, with the title in closed quotes rather than underlined: Weaver, "Al-Jazari", p. 15.

Footnotes or endnotes? Up to you, the important thing is to have them. And don't clutter up your footnotes with observations you might have made in the text unless absolutely necessary. Nothing wrong with following a citation with a comment that someone approved or criticized it, and give the citation for that according to the same rules. But try to avoid lengthy "on the other hand..." arguments in your foot or end notes

It may seem unnecessarily complex, but once you get the format down you will find it very efficient. If you decide to use another system the important thing is to be consistent. And please don't use italics: it is an outdated academic conceit, but this is a business that values tradition however much its practitioners try to deny it.