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Citing Archival Materials

This guide provides an overview to citing archival materials in some of the most frequently used citation styles, including Chicago/Turabian, MLA, and APA.

Chicago Overview

Note: Kate Turabian's Manual for Writers of Research Papers... is based on the Chicago Manual of Style. This portion of the guide applies to both Chicago and Turabian. 

chicago manual of style

The Chicago Manual of Style refers to archival collections as "Manuscript Collections." It states that item identification should be the first part of a citation, and recommends inclusion of additional pieces of information to help others locate the item you cite. The manual advises authors to fully identify whatever they cite, and to format citations consistently in their work.

Most of the guidelines for citing archival materials are located in sections 14.221-14.231.

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