Chicago Manual of Style 18th Edition - Essay Template - Formatting 101

Aug 31, 2026

Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition essay template for students, focusing on practical formatting standards that reduce the burden of preparing a paper. The template specifies page setup (12-point Times New Roman, double spacing with single-spaced block quotes, 1-inch margins, left alignment) and explains how to incorporate strong thesis statements, quotations, block quotes, figures, and captions. It also provides a sample bibliography page layout and guidance on endnotes, hanging indents, and repeated-author entries, enabling consistent Chicago-style documentation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPaper Templates

FormatDOCX

Pages5

Reading Time2 min

AccessFree to download

Chicago-style document setup

Font, spacing, margins

Introduction of thesis statements

Quoting and block quotations

Short quotations and notes

Block quotes formatting rules

Figures and captions

Bibliography formatting

Page title and spacing rules

Hanging indents and repeated authors

My Chicago Manual of Style Title Goes Here Solomon Student Formatting 101 Dr. Essay Template September 1, 2024 For even experienced students, formatting a paper can be a daunting task. The Excelsior Online Writing Lab created this template to give writers a foundation for the Chicago-style formatting found in the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. Throughout this essay, you’ll find helpful links to topics related to Chicago-style and the essay writing process in general. For instance, in the opening paragraph of your essay, HYPERLINK "https://owl.excelsior.edu/writing-process/thesis-sentence/" \h it’s important to create a strong thesis statement. You will notice that we’ve chosen 12-point Times New Roman font for our template essay. Other standard fonts, such as Arial or Calibri, are perfectly acceptable. You’ll also notice that all our text is double-spaced, except for block quotes which will be single-spaced. The margins are set to 1 inch on all sides and are left-aligned. HYPERLINK "https://owl.excelsior.edu/citation-and-documentation/chicago-style/chicago-manuscript-format/" \h These standards are covered in our Chicago-style Formatting Guidelines. Quoting from sources will probably be an important part of your essay. HYPERLINK "https://owl.excelsior.edu/research/drafting-and-integrating/drafting-and-integrating-using-quotations/" \h The Excelsior OWL has resources to help integrate quotes into your writing. Short quotations (four lines or less) can be incorporated into the paragraph with an endnote or a footnote, as seen in the next sentence. In his essay “How to Write with Style,” Kurt Vonnegut encouraged writers to “find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about.” Endnotes are generally only used in longer papers, like master’s theses or dissertations. Excerpts longer than four lines should be formatted in block quotations. Remember to introduce your block quote, typically with a sentence that ends with a colon. Vonnegut went on to describe how writers should find their voice: I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishman of a century or more ago. I used to be exasperated by such teachers but am no more. I understand now that all those antique essays and stories with which I was to compare my own work were not magnificent for their datedness or foreignness, but for saying precisely what their authors meant them to say. As you’ll notice above, block quotations are single-spaced. There are no quotation marks used with block quotes. The entire block quote should be indented a half inch. This can be accomplished by highlighting the block quote and pressing the ‘tab’ key. If you quote a passage that contains multiple paragraphs, those additional paragraphs should be indented. If you are using figures like images, graphs, or tables in your essay, they should be formatted as seen below: The Passion of Creation. Oil on Canvas by Leonid Pasternak, November 1917. Oxford. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonid_Pasternak_-_The_Passion_of_creation.jpg All figures should be accompanied by captions that include all relevant citation information. The caption should be single-spaced. Figures included in the body of the essay do not need to be cited in the essay’s bibliography. If you include more than one figure in your essay, begin your caption with Figure 1 and continue accordingly. We have included an example bibliography at the end of this template. Remember that your bibliography should be on a separate page with “Bibliography” (no quotation marks in the title) centered at the top. Add two blank lines between “Bibliography” and your first source. Single-space each entry and apply a half-inch hangi

FAQs

What are the required page formatting standards in this Chicago-style template?

The template uses 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced text, 1-inch margins on all sides, and left-aligned layout. Block quotes are single-spaced and indented a half inch.

How should short quotations and block quotations be formatted?

Short quotations (four lines or less) can be integrated into the paragraph using an endnote or footnote. Excerpts longer than four lines should be presented as block quotations, introduced with a colon-ended sentence, without quotation marks, and properly indented.

How should figures and the bibliography be handled?

Figures such as images, graphs, or tables should include a single-spaced caption with complete citation information; multiple figures use “Figure 1” and onward. The bibliography should be on a separate page titled “Bibliography” centered at the top, with two blank lines before the first entry, single-spaced entries, and a half-inch hanging indent, plus a 3-em dash for repeated authors after the first entry.

Aug 31, 2026

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