What is referencing?
Referencing is a standardised method of acknowledging sources of information and ideas that you have used in your assignments or research, in a way that uniquely identifies the source. It is not only necessary for avoiding plagiarism, but also for supporting your ideas and arguments.
References must be provided wherever you quote (se exact words), paraphrase (use other people's ideas expressed in your own words), summarise (use main points of someone else's opinions, theories or data) or use other people's data. Your references may be sources of information such as books, periodicals, web sites, newspapers, government reports, legal cases, electronic recording (CD, DVD, television) or brochures.
About Chicago Style
Zotero is a tool that you can download to assist you store, keep track of and organise your references for citations. It can be used for all refencing styles, including Chicago 17. The really useful thing about Zotero is that it captures the data of a source with the click of a button. It then saves that data in your Zotero library and taps into it to automatically create a correct citation.
You need to download the Zotero software to your machine. Please see the screencast below for assitance with this. Please note you need to download both the Zotero program AND the connector to help you capture the data from electronic resources.
It does take a bit of use to get the hang of Zotero, but once you do, it becomes second-nature and is quite straightforward to use. And as with anything, please check all citations generated by Zotero to ensure there are no problems. Nothing beats the human eye for this kind of crosschecking.
Please note that you need to choose Chicago 17 (full note) for your History assignments in your Zotero preferences.
Downloading Zotero (screencast)
How to save a reference to your Zotero library (Screencast)
Managing your Zotero Library and Folders (Screencast)
Footnoting using Zotero
How to create your bibliography using Zotero