The Chicago Manual of Style actually presents two different styles of documentation and citation: the humanities style, which uses notes and a bibliography, and the author-date system. As the name suggests, humanities style is more common for writing in the arts, literature, and related disciplines, while author-date is found more frequently, though not exclusively, in the natural and social sciences. "Turabian" is a version of the humanities style intended for student papers found in Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertions.

Developed by the Modern Language Association, this style is widely used in literary studies and throughout the humanities. Unlike Chicago humanities style, it uses in-text citations rather than notes.

This style, intended as a supplement to the Chicago Manual of Style, was developed by the Society for Biblical Literature and is geared toward scholarly writing in Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies. Its guidelines for the citation of ancient texts and specialized reference works are especially helpful.