Let’s say you have a citation “Mike Wilson, A History of Cats (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8. ” and the citation immediately following is identical. You can change that second citation of the Wilson book simply to read, “Ibid. ”
Let’s say your citation is, “Jen Fox, I Love Siamese Cats (New York: Random House, 2000), 9. ” If the citation immediately following cites page 10 of the same book, you can change that second citation to read, “Ibid. , 10. ”
Let’s say that after your citation of, “Mike Wilson, A History of Cats (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8. ” there are 3 identical citations all from page 8 of that work. All citations after the first one can be changed to “Ibid. ” Similarly, if after your “Ibid, 10. ” citation of the Fox book, there is another citation to page 10 of the Fox book, you can simply write, “Ibid. ”
However, if footnote 21 referred to Wilson and Fox (in that order), and then footnote 22 referred to Fox and Wilson (in that order), you’d start footnote 22 with “Ibid. ;” since the Fox book is immediately repeated across consecutive citations.
Depending upon your style guide, a primary citation of a book from your list may look something like this: “Mike Wilson, A History of Cats (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8. ” Examples of common style guides include the Chicago Manual of Style, the Turabian Citation Guide, and the AMA Manual of Style. For now, don’t treat sources repeated in the list any differently from one another. Simply focus on creating a proper citation for each work.
If a source only appears on your list once, you don’t need to worry about using ibid, as there are no subsequent references.
So if you have the citation “Mike Wilson, A History of Cats (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8. ” and the citation immediately following is the same, you can change that second citation of the Wilson book to, “Ibid. ” If the citation following that primary citation of the Wilson book is to page 9 of the book instead of page 8, change the second citation to “Ibid. , 9. ”
Let’s say an unrelated citation appears between a primary reference to page 8 of the Wilson book and a second identical reference to the Wilson book. The second citation would become, “Wilson, 8. ” Similarly, if the second citation to the Wilson book is on page 9 rather than page 8, the citation would become, “Wilson, 9. ” Creating a secondary citation is the same whether there is one unrelated citation between the two or several.
[Smith book primary citation] Ibid. [for Smith primary] [Wilson book primary citation] [Smith book secondary citation] Ibid. [for Smith secondary] Ibid. , 23. [for Smith secondary with different page noted]
