To do a Chicago style citation, you first need to determine which of the two main Chicago citation systems you will use: Notes and Bibliography or Author-Date.
Chicago Citation Systems
- Notes and Bibliography : Commonly used in humanities. Citations appear as superscript numbers in the text, linked to footnotes or endnotes with full source details. A bibliography with full source information is usually included at the end.
- Author-Date : Mainly used in sciences. Uses parenthetical in-text citations with the author’s last name, year, and page number, accompanied by a reference list at the end.
How to Cite Using Notes and Bibliography
- Place a superscript number at the end of the sentence or clause that references a source, after the punctuation.
- Correspond this number to a footnote or endnote with the full citation.
- The first citation of a source is a full note with complete details; subsequent citations use short notes with abbreviated information.
- Include a bibliography at the end listing all sources in full.
Example Formats for Notes and Bibliography
Source Type| Full Note Example| Short Note Example
---|---|---
Book| Author Full Name, Book Title: Subtitle , edition (Place of
publication: Publisher, Year), page.| Author Last Name, Shortened Book Title
, page.
Chapter in Edited Book| Author Full Name, “Chapter Title,” in Book Title:
Subtitle , ed. Editor Full Name (Place: Publisher, Year), page.| Author Last
Name, “Shortened Chapter Title,” page.
Journal Article| Author Full Name, “Article Title,” Journal Name Volume, no.
Issue (Year): page, DOI/URL.| Author Last Name, “Shortened Article Title,”
page.
Web Page| Author Full Name, “Page Title,” Website Title , Month Day, Year,
URL.| Author Last Name, “Shortened Page Title.”
- Use "Ibid." for repeated citations immediately following the same source, though it is less preferred in the latest Chicago style editions
How to Cite Using Author-Date
- Include the author's last name, year of publication, and page number (if applicable) in parentheses in the text.
- Provide a reference list at the end with full details.
Example Formats for Author-Date
- Single author: (Angelou 2002, 102)
- Two authors: (Baer and Long 2004, 167)
- Three authors: (Mulvey, Rogers, and van Den Oever 2015, 78)
- Four or more authors: (Ashing-Giwa et al. 2018, 408)
- No date: ("Conversation," n.d.)
Additional Chicago Style Guidelines
- Page numbers are included when quoting or referring to specific parts of a source.
- The paper is typically double-spaced with 1 to 1.5-inch margins.
- Footnotes/endnotes or in-text citations appear at the end of sentences.
- Bibliography or reference list is placed at the end of the document.
- Titles and headings follow headline-style capitalization.
- Block quotes are indented and not enclosed in quotation marks if longer than five lines
For detailed examples and formatting tools, refer to the Chicago Manual of Style online citation guide or citation generators
. This summary gives you a clear overview of how to do Chicago style citations using either the Notes and Bibliography or Author-Date system.
