Chicago Style Citation Guide | Examples & Tips
Chicago style (also sometimes known as Turabian style) is used by students and researchers in a wide variety of disciplines. The primary resource for applying Chicago style is A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (9th edition).
There are two citation formats to choose from in Chicago style:
- Notes and bibliography style (used primarily in the humanities)
- Author-date (used primarily in the sciences)
The general guidelines for both of these styles are explained below. QuillBot’s free Chicago Citation Generator will automatically apply these guidelines to create citations for a variety of source types.
Chicago style bibliography entries
In both notes and bibliography and author-date styles, a bibliography should be placed at the end of your paper and should give the full reference information for all of the sources you cite in text.
Typically, a Chicago bibliography entry includes the author, title, publisher or publication in which the source appears, publication date, and DOI or URL if available.
Some of these pieces of information may be omitted if they are irrelevant or unavailable, and some source types may include additional information.
Bibliography examples
Each source type has a slightly different bibliographic entry format. Below are examples of the most common types of sources.
| Source type | Bibliographic entry |
|---|---|
| Webpage | White, Robyn. “Texas Trees Dying Amid ‘Alarming’ Insect Invasion.” Newsweek, May 23, 2024. https://www.newsweek.com/texas-trees-dying-insect-invasion-1903587. |
| Journal article | Kalm, Kristjan, and Dennis Norris. “Visual Recency Bias Is Explained by a Mixture Model of Internal Representations.” Journal of Vision 18, no. 7 (July 2, 2018): 1. https://doi.org/10.1167/18.7.1. |
| Book | Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Penguin UK, 2021. |
References with more than one author
When a source has more than one author, the name of the first author is inverted (e.g., “Jones, Sarah”), but the names of other authors are not inverted (e.g., “Sarah Jones”). Up to 10 authors should be listed in the bibliographic entry.
Missing information
Some sources may not include all of the information typically required for a bibliographic entry. In those cases, the entry can be modified slightly.
| Missing element | Solution | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Author | Begin with the organization that published the source or the title (if the publisher will be listed later in the entry). | CDC. “Is It ADHD?,” May 15, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/articles/is-it-adhd.html. |
| Date | For online sources, give an access date. | University of Texas at Arlington. “Our Alumni Make History.” Accessed May 23, 2024. https://www.uta.edu/about/alumni. |
| For other sources, use the abbreviation “n.d.” (no date). | Palomares, Jane. Handbook of Edible Fungi. Chicago: Birchbark, n.d. | |
| Title | Give a description of the item (with no italics or quotation marks). | Olowe of Ise. Carved wooden doors. Early 20th century. |
Chicago style footnotes
In Chicago notes and bibliography style, footnotes are used any time you quote, paraphrase, or summarize another source within your paper. After the relevant material, a superscript number (1) is inserted (always following any punctuation). A note with the corresponding number is inserted at the bottom of the page.
Every source that is cited in a footnote should be included in the bibliography.
Footnote examples
Chicago style makes use of two types of footnotes: full (which include complete information) and short (which include only the author’s last name, shortened title, and page number). Typically, a full note is used the first time a source is cited, and short notes are used for subsequent citations.
The information given in a full note is basically the same as the bibliography entry, but it is formatted a little differently. Examples of full and short notes for the most common types of sources are shown below.
| Source type | Full note example | Short note example |
|---|---|---|
| Webpage | 1. Robyn White, “Texas Trees Dying Amid ‘Alarming’ Insect Invasion,” Newsweek, May 23, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/texas-trees-dying-insect-invasion-1903587. | 2. White, “Texas Trees Dying.” |
| Journal article | 1. Kristjan Kalm and Dennis Norris, “Visual Recency Bias Is Explained by a Mixture Model of Internal Representations,” Journal of Vision 18, no. 7 (July 2, 2018): 1, https://doi.org/10.1167/18.7.1. | 2. Kalm and Norris, “Visual Recency Bias.” |
| Book | 2. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (Penguin UK, 2021), 22–25. | 2. Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 22–25. |
Footnotes with more than one author
In both full notes and short notes, up to three authors can be listed. If a source has four or more authors, only the first author should be named, followed by the abbreviation “et al.”
| Number of authors | Full note example | Short note example |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Javier Peralta and Lindsey Willis, … | Peralta and Willis, 85. |
| 3 | Macy Stephenson, Cora Walker, and Jin Cha, … | Stephenson, Walker, and Cha, 101. |
| 4+ | Ana Collier et al., … | Collier et al., 43–44. |
Missing information
When sources are missing specific information, the guidelines below can be followed to amend the format of the note.
| Missing element | Solution | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Author | In a full note, begin with the title. | 1. “Is It ADHD?,” CDC, May 15, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/adhd/articles/is-it-adhd.html. |
| In a short note, begin with the organization that produced or published the source. | 2. CDC, “Is It ADHD?” | |
| Date | For online sources, list an access date. | 1. “Our Alumni Make History,” accessed May 23, 2024, https://www.uta.edu/about/alumni. |
| For other sources, use “n.d.” (no date). | 2. Jane Palomares, Handbook of Edible Fungi (Chicago: Birchbark, n.d.). | |
| Page number | Use an alternate locator (e.g., chapter or paragraph number). | 1. Palomares, Handbook of Edible Fungi, ch. 2. |
| For web pages, omit this information. | 2. White, “Texas Trees Dying.” |
Chicago author-date style citations
In Chicago author-date style, parenthetical citations are used instead of footnotes. The citation includes the author’s last name and the publication year (Jones 2021). Note that there is no punctuation between the name and the year.
When referring to a specific portion of the text (especially when quoting or paraphrasing), a page number or page range should be added to the citation. In that case, a comma is placed after the year (Jones 2021, 45–48).
If the author is named in the sentence, the date should be placed in parentheses immediately after the author’s name, and the page number should be placed in parentheses at the end of the quoted or paraphrased material.
According to Booth and colleagues (2016), “experienced researchers first write just to remember what they’ve read” (11).
Author-date citations with multiple authors
If a source has two or three authors, all authors’ names should be listed connected with “and.” If a source has four or more authors, the first author’s name should be listed, followed by the abbreviation “et al.”
| Number of authors | Example |
|---|---|
| 2 | (Peralta and Willis 2019) |
| 3 | (Stephenson, Walker, and Cha 2021) |
| 4+ | (Collier et al. 2017) |
Frequently asked questions about Chicago style citation
- How do you use Chicago style citations?
-
Chicago style has two citation formats: notes and bibliography and author-date.
Notes and bibliography is the more common format. In it, footnotes are used in the body of the text, and a bibliography is included at the end. A full note is used the first time a source is cited and a shortened note (with only author, title, and page number) thereafter.
Chicago style citation examples Full footnote 1. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (Penguin UK, 2021), 22–25. Shortened footnote 2. Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 22–25. Bibliographic entry Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Penguin UK, 2021. In author-date format, parenthetical citations are used instead of footnotes. The in-text citation includes the author’s last name and date (e.g., Kimmerer 2021). A full bibliography is included at the end.
- Can I use ibid. in Chicago style?
-
Chicago style still permits the use of “ibid.,” but the use of short notes is preferred. In either case, the choice to use “ibid.” or short notes should be consistent.
