Skip to Main Content
Main site homepage

Citing Sources

Chicago Citation Style

Overview

The Chicago style is commonly used in the humanities and social sciences, notably history and art history. In addition to rules regarding the formatting of citations, the Chicago Manual of Style also provides guidelines for grammar, punctuation, page layout, and bias-free language.

The Chicago style is split into two systems - the Chicago Notes and Bibliography System and the Chicago Author-Date System. You should carefully read your syllabus, assignment prompts, and check with your course instructor to ensure that you are using the appropriate style for your assignment.

For sample notes in each system, see:

  • Chicago Notes and Bibliography System Samples - This system uses footnotes to cite quotes and paraphrased statements. Citations in the bibliography use a long-form style with the publication date positioned at or near the end of each entry.

  • Chicago Author-Date System Samples - This system uses in-text, parenthetical notes for quotes and paraphrased statements. Citations in the bibliography use a somewhat abbreviated style with the publication year listed as the second element following the author's name.


Page Contents:

General Chicago Formatting Rules

These general rules apply to both the Chicago Notes and Bibliography and the Chicago Author-Date Systems:

  • In addition to capitalizing the first letter of the first word of all proper nouns, the first letters of the main words of all titles are capitalized. 
  • Titles of books and periodicals are italicized.
  • Titles of articles and chapters are put in quotation marks.

Chicago Style Bibliography

The bibliography, or reference page, is a stylized list of all the resources you consulted for your project. It normally appears at the end of a research project and allows readers to locate and independently consult sources that were cited as part of a work. Each source you use in your project must be included in your bibliography, whether you directly quote from it, paraphrase it, or are merely informed by it.

These general rules are followed for a Chicago style bibliography using either the Notes and Bibliography or the Author-Date system:

  • The bibliography is arranged in alphabetical order by authors’ last names.
  • Do not number or bullet bibliographies, and do not use headings or separate the entries by source type. 
  • Chicago favors detail over brevity. All elements that are present in a source are included in the citation; although elements that do not exist are skipped. 
  • The first author of a source is listed last name, followed by a comma and the first name. Subsequent authors' names are written naturally (first name followed immediately by last name). For four or more authors, the abbreviation “et al.” (“and others”) is used after the name of the first author.
  • Second and all subsequent lines in the bibliography are always indented using a half-inch hanging indent. This means that the first line of each reference entry is flush with the left margins and subsequent lines are indented by 0.5 inch. See these steps for creating a hanging indent in Google docs. (Indentation is reversed for footnotes when using the Chicago Notes and Bibliography System.)
  • States are abbreviated using the USPS codes, and included only when the city of publication is relatively unknown.

Each entry should include most of the following elements as appropriate to the source type: 

  • Author name(s)
  • Title of the source
  • Title of the larger work/container of the article (such as a book, journal, etc.), if applicable
  • Publication date
  • Other elements that apply, such as publisher, volume/issue numbers, and other contributors to the work such as editors or translators
  • Exact location of the item including a URL, DOI and volume, issue, and/or and page numbers for book chapters or periodicals.

Samples of Bibliographies

Resources for Chicago Style