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Chicago citation generator
Write footnotes and bibliography entries, or author-date references, in Chicago style, 17th edition. Each source gives you its full note, its short note and its bibliography entry.
Citation style
Your citation
The reference appears here as you type.
Titles follow the style’s capitals. Check that names in a title still start with a capital letter.
In-text citation
- Parenthetical
- Narrative
Your bibliography
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In your own order. Sort A–Z puts it back in the style’s order.
Fill in the form and press Add to bibliography to start your list.
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How Chicago 17 citations work
In notes and bibliography, every source gets a footnote where you use it and an entry in the bibliography. The first note is complete; later notes for the same source are short: the author’s last name, a short title and the page.
Titles are in headline style: capitals for every word except articles, prepositions and conjunctions in the middle. Books and journals are italic; articles, chapters and web pages go in quotation marks. Books include the city of publication, as in New York: Penguin Press, 2016.
In author-date, the year follows the author in the reference list, and the text cites (Smith 2016, 45). Several works by the same author are listed under a 3-em dash after the first.
Examples
- Book
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Smith, Zadie. Swing Time. New York: Penguin Press, 2016.
Notes: Zadie Smith, Swing Time (New York: Penguin Press, 2016). Smith, Swing Time.
- Journal article
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Keng, Shao-Hsun, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem. “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality.” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1 (2017): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1086/690235.
Notes: Shao-Hsun Keng, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem, “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality,” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1086/690235. Keng, Lin, and Orazem, “Expanding College Access.”
- Web page
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Yale University. “About Yale: Yale Facts.” Accessed May 1, 2017. https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.
Notes: Yale University, “About Yale: Yale Facts,” accessed May 1, 2017, https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts. Yale University, About Yale.
How to make a Chicago citation
- Choose notes and bibliography (usual in history and the arts) or author-date (usual in the sciences), then the kind of source.
- Fill in the details, including the city of publication for books. Type a page number to see it in the notes.
- Use the full note the first time you cite a source and the short note after that; the bibliography entry goes in the list at the end.
Questions
Notes and bibliography or author-date?
Both are Chicago. Notes and bibliography puts a numbered footnote or endnote in the text and a bibliography at the end; it’s the usual choice in history, literature and the arts. Author-date puts (Smith 2016, 45) in the text and a reference list at the end, as in the sciences. Use whichever your course asks for.
How is a footnote different from the bibliography entry?
A note reads like a phrase: the author’s name in normal order, then the title, with commas, and the publication details in parentheses. A bibliography entry is sorted by the author’s last name, so it puts that first and separates the parts with full stops. Notes also give the exact page you used.
Should I use “Ibid.”?
The 17th edition discourages it. After the first full note, use the short note, which gives the author’s last name, a short title of up to four words and the page. Short notes are clearer when readers jump between pages.
When does Chicago need an access date?
Only when a web source has no date of publication or revision. If the page has a date, Chicago gives that instead; otherwise fill in the date you accessed it and the note says “accessed” with that date.
Which edition does this follow?
The 17th edition (2017), which many schools and journals still require. An 18th edition came out in 2024 with some changes, such as dropping the 3-em dash for repeated names; if your course uses it, check those details against its guide.