Order Now

Guides & Resources

Essays

Home

Chicago Referencing

Referencing systems fall into two broad categories: the "parenthetical" systems, which have brief, in text references to the author and the date of the work, and the "footnote" systems, which give full information about the source in the notes. Both systems usually include a list of works cited, sorted alphabetically by author. The difference between a "bibliography" and a "citation list" is that the first includes all works cited in the piece plus any other works consulted during the preparation, whilst the second is simply a list of the works cited. The parenthetical systems are more commonly used in the Sciences, and the footnote systems in the Humanities. The Chicago referencing style caters for both systems.

How to use Chicago Referencing

The examples which follow will demonstrate both systems. See below. In Chicago referencing there are slight differences between the footnote, the bibliography entry (humanities style), and the entry in the citation list used in the parenthetical style. Examples will be given in the humanities style (a note flagged as "N" followed by the bibliography entry flagged by a "B") and then in the parenthetical style (the in-text reference flagged by a "T", followed by the citation list entry flagged by an "L"). All sources referred to here are completely fictitious.

How to cite using Chicago Reverencing

One author

N:
2 Allen Brown, Chicago Referencing Explained (Chicago: Academic Press, 1995), 65.

B:
Brown, Allen. Chicago Referencing Explained. Chicago: Academic Press, 1995.

T:
"According to research carried out in 1990 (Brown 1995, 65) ......."

L:
Brown, Allen. 1995. Chicago Referencing Explained. Chicago: Academic Press.

(N): Footnote. This is the information which would appear at the foot of the page; notice that the number 2 is the sequential, footnote reference number, the author's name is given with the surname second, the publisher's details are in brackets; the last number is the page number where the information cited can be found.
(B): Bibliography. Note that the author's name is given surname first, the publisher's details are not in parenthesis, and there are no page numbers given.
(T): Note that only the author's surname, the date published and the page number are given.
(L): List of works cited. Note that the publication date appears after the author's name. This is the only the difference between the entry in (L) and the entry in (B).

Two authors

N:
3 Cecil Dodd and Eric First, The History of Chicago Referencing (New York: University Press, 2002). 135-9.

B:
Dodd, Cecil, and Eric First. The History of Chicago Referencing. New York: University Press, 2002.

T:
"It was not always plain sailing (Dodd and First 2002, 135-9) ..."

L:
Dodd, Cecil, and Eric First. 2002. The History of Chicago Referencing. New York: University Press.

Note that in Chicago referencing, a page range such as 135 to 139 is expressed as "135-9".
Multiple Authors

For books with four or more authors, Chicago referencing quotes the first author (alphabetically) followed by the Latin abbreviation et al. which means "and others", in both the footnote and parenthetical styles. However, the biography and the citation list must give all authors.

N:
4 Graham Heavens et al., The Advantages of Chicago Referencing (Edinburgh: Walker and Sons, 1998), 298.

B:
Heavens, Graham, Ian Jones, Konrad Lessing, and Manfred Neumann. The Advantages of Chicago Referencing. Edinburgh: Walker and Sons, 1998.

T:
"Following extensive consultation (Heavens et al. 1998, 298) the consensus ..."

NB
No further examples of the citation list entry (L) will be given; it is always the same as the biography entry (B) expect for the placement of the date.

Editor

N:
5 Oscar Petersen, ed., Chicago Referencing: A Compilation of Examples (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand Press, 2007), 103-4.

B:
Petersen, Oscar, ed., Chicago Referencing: A compilation of Examples. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand Press, 2007.

T:
"Amongst the thousands of examples given (Petersen 2007, 103-4) ..."

Note that (T) uses the same format for editors as it does for authors.

NB
No further examples of in-text citations (T) will be given; they follow the by now well established format.
Chapters with individual authors

N:
6 Quinton Roberts, "Chicago Referencing: Students' Questions", in Comparative Referencing Systems, eds. Steven Thorpe and Uriah Vorster (Sydney: Academic Printers, 1999), 122-3.

B:
Roberts, Quinton. "Chicago Referencing: Students' Questions". In Comparative Referencing Systems, edited by Steven Thorpe and Uriah Vorster, 99-130. Sydney: Academic Printers, 1999.

Note that this bibliography entry means that Quinton Roberts's chapter appears between pages 99 and 130 of the edited book; the citation (N) refers to the exact pages from which the information cited came.

NB
No further examples of bibliography entries are given; these can be deduced from the information given in the notes (N) by follow the patterns of earlier examples.
Journal article

N:
7 Arthur Browning, "The Origins of Chicago Referencing", Referencing Monthly 393 (1996): 525.

(393 is the volume number and 525 the page number for the citation).

Newspaper article

These are cited within the text ("As The Guardian education correspondent noted in an article on May 30, 2003 ...") without a footnote or in-text citation or entries in the bibliography or citation lists.
Websites and electronic sources in general

Give as much information as possible about the source, similar to citations for printed sources, plus the URL and the date accessed. This is an example of an entry in the bibliography as a result of citing information from a website. The full page address should be given:

B:
8 Public Library Steering Committee. "Action Plan for Increasing Student Awareness of Chicago Referencing Systems, 2007-2008". Public Library.
http://www.epl.org/library/action-plan-07.html (accessed July 22, 2007).

How to cite the same source multiple times using Chicago referencing
The simplest way to refer to a source for the second time in a footnote is to give the author's surname and initial and use an abbreviated version of the title. For example, a second citation of Allen Brown's work "Chicago Referencing Explained" would look like this:

9 Brown, A., Chicago Referencing

The full details were given in note 2 and will also be in the bibliography.