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Chicago style citation generator
Get the Chicago footnote, short footnote, bibliography entry and author-date form for one source.
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Chicago style comes from The Chicago Manual of Style and is the standard in history and much of the humanities. It has two systems: notes and bibliography, which uses footnotes, and author-date, which uses parenthetical citations. Enter your source details and this free Chicago citation generator returns the full footnote, the short footnote, the bibliography entry and the author-date form, plus a list of anything missing.
Chicago citation: notes-bibliography vs author-date
The Chicago Manual of Style is published by the University of Chicago Press. In the notes-bibliography system, a superscript number in the text points to a footnote or endnote, and a Chicago bibliography at the end lists every source alphabetically by author. History, literature, religion and the arts mostly use this system. In the author-date system, the text carries a short parenthetical citation such as (Rivera 2019, 45) and a reference list gives the full details. It is more common in the social and natural sciences. Both systems use the same information; the main difference is where the year goes. Ask your instructor which one to use, then keep to it for the whole paper.
Chicago footnote and bibliography patterns with examples
Book, footnote: 1. Jordan A. Rivera, Example Towns of the North (Springfield: Example Press, 2019), 45. Short footnote: 2. Rivera, Example Towns, 52. Bibliography: Rivera, Jordan A. Example Towns of the North. Springfield: Example Press, 2019. Journal article, footnote: 3. Mei L. Chen, "Market Days in an Example Village," Journal of Example Studies 12, no. 3 (2021): 50. Bibliography: Chen, Mei L. "Market Days in an Example Village." Journal of Example Studies 12, no. 3 (2021): 45-67. Author-date reference: Chen, Mei L. 2021. "Market Days in an Example Village." Journal of Example Studies 12 (3): 45-67. Book and journal titles are in italics; article and chapter titles are in quotation marks.
How to use this Chicago footnote generator
Choose the source type and enter what you have: authors, title, the journal, publisher or website, the year, and details such as city, volume, issue, page range, the page you are citing, DOI or URL. Only the title is required. The tool formats the details you enter. It does not look sources up, open links or search a database. If a needed element is absent you get a bracketed placeholder such as [year] and a Missing details list. If you enter a city of publication it is placed before the publisher; if you leave it out, the entry gives the publisher and year only, so check which form your instructor expects. Writing a student paper under Turabian rules? Use the Turabian Citation Generator.
Common Chicago citation mistakes
Inverting the author's name in a footnote: notes use First Last, and only the bibliography uses Last, First. Using periods between the parts of a footnote: notes use commas and parentheses, bibliography entries use periods. Giving the full page range in a note instead of the page you actually cite. Repeating the full footnote for a source already cited, when a short footnote is enough. Putting a book title in quotation marks or an article title in italics. Mixing footnotes with author-date citations in one paper. Leaving the bibliography unsorted: it is alphabetical by the first author's surname.
Questions
What is the difference between a Chicago footnote and a bibliography entry?
A footnote gives the author in normal order, separates the parts with commas, puts publication details in parentheses and ends with the page cited. A bibliography entry inverts the first author's name, separates the parts with periods and, for articles and chapters, gives the full page range.
How do I cite multiple authors in Chicago style?
Name two or three authors in full in the note. For four or more, the note gives the first author followed by et al. In the bibliography only the first author's name is inverted. Editions of the manual differ on the exact cutoffs, so check the one your instructor uses.
How do I cite a website in Chicago style?
Give the author if there is one, the page title in quotation marks, the name of the website, the date it was published or last modified, and the URL. If the page shows no date, give the date you accessed it instead.
Do I need a DOI or URL for a journal article?
For an article you read online, add the DOI written as a link that begins https://doi.org/ followed by the number. If the article has no DOI, use its URL. An article read in print needs neither.
When do I use a short footnote?
The first citation of a source is a full footnote. Later citations of the same source use the short form: the author's surname, a shortened title and the page.
Does the tool look up my source?
No. It formats the details you type and flags what is missing. Check the result against The Chicago Manual of Style or your instructor's guide.