Cite Sources

There are a couple of ways you can handle in-text citations in Chicago format: the author-date system or the notes-and-bibliography system. Author-date is generally used in the sciences, and notes-and-bibliography is generally used in the humanities. Be sure to ask your instructor whether one style is preferred over another for your assignment.

In the author-date system, items in your text are cited with this basic format:

(Author and year, page #)

It has been argued that In the Lake of the Woods provides an instance of the novel "questioning the act of storytelling itself" (Cohen 2009, 123).

If you cite the author in your sentence itself, you can leave the author's name out of your parenthetical citation:

As Samuel S. Cohen notes, In the Lake of the Woods "is structured in an extraordinarily self-negating way" (2009, 126). [note: in this example, the parenthetical citation could also have followed Cohen's name.]

Specific instructions for this system are listed in the boxes below. 

In the notes-and-bibliography system, you'll include one citation in a footnote or endnote, and one in your bibliography at the end. Use ^{superscript numbers} in-text to indicate that a reference can be found in a footnote or endnote. See the rest of this guide for advice on how to handle citations in footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographies. Specific instructions for this system are in the column to the right. 

To cite a book in your bibliography in Chicago format with the author-date system, follow this basic pattern:

Author's last name, author's first name. Year. Title of Book. City of publication: Publisher.

All of this information should be available from the book itself. Check the title page and the copyright page if you're not sure where or when it was published.

Use the Hanging Indent format for references that go beyond a single typed line.   Use single spacing and double space between entries. The examples below may lose their formatting in this container. 

Be sure to cite the edition you're actually looking at. For example:

Austen, Jane. 2006. Sense and Sensibility.

       New York: Bantam Classics.

 [The book was originally published in London in 1811, but the edition we're looking at was published in New York in 2006.]

Cite as much information about your copy of the book as possible. For example:

Milton, John. 1998. Paradise Lost.

        Edited by Alistair Fowler. 2nd ed.

        New York: Longman. 

[This is an edition of Milton's Paradise Lost that was edited by Fowler.]

If a book has two authors, cite it this way, with the authors alphabetized by last name:

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. 1979.

      The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman

      Writer and the Nineteenth-Century

       Literary Imagination.  New Haven:

       Yale University Press.

If a book has three authors, cite it this way, with the authors alphabetized by last name:

Croft, W. Bruce, Donald Metzler, and Trevor

      Strohman. 2010. Search Engines:

       Information Retrieval in Practice.

      Boston: Addison-Wesley.

If a book has more than three authors, list all of them. Cite it this way, with the authors alphabetized by last name:

Bloom, Harold, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman,

       Paul de Man, and J. Hillis Miller. 1979. 

      Deconstruction and Criticism. New

       York: Seabury Press. 

For your in-text citation, use the first author's name (Bloom et al. 1979, 11)

If a book is a translation, cite it this way:

Flaubert, Gustave. 2010. Madame Bovary:

       Provincial Ways. Translated by Lydia

       Davis.  New York: Viking.

If a book has an editor, cite it this way:

Widmer, Ted, ed. 2006. American Speeches:

           Political Oratory from the Revolution

           to the Civil War. New York:

           Library of America.

A signed entry in a reference book:

Mendelson, Wallace. 1992. "Separation of

        Powers." In The Oxford Companion

        to the Supreme Court of the United

        States, edited by Kermit L. Hall,

        774-79. New York: Oxford University

        Press.

An unsigned entry in a reference book (note: these are typically included as footnotes or endnotes rather than as bibliography entries):

Statesman's Yearbook 2013, ed. Barry

       Turner. New York: Palgrave

        Macmillan, s.v. "United States

        of America."

[note: this example is a citation for the entry "United States of America." "s.v" is short for sub verbo - "under the word."]

Corporate authorship (publications by a group or organization, where an author is not named):

World Bank and United Nations. 2010. 

        Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters:

       The Economics of Effective Prevention.

       Washington, D.C.: World Bank

       Publications. http://0-site.ebrary.com.

        libcat.uafs.edu/lib/uafs/docDetail.

        action?docID=10430845

[note: I'm including the URL because I read this online]

A book that you read online:

Shaw, George Bernard. 2003. Heartbreak

         House. Penn State Electronic

         Classics.  http://www2.hn.psu.edu/

        faculty/jmanis/gbshaw/Heartbreak-

        House.pdf

 [This is a reformatted e-text of the play.]

Mitchell, Verner D. and Cynthia Davis. 2012.

       Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her

       Circle, a Biography of the Harlem

       Renaissance. New Brunswick, New

       Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

       ebrary edition. http://0-site.ebrary.

       com.libcat.uafs.edu/lib/uafs/

       docDetail.action?docID=10535587

 [Here I'm including the publication information for this book because the online text is a straight reprint of the print edition, and I'm adding the fact that I read the book online through ebrary.]

To cite a journal article, the basic format to follow is:
 

Author's last name, author's first name.

        Date. "Title of Article." Title of

       Journal volume (issue):pages.

        DOI or URL (if you read the article

        online through a database).

Petry, Alice Hall. 1989. "Alice Walker:

         The Achievement of the Short Fiction."

          Modern Language Studies 19 (1):

          12-27.  http://0-www.jstor.org.libcat.

          uafs.edu/stable/3195263.

Mehta, Harish C. 2012. "Fighting,

       Negotiating, Laughing: The

       Use of Humor in the Vietnam

       War." The Historian 74 (4):743-88.

       doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2012.00332.x.

To cite a chapter in an edited book, follow this format:

Author's last name, author's first name.

         Date. "Title of Chapter." Title of Book.

         Editors. City of publication: Publisher.

          Pages. Medium [Print or Online].

Norris, Margot. 1991. "Modernist

           Eruptions." In The Columbia

            History of the American Novel.

            Ed. Emory Elliott, 311-330. New York:

            Columbia University Press.

Follow a similar format for an item in an anthology:

Rich, Adrienne. 1993. "Women and Honor:

           Some Notes on Lying." In Adrienne

            Rich's Poetry and Prose, ed. Barbara

            Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi,

            195-203. New York: Norton.

To cite a web site, follow this basic format:

Author's last name, author's first name.

         Date of publication (or date last

         modified). Title of the page.

          Publisher or sponsor.

          Date of access. URL.

Some of these elements may not be available, but try to include as many as possible:

Gagnon, Pauline. 2013. "The Higgs boson:

       One Year on." CERN (European

       Organization for Nuclear Research).

        Accessed July 10, 2013. http://home.

        web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/07/

        higgs-boson-one-year.

Chicago style recommends that you can use discretion about deciding which sources to cite in a bibliography and which can simply be cited in footnotes. If you're writing a paper that already includes footnotes, it may be simpler to use them to document an Internet source and not include a full bibliography entry.

A YouTube video: how you cite one depends on the kind of video it is. If it's a filmed lecture or performance, include whatever information you have about the original event:

Ronell, Avital. 2012. "Awe and

            Responsibility" (lecture,

            European Graduate School, 

           Saas-Fee, Switzerland). YouTube

           video. 1:06:46. Posted January

           29, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/

           watch?v=TgF35qoPQ_U.

If information about authorship isn't available, you'll have to be less specific and start with the title of the video instead:

"How to Tie a Full Windsor Knot." 2008.

               YouTube video, 2:00, posted by

               "Howcast." http://www.youtube.

                com/watch?v=lji-JeAjT2Y.

A movie:

Title. Year. Directed by (director).

            Information about the specific

            copy you watched. Format.

Imitation of Life. 1959. Directed by Douglas

          Sirk.  Universal City, CA: Universal

          Studios, 2003, DVD.

A sound recording:

Artist. Year. Title. Performer/conductor

             (if necessary). Information about

             the specific copy you heard.

             Format.

Wagner, Richard. 1979-80. Parsifal.

           Performed by the Berlin

           Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted

           by Herbert von Karajan. Deutsche

          Grammophon 413 347-2, 1990.

          Compact disc.

An interview:

A published interview can be cited as follows:

Person interviewed. Year.

          "Title of Interview." Interviewer. 

           Source.

Delany, Samuel R. 2011. "Samuel R.

          Delany: the Art of Fiction no.

          210." By Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. 

          Paris Review 197. http://www.

           theparisreview.org/interviews/

           6088/the-art-of-fiction-no-

          210-samuel-r-delany.

An unpublished interview (e.g., one that you conducted yourself) should be cited briefly in parentheses in text - no entry is needed in your bibliography. An e-mail should also be cited this way. Be sure to provide enough information elsewhere in your text that it's clear who you're talking about and why you're citing them:

(Jane Roe, personal communication)

To cite a book in your bibliography in Chicago format with the notes-and-bibliography system, follow this basic pattern:

Footnote or endnote:

Author's first name and  last name, 

Title of Book (Place of publication:

Publisher, Year), pages being cited.

Bibliography:

Author's last name, author's first name.

            Title of Book. City of publication:

             Publisher, Year.

Example:

Footnote or endnote: Slavoj Žižek, Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (New York: Verso, 2012), 233-234.

Bibliography:

Žižek, Slavoj. Less Than Nothing: Hegel

          and the Shadow of Dialectical

          Materialism. New York: Verso,

          2012.

All of this information should be available from the book itself. Check the title page and the copyright page if you're not sure where or when it was published.

Be sure to cite the edition you're actually looking at. For example:

Footnote or endnote:

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (New York: Bantam

Classics, 2006), 18.

Bibliography: 

Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility.

         New York: Bantam Classics, 2006.

Cite as much information about your copy of the book as possible. For example:

Footnote or endnote:

John Milton, Paradise Lost, ed.

Alistair Fowler, 2nd ed. (New York:

Longman, 1998), 518.

Bibliography: 

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Edited

          by Alistair Fowler. 2nd ed. New York:

          Longman, 1998.

If a book has two authors, cite it this way, with the authors alphabetized by last name:

Footnote or endnote:

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 227.

Bibliography: 

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The

            Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman

            Writer and the Nineteenth-Century

            Literary Imagination. New Haven:

            Yale University Press, 1979.

If a book has three authors, cite it this way, with the authors alphabetized by last name:

Footnote or endnote:

W. Bruce Croft, Donald Metzler, and Trevor Strohman, Search Engines: Information Retrieval in Practice (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2010), 45.

Bibliography: 

Croft, W. Bruce, Donald Metzler, and

            Trevor Strohman. Search Engines:

             Information Retrieval in Practice.

              Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2010.

If a book has more than three authors, list all of them in the bibliography, but only the first in the footnote/endnote:

Footnote or endnote:

Harold Bloom et al., Deconstruction and Criticism (New York: Seabury Press, 1979), 11.

Bibliography: 

Bloom, Harold, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey

             Hartman, Paul de Man, and J. Hillis

             Miller. Deconstruction and

             Criticism. New York: Seabury

             Press, 1979.

If a book is a translation, cite it this way:

Footnote or endnote:

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary: Provincial Ways, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: Viking, 2010), 55.

Bibliography: 

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary:

         Provincial Ways. Translated by

          Lydia Davis. New York: Viking, 2010.

If a book has an editor, cite it this way:

Footnote or endnote:

Ted Widmer, ed., American Speeches: Political Oratory from the Revolution to the Civil War (New York: Library of America, 2006), 199.

Bibliography: 

Widmer, Ted, ed. American Speeches:

           Political Oratory from the Revolution

            to the Civil War. New York: Library of

            America, 2006.

A signed entry in a reference book:

Footnote or endnote:

Wallace Mendelson, "Separation of Powers," in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, ed. Kermit L. Hall (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 778.

Bibliography:

Mendelson, Wallace. "Separation of

          Powers."  In The Oxford Companion

          to the Supreme Court of the United

          States, edited by Kermit L. Hall,

          774-79. New York: Oxford University

         Press, 1992.

An unsigned entry in a reference book:

Footnote or endnote: 

Statesman's Yearbook 2013, s.v. "United States of America."

Bibliography: 

Statesman's Yearbook 2013, ed. Barry

         Turner (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

         2012), s.v. "United States of America." 

[note: this example is a citation for the entry "United States of America." "s.v" is short for sub verbo - "under the word."]

Corporate authorship (publications by a group or organization, where an author is not named):

Footnote or endnote:

World Bank and United Nations, Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters: The Economics of Effective Prevention (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2010), 170, http://0-site.ebrary.com.libcat.uafs.edu/lib/uafs/

docDetail.action?docID=10430845 [note: I'm including the URL because I read this online]

Bibliography:

World Bank and United Nations. Natural

           Hazards, UnNatural Disasters:

           The Economics of Effective

            Prevention. Washington, D.C.:

            World Bank Publications, 2010. 

            http://0-site.ebrary.com.libcat.uafs.

            edu/lib/uafs/docDetail.action?docID=

            10430845

A book that you read online:

Footnote or endnote:

George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House (Penn State Electronic Classics Series,

2003), 43, http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/

gbshaw/Heartbreak-House.pdf 

[This is a reformatted e-text of the play.]

Bibliography: 

Shaw, George Bernard. Heartbreak

           House. Penn State Electronic

           Classics Series, 2003. http://www2.hn.psu.edu/

           faculty/jmanis/gbshaw/Heartbreak-House.pdf

Footnote or endnote:

 Verner D. Mitchell and Cynthia Davis, Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her Circle, a Biography of the Harlem Renaissance (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 101, ebrary edition. http://0site.ebrary.com.

libcat.uafs.edu/lib/uafs/docDetail.action?docID=10535587

 [Here I'm including the publication information for this book because the online text is a straight reprint of the print edition, and I'm adding the fact that I read the book online through ebrary.]

Bibliography: 

Mitchell, Verner D. and Cynthia Davis. 

         Literary Sisters: Dorothy West and Her

         Circle, a Biography of the Harlem

          Renaissance. New Brunswick, New

          Jersey: Rutgers University Press,

           2012.  ebrary edition. http://0-site.

           ebrary.com.libcat.uafs.edu/lib/

           uafs/docDetail.action?docID=

          10535587

To cite a journal article, the basic format to follow is:

Footnote or endnote:

Author's first and last name. "Title of Article," Title of Journal volume, issue (year): page you're citing, DOI or URL (if you read the article online through a database).

Bibliography:

Author's last name, author's first name.

             "Title of Article." Title of Journal

              volume, issue (year): pages of

              article. DOI or URL.

Footnote or endnote: 

Alice Hall Petry, "Alice Walker: The Achievement of the Short Fiction," Modern Language Studies 19, no. 1 (1989): 14,

http://0-www.jstor.org.libcat.uafs.edu/stable/3195263.

Bibliography: 

Petry, Alice Hall. "Alice Walker: The

           Achievement of the Short Fiction." 

          Modern Language Studies 19, no. 1

           (1989): 12-27. http://0-www.jstor.org.

           libcat.uafs.edu/stable/3195263.

Footnote or endnote: 

Harish C. Mehta, "Fighting, Negotiating, Laughing: The Use of Humor in the Vietnam War," The Historian 74, no. 4 (2012): 749, doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2012.00332.x.

Bibliography: 

Mehta, Harish C. "Fighting, Negotiating,

           Laughing: The Use of Humor in the

           Vietnam War." The Historian 74,

           no. 4 (2012): 743-88. doi:10.1111/

           j.1540-6563.2012.00332.x.

To cite a chapter in an edited book, follow this format:

Footnote or endnote:

Author's first name and last name, "Title of Chapter," in Title of Book, eds. (City of publication: Publisher, year), page you're citing.

Bibliography:

Author's last name, author's first name.

            "Title of Chapter." In Title of Book,

             edited by Editor 1 and Editor 2,

             pages for the chapter. City of

             publication: publisher, year.

Example:

Footnote or endnote: 

Margot Norris, "Modernist Eruptions," in The Columbia History of the American Novel, ed. Emory Elliott (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 314.

Bibliography: 

Norris, Margot. "Modernist Eruptions."

           In The Columbia History of the

           American Novel, edited by Emory

           Elliott, 311-330. New York:

           Columbia University Press, 1991.

Follow a similar format for an item in an anthology:

Footnote or endnote:

Adrienne Rich, "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying," in Adrienne Rich's Poetry and Prose, ed. Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi (New York: Norton, 1993), 202.

Bibliography:

Rich, Adrienne. "Women and Honor: Some

           Notes on Lying." In Adrienne Rich's

            Poetry and Prose, edited by  Barbara

            Charlesworth Gelpi and Albert Gelpi,

            195-203. New York: Norton, 1993.

To cite a web site, follow this basic format:

Footnote or endnote: Author's first and last name. Title of the page. Publisher or sponsor. Date of publication (or date last modified). Date of access. URL.

Bibliography: Author's last name, author's first name. Title of the page. Publisher or sponsor. Date of publication or date last modified. Date of access. URL.

Some of these elements may not be available, but try to include as many as possible:

Footnote or endnote: Pauline Gagnon, "The Higgs boson: One Year on," CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), last modified July 4, 2013, accessed July 10, 2013, http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/07/higgs-boson-one-year.

Bibliography: Gagnon, Pauline. "The Higgs boson: One Year on." CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). Last modified July 4, 2013, accessed July 10, 2013,

http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2013/07/higgs-boson-one-year.

Chicago style recommends that you can use discretion about deciding which sources to cite in a bibliography and which can simply be cited in footnotes. If you're writing a paper that already includes footnotes, it may be simpler to use them to document an Internet source and not include a full bibliography entry.

A YouTube video: how you cite one depends on the kind of video it is. If it's a filmed lecture or performance, include whatever information you have about the original event:

Footnote or endnote: Avital Ronell, "Awe and Responsibility" (lecture, European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, 2012), YouTube video, 1:06:46, posted January 29, 2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgF35qoPQ_U.

Bibliography: Ronell, Avital. "Awe and Responsibility" (lecture, European Graduate School, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, 2012). YouTube video. 1:06:46. Posted January 29, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgF35qoPQ_U.

If information about authorship isn't available, you'll have to be less specific and start with the title of the video instead:

Footnote or endnote: "How to Tie a Full Windsor Knot," 2008, YouTube video, 2:00, posted by "Howcast," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lji-JeAjT2Y.

Bibliography: "How to Tie a Full Windsor Knot." 2008. YouTube video. 2:00. Posted by "Howcast." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lji-JeAjT2Y.

A movie:

Footnote or endnote: Title, directed by (director) (year of original release, information about the specific copy you watched), format.

Bibliography: Title. Directed by (director). Year of original release. Information about the specific copy you watched. Format.

Footnote: Imitation of Life, directed by Douglas Sirk (1959, Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 2003), DVD.

Bibliography: Imitation of Life. Directed by Douglas Sirk. 1959. Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 2003. DVD.

A sound recording:

Footnote or endnote: Artist, Title, performer/conductor (if necessary) (Information about the specific copy you heard), format.

Bibliography: Artist. Title. Performer/conductor (if necessary). Information about the specific copy you heard. Format.

Footnote or endnote: Richard Wagner, Parsifal, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, recorded 1979-80, Deutsche Grammophon 413 347-2, 1990, compact disc.

Bibliography: Wagner, Richard. Parsifal. Performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Recorded 1979-80. Deutsche Grammophon 413 347-2, 1990, compact disc.

An interview:

A published interview can be cited as follows:

Footnote or endnote: First name and last name of person interviewed, "Title of Interview," interviewer, source and year.

Bibliography: Last name and first name of person interviewed. "Title of Interview." Interviewer. Source and year.

Footnote or endnote: Samuel R. Delany, "Samuel R. Delany: the Art of Fiction no. 210," by Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Paris Review 197 (2011), http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany.

Bibliography: Delany, Samuel R. "Samuel R. Delany: the Art of Fiction no. 210." By Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. Paris Review 197 (2011), http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany.

An unpublished interview (e.g., one that you conducted yourself) should be cited briefly in parentheses in text - no entry is needed in your bibliography. An e-mail should also be cited this way. Be sure to provide enough information elsewhere in your text that it's clear who you're talking about and why you're citing them:

(Jane Roe, personal communication)