Chicago Citation Generator
Enter your source details and get a correctly formatted Chicago (17th edition) footnote and matching bibliography entry in seconds. This generator uses the notes-and-bibliography system — the version of Chicago favoured across history, philosophy and the humanities — with a live preview you can copy straight into your essay, dissertation or thesis.
Used in: History, art history, philosophy, theology, classics, music and many other humanities disciplines use Chicago’s notes-and-bibliography system, in which a superscript number sends the reader to a full footnote and every source also appears in an alphabetical bibliography.
Footnotes (or endnotes) paired with an alphabetical bibliography — favoured in history, the arts and humanities.
Enter your source
Or fill the form yourself below. A bare web address can’t be looked up in the browser — paste its DOI instead.
Source type
A peer-reviewed article in an academic journal.
Author
Digital Object Identifier, if the source has one.
Year published
Add an author or a title and your formatted Chicago citation appears here instantly.
A raised note number after the cited material points to a numbered footnote (or endnote), e.g. “… retrieval cues.¹”. The first footnote gives the full citation; later notes to the same work are shortened.
The bibliography is alphabetical by the first author’s surname with a hanging indent. The first author is inverted (“Kuhn, Thomas S.”), titles take headline case, parts go in quotation marks and standalone works are italicised, and blocks are separated by full stops.
- Use “and”, never “&”, between author names in both the note and the bibliography.
- In the bibliography list 4–10 authors in full; for 11 or more, list the first 7 then “et al.” The footnote shortens to the first author + “et al.” at 4 authors.
- Quote article, chapter and web-page titles; italicise book, journal, website and newspaper titles. All titles take headline (title) case.
- The footnote separates elements with commas and encloses a book’s publication facts within round brackets; the bibliography separates them with full stops.
- Use the month-day-year date order (March 5, 2021). Add “Accessed Month Day, Year” for an undated web page.
Your reference list is empty. Build a citation above and choose “Add to list” to collect your sources here, correctly ordered and ready to copy or export.
Chicago is two referencing systems in one
Before you cite a single source, settle the one question that defines a Chicago paper: notes–bibliography or author–date? They share the Chicago Manual of Style but format the page very differently. Below is the same journal article rendered in each system, side by side.
Notes–bibliography
Humanities defaultHistory, art history, philosophy, theology, classics and music. A superscript number sends the reader to a footnote; every source also appears in an alphabetical bibliography.
Episodic recall depends on retrieval cues present at encoding.1
1. Endel Tulving and Donald M. Thomson, “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory,” Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352.Tulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson. “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory.” Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020071.Author–date
Sciences variantThe sciences and some social sciences. A parenthetical (author year) points to a reference list — closer in feel to APA. No footnotes for citations.
Episodic recall depends on retrieval cues present at encoding (Tulving and Thomson 1973, 352).
Tulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson. 1973. “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory.” Psychological Review 80 (5): 352–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020071.80 (5) rather than 80, no. 5 (1973). Everything else — headline-case titles, italics, the condensed page range 352–73 and the full DOI link — is identical. This generator builds the notes–bibliography version, the one most humanities coursework asks for.Which should you use?
- Footnotes and a Bibliography → notes–bibliography.
- Parenthetical (author year) and a Reference List → author–date.
- Unsure? Check the brief in your handbook — your department will specify one.
Full note, shortened note, bibliography entry
In notes–bibliography Chicago, the same source appears in three guises across your paper. They carry the same facts but are punctuated and abbreviated differently. Read the layers top to bottom — each one trims a little more than the last.
1 · First footnote (full)
The first time you cite it1. Endel Tulving and Donald M. Thomson, “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory,” Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352.- • Author in natural order — given name first, no inversion.
- • Elements joined by commas, not full stops.
- • Ends with the single page you are citing (352).
- • Numbered to match the superscript in your text.
2 · Subsequent footnote (shortened)
Every later citation12. Tulving and Thomson, “Encoding Specificity,” 353.- • Surname(s) only — drop the given names.
- • A short form of the title (first few words).
- • The new page reference for this citation.
- • No publication facts — they are already on record.
3 · Bibliography entry
Once, at the backTulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson. “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory.” Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020071.- • First author inverted (surname, then given name).
- • Elements separated by full stops, not commas.
- • The full page range, condensed to
352–73. - • Hanging indent, alphabetised by surname.
The pattern for every source type
Each card gives the bibliography template for a source type, then a worked example you can read against it. These are the nine types most coursework needs; match your source to the closest pattern.
Journal article
Surname, First, and First Surname. “Article Title.” Journal Name Volume, no. Issue (Year): Pages. https://doi.org/xxxx.Tulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson. “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory.” Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020071.Book
Surname, First. Book Title. Edition. Place: Publisher, Year.Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.Book chapter
Surname, First. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title, edited by First Surname, Pages. Place: Publisher, Year.McGann, Jerome J. “The Rationale of Hypertext.” In Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory, edited by David C. Greetham, 19–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.Website
Surname, First. “Page Title.” Site Name. Month Day, Year. URL.Cherry, Kendra. “How Human Memory Works.” Verywell Mind. June 10, 2022. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-memory-works-2795000.Newspaper article
Surname, First. “Article Title.” Newspaper Name, Month Day, Year. URL.Carrington, Damian. “World Leaders Strike Landmark Climate Deal at COP26.” The Guardian, November 13, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/13/cop26-climate-deal.Online video
Uploader. “Video Title.” Video. Platform, Month Day, Year. URL.Veritasium. “The Science of Thermodynamics.” Video. YouTube, April 2, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb-zVtJf9Hk.Conference paper
Surname, First, and First Surname. “Paper Title.” In Proceedings Name, Pages. Place: Publisher, Year.Vaswani, Ashish, and Noam Shazeer. “Attention Is All You Need.” In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 5998–6008. Long Beach, CA: Curran Associates, 2017.Thesis / dissertation
Surname, First. “Thesis Title.” Degree type, Institution, Year. URL.Doe, Jane A. “Essays on Monetary Policy and Inflation Expectations.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Oxford, 2019. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:example.Report
Organisation. Report Title No. xx. Place: Publisher, Year. URL.World Health Organization. World Health Statistics 2023: Monitoring Health for the SDGs No. 24. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2023. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240074323.A sample Chicago reference list
This is what the Bibliography looks like assembled: alphabetised by the first author's surname, each entry set with a hanging indent so the surnames line up flush left. Mixed source types sit together in one list.
- 01Cherry, Kendra. “How Human Memory Works.” Verywell Mind. June 10, 2022. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-memory-works-2795000.
- 02Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
- 03McGann, Jerome J. “The Rationale of Hypertext.” In Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory, edited by David C. Greetham, 19–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
- 04Tulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson. “Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory.” Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020071.
Slip-ups Chicago markers notice
These are the small punctuation and capitalisation errors that cost easy marks in Chicago. Each row shows the wrong version, the correct version, and why the rule exists.
Tulving, Endel, & Donald M. Thomson.Tulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson.Why: Chicago spells out “and” between author names — it never uses the ampersand “&”.
Thomson, Donald M., and Endel Tulving.Tulving, Endel, and Donald M. Thomson.Why: Only the first author is inverted (surname first); every later author stays in natural given-name-first order.
“Encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory.”“Encoding Specificity and Retrieval Processes in Episodic Memory.”Why: Chicago titles take headline (title) case, capitalising all principal words — not sentence case.
“Psychological Review” 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73.Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73.Why: A journal name is italicised, not placed in quotation marks; quotation marks are reserved for article, chapter and web-page titles.
Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–373.Psychological Review 80, no. 5 (1973): 352–73.Why: Chicago condenses an inclusive page range in the bibliography, so 352–373 becomes 352–73.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. University of Chicago Press, 1996.The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.Why: Unlike APA, Chicago keeps the place of publication before the publisher in a book entry.
Which Chicago this generator follows
Editions change details — knowing which one you are working to keeps your references consistent across a whole dissertation.
Chicago Citation Generator — questions
Which Chicago system does this generator use — notes-bibliography or author-date?+
It uses the notes-and-bibliography system from the 17th edition, the version most humanities disciplines require. A superscript number in your text points to a numbered footnote (or endnote) that gives the full citation, and the same source appears again in an alphabetical bibliography at the end. (Chicago’s other system, author-date, is closer to APA and is used mainly in the sciences.)
What is the difference between the footnote and the bibliography entry?+
They contain the same facts but are punctuated differently. The footnote keeps the author in natural order, separates elements with commas, encloses a book’s publication facts within round brackets, and ends with the single page you are citing — for example, “Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 23.” The bibliography entry inverts the first author, separates elements with full stops, and gives the full page range of an article. This tool produces both from the same details.
When do I use “et al.” in Chicago?+
It depends on which element you are writing. In a footnote, give only the first author followed by “et al.” once a work has four or more authors. In the bibliography, list every author for works with up to ten authors; only for eleven or more do you list the first seven and then add “et al.”
How do I cite a source with no author in Chicago?+
Begin the entry with the title instead of an author and alphabetise the bibliography by the first significant word of that title (ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”). In the footnote, start with the title in the same form. If the work is published by an organisation with no individual author, you may use that organisation as the author.
Should Chicago titles be in title case or sentence case?+
Headline (title) case. Capitalise the first and last words and all principal words, and lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions and short prepositions such as “of”, “and” or “to” unless they begin the title or subtitle. Titles of articles, chapters and web pages go in double quotation marks; titles of books, journals, websites and newspapers are italicised. This generator applies the correct case and the correct quoting or italics to each field.
How do I show edition, page ranges and dates?+
Give an edition after the title (“3rd ed.”). Chicago condenses inclusive page ranges in the bibliography — 352–373 becomes 352–73 — while the footnote points to the exact page you are citing. Dates follow month-day-year order (June 10, 2022), and for a web page with no publication date you add an access date in the form “Accessed Month Day, Year.”
Does this cover legal sources, manuscripts or musical scores?+
This generator handles the nine source types most coursework needs — books, book chapters, journal articles, websites, newspaper articles, online videos, conference papers, theses and reports. Chicago also has detailed rules for specialised material such as legal cases, archival manuscripts and musical scores; for those, follow the relevant chapter of the Chicago Manual of Style directly and adapt the closest pattern here.
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