Chicago citation generator
Create Chicago footnotes, short notes and bibliography entries, or author-date citations, free and with no sign-up. Then check them against the rules and examples below.
- Free, no account needed
- Auto-fill from a DOI or ISBN
- Copies with italics
Chicago 17 (notes) expects title case here. We never change your capitalisation on our own. The convert buttons cannot recognise names, so re-capitalise proper nouns afterwards.
Up to four key words from the title. Left empty, we drop the subtitle and any leading A, An or The.
The site the page belongs to, for example Mayo Clinic.
Bibliography entry
Fill in the details above and your citation appears here as you type.
Full note (first citation)
Fill in the details above and your citation appears here as you type.
Short note (later citations)
Fill in the details above and your citation appears here as you type.
This is the 17th edition. The 18th (2024) drops the place of publication and uses “et al.” in notes from three authors, so check which edition you were asked for. Chicago uses title case. Short notes take a title of up to four words; add your own in the short title field if ours is longer. Chicago shortens page ranges (737–38); type them the way you want them to appear.
Bibliography (0)
Sources you add appear here in Chicago 17 (notes) format, in alphabetical order. The list is kept in this browser only.
Check every citation against your source and your instructor’s guidelines before you submit.
How to cite in Chicago style
Chicago has two systems. Notes-bibliography uses footnotes and suits the humanities. Author-date uses short parenthetical citations and suits the sciences.
Notes and bibliography
- Put a superscript note number at the end of the clause or sentence, after any punctuation except a dash.
- The first note for a source is a full note. Later notes are short: surname, short title (up to four words), page.
- Notes give the author as First Last and separate elements with commas. The bibliography inverts the first author (Last, First) and uses periods.
- Italicize book and journal titles. Put article, chapter and web page titles in “quotation marks”. Use title case for both.
- List the bibliography alphabetically by surname, with a hanging indent.
Author-date
- Cite in the text as (Author Year, page), with no comma between author and year: (Kuhn 1962, 52).
- The reference list puts the year straight after the author’s name, then the title.
- For four or more authors, cite the first author plus “et al.” in the text: (Smith et al. 2020). The reference list names up to ten.
- Prefer a DOI, written as https://doi.org/…, over a URL. For a web page with no date, write n.d. in place of the year and add an access date.
- Shorten inclusive page numbers the Chicago way: 737–38, not 737–738.
These rules and examples follow the 17th edition (2017), which the generator on this page uses. The 18th edition (2024) changes some of them: books no longer need a place of publication, notes and in-text citations use “et al.” from three authors, a bibliography lists up to six authors (more than six: the first three, then “et al.”), and a journal’s month or season can be left out. Check which edition your instructor or publisher wants.
Chicago citation examples
Footnotes, short notes and bibliography entries for the four most common source types, plus the same sources in author-date.
Journal article
Watson and Crick, Nature, 1953
- Footnote
- 1. J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” Nature 171, no. 4356 (1953): 737, https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0.
- Short note
- 2. Watson and Crick, “Molecular Structure,” 737.
- Bibliography
- Watson, J. D., and F. H. C. Crick. “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.” Nature 171, no. 4356 (1953): 737–38. https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0.
Book
Kuhn, 1962
- Footnote
- 1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 52.
- Short note
- 2. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 52.
- Bibliography
- Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
Website
Placeholder example
- Footnote
- 1. Jane Doe, “A Short History of the Printing Press,” Example History Hub, March 3, 2024, https://www.example.org/printing-press.
- Short note
- 2. Doe, “Printing Press.”
- Bibliography
- Doe, Jane. “A Short History of the Printing Press.” Example History Hub. March 3, 2024. https://www.example.org/printing-press.
YouTube video
Placeholder example
- Footnote
- 1. Example History Channel, “Why the Printing Press Changed Europe,” March 3, 2024, YouTube video, 8:15, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID.
- Short note
- 2. Example History Channel, “Printing Press Changed Europe.”
- Bibliography
- Example History Channel. “Why the Printing Press Changed Europe.” March 3, 2024. YouTube video, 8:15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID.
The journal article and book are real sources; page numbers in the notes are sample pinpoints. The website and video use placeholder names and example URLs to show the pattern.
Common Chicago citation mistakes
Mistakes to check for
- Mixing notes-bibliography and author-date in the same paper.
- Inverting the author’s name in a footnote. Only the bibliography starts Last, First.
- Placing the note number before a comma or period instead of after it.
- Italicizing a web page or article title instead of using quotation marks.
- Using “ibid.” for every repeat citation. The 17th edition prefers a short note.
- Ordering the bibliography by first citation instead of alphabetically.
When to use Chicago style
Chicago is the default in many humanities departments and in book publishing. Pick the system your instructor or publisher names. Turabian is the student version of Chicago and uses the same patterns.
- History and art history (notes-bibliography)
- Philosophy, religion and literature courses that ask for footnotes
- Natural and social sciences (author-date)
- Books and university press publishing
Create Chicago citations in three steps
The generator at the top of this page formats Chicago citations in your browser. No account is needed.
Choose the source type
Website, book, journal article or online video. The style is already set to Chicago 17 notes-bibliography; switch to author-date if you need it.
Add the details
Enter a DOI for an article or an ISBN for a book to fill in the fields, or type them by hand. Add the page you are quoting and a short title for later notes.
Check and copy
Compare the result with your source, then copy the footnote, short note and bibliography entry with italics intact.
The generator formats websites, books, journal articles and online videos. For other source types, follow the patterns above. It uses your titles exactly as typed, so write them in title case. The Chrome extension can also cite the page you’re reading in Chicago, APA 7, MLA 9 or Harvard.
Chicago citation questions
Build your Chicago reference list
Free, with no sign-up. Footnotes, bibliography entries and author-date citations.