Chicago style edition and punctuation
The examples on this page use the recently released Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition.
Punctuation is important. Use the same punctuation and formatting as the order instructions and examples. Use 1 space after any punctuation mark.
Footnotes and bibliography system
The Chicago Manual of Style sets out 2 referencing systems: footnotes and a bibliography or an author-date system. This page is about the footnotes and bibliography system. For information about the author-date system, go to:
Author-date in-text citations
Learn how to format Chicago Manual of Style in-text citations using the author-date system.
Author-date reference list
Learn how to format Chicago Manual of Style reference lists using the author-date system.
The bibliography appears at the end of the assignment and gives detailed information about each source cited in the assignment. All sources should be cited in full in the bibliography, except personal communications and material you have sourced yourself, such as personal photos.
Example bibliography
Chang, Mike. Fundamentals of Quantitative Analysis. Harvard University Press, 2017.
Durie, Mason. Whaiora: Maori Health Development. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Samson, John, Scott James, and Willa Daft. An Introduction to Financial Accounting. Rata Press, 2005.
Bibliography format
For each entry in the bibliography:
- List the first author's family name before their given name.
- If there is more than 1 author, list additional authors in the order: given name, family name.
- List up to 6 authors in the bibliography. If there are more than 6 authors, only list the first 3 followed by ‘et al.’
- Separate authors with a comma. Write 'and' before the last author.
- Between each source element, such as the author, chapter, article or book title, type a full stop.
- State the page number or page range for chapters in edited books and journal articles. In the footnote, include the specific page for the information you're citing.
- Start each entry with a hanging indent. For a hanging indent, every line after the first is moved 1.27 centimetres to the right.
Create a hanging indent in Microsoft Word - Alphabetise the list by surname.
- List a single author entry alphabetically before a multi-author entry beginning with the same name.
Example bibliography entry
Durie, Mason. Whaiora: Maori Health Development. Oxford University Press, 1994.
The publication information depends on the type of source.
- For a book, state the name of the publisher.
- For a journal article, write the name of the journal, the volume or issue number and the page range of the article.
- For a website or online source, use the DOI or URL.
Author
Author
The author can be a person, people, an organisation, a group, a company, a ministry or a combination of people and groups.
Put the surname or family name of the author first, followed by their first name in full.
Example
Grazer, Brian, and Charles Fishman.
Cunningham, Barry, Anton Nikolai, and John Bazley.
2 to 6 authors
If there is more than 1 author and up to 6, only the first author's name is listed family name-first name. Each author after them should be listed as first name, then family name. Separate each name with a comma. Write the word 'and' before the final author – do not use an ampersand (&).
Example
Samson, John, Scott James, and Willa Daft. An Introduction to Financial Accounting. Rata Press, 2005.
More than 6 authors
If there are more than 6 authors, give the first 3 author's name and replace the other names with 'et al.'.
Example
Chen, Candie S., Scott Cooke, Sam Bergsma, Jennifer Burnes, Jason Maclean, and Trish Japudi. Economic Fundamentals. Huia Press, 2010.
No author or group author
If no author is named, the source may be written by a group or organisation. This is often true for collaborative or official works from government departments, corporations or other organisations.
In this case, use the group in the author position both in the footnote citation and the bibliography.
Example
Ministry of Education. Te Whāriki: Early Childhood Curriculum. Learning Media, 1996.
If there is no identifiable author, use the title in place of the author. Newspaper or magazine articles and encyclopedia entries often have no identified author.
Use the full title in the bibliography.
Example
The Post. "Beehive updating job wins award." October 29, 2007. https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360696558/beehive-updating-job.
Anonymous author
If a source is explicitly attributed to 'Anonymous', write 'Anonymous' in the author position:
Example
Anonymous. 2015. Government Backroom Shenanigans. https://confessionsofapolicymaker.com.
Title
Title
Write all titles in title case. Capitalise the first letter of major words and all words longer than 3 letters. Ignore articles such as 'the', 'an' and 'a' when alphabetising the bibliography.
The title should be in quotation marks if it is a:
- journal title
- chapter in an edited book
- newspaper or magazine article
- dissertation or thesis
- web page.
The title should be in italics if it is a:
- title of a book
- journal
- magazine or newspaper.
Sometimes a reference will have 2 titles – the name of an article or entry and the name of the whole work. For example, journals have a name, but each individual article also has a title. Edited books have both a book title and a chapter title. In these cases, write the main title in italics and the section, article or chapter title in double quotation marks.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
The Digital Object Identifier is a unique number allocated to an online publication. It is often used to identify online journal articles and other online documents.
If an online document has a DOI, use it instead of the URL address.
Example
Gelkopf, Mark, Paul Ryan, Sarah Cotton, and Rudi Berger. "The Impact of 'Training the Trainers' for Helping Tsunami-Survivor Children on Sri Lankan Disaster Volunteer Workers." International Journal of Stress Management 15, no. 2 (2008): 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.15.2.117.
The DOI will usually appear as part of the source's copyright information or online citation. You can also look up a DOI online.
Year of publication
Year of publication
The date of publication can be found in many places.
- For books and other print publications, use the copyright date if possible.
- Massey Library's catalogue lists a year of publication for each book in its collection.
Massey Library catalogue - Web pages sometimes display a 'last updated' date – use the year for the date of publication.
If no year is available, use n.d. ('no date') in the bibliography entry.
Example
New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 100 Māori Words Every New Zealander Should Know. Huia Press, n.d.
City of publication
City of publication
The place of publication is not required in the 18th edition of Chicago style.
Publisher
Publisher
Do not include legal or superfluous terms such as 'Inc.', '& Co.', 'Pty.' and 'Publishers' in the publisher's name. You should keep 'Press' and 'Books'.
Month, season, volume or issue number
Month, season, volume or issue number
Format a journal entry according to whether the volume, season, month or issue number is included.
- Give the volume number after the title, without any punctuation.
- Give the issue number after the volume number, separated with a comma – write 'no' before the issue number.
- Put the year in brackets after the issue number. If the journal has a volume and issue number, don't include the month or season with the year.
- The page range of the article usually follows the year. Separate them with a colon.
- Put a comma after the journal title when a journal is published in a numbered issue with no volume number. If necessary, include the month or season with the year to make the source more identifiable.
- Include the month or season with the year for a journal published in numbered volumes with no issue number.
- Treat the source like a magazine article when only the year is available and there are no volume or issue numbers. If no author is given, put the publication title in the author position.
Example
Lewis, Helen. “The Second Elizabethan Age Has Ended.” Atlantic, September 8, 2022. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-british-royal-family-transition/671370/.
If there is no volume number, give the issue number after the title and a comma. Including the month or season can be helpful when citing an article in a journal with no volume number.
Example
Gelkopf, Mark, Paul Ryan, Sarah Cotton, and Rudi Berger. "The Impact of 'Training the Trainers' for Helping Tsunami-Survivor Children on Sri Lankan Disaster Volunteer Workers." International Journal of Stress Management, no. 15 (2008): 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.15.2.117.
When there is no issue number, give the volume number after the title, followed by the year in brackets. Including the month or season can be helpful when citing an article in a journal with no issue numbers.
Example
Gelkopf, Mark, Paul Ryan, Sarah Cotton, and Rudi Berger. "The Impact of 'Training the Trainers' for Helping Tsunami-Survivor Children on Sri Lankan Disaster Volunteer Workers." International Journal of Stress Management 12 (Winter, 2008): 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.15.2.117.
Reference within a source (secondary source)
Reference within a source (secondary source)
Many academic books and journal articles quote earlier books or articles on the same topic. If you can't access the original source because it's out of print or unavailable through the library, you can cite the secondary source instead.
In a footnote citation, use 'quoted in…' to show it is a secondary source. Only give the secondary source in the bibliography.
Example footnote
In 1978, Steele1 suggested n-1 is used instead of n...
1Tilda Steele, New Frontiers in Statistics (Oxford University Press, 1978), 67, quoted in Mike Chang, Fundamentals of Quantitative Analysis (Harvard University Press, 2017), 34.
Example bibliography
Chang, Mike. Fundamentals of Quantitative Analysis. Harvard University Press, 2017.
Referencing software
Learn about EndNote and Zotero referencing software.
Order of entries
Alphabetise entries according to the first author's surname or whatever else appears first in the entry. Ignore small words like 'A', 'An' and 'The' when alphabetising. You can use the sort text feature of Microsoft Word to do this quickly and easily, although you will still need to check for errors.
Microsoft Support: Sort a list
- If 2 authors have the same surname, alphabetise them according to their first name.
- If there are 2 entries with identical authors, order them chronologically, earliest first.
- If 2 different entries begin with the same author, entries with 1 author come before entries with multiple authors.
- If 2 different multiple-author entries begin with the same author, alphabetise by the second author. If the second author is the same, use the third.
List order of entries example
Durie, Mason. 2003…
Johnson, Ian. 2004…
Johnson, Ian, and Candie Chen. 2006…
Johnson, Ian, Tran Nguyen, and Candie Chen. 2004…
MacArthur, Arthur. 2019…
McAllister, Cate. 2019…
Ministry of Health. 2018…
Singh, Yuvraj. 2017…
Statistics New Zealand. 2000…
Villafuerte, Sole. 2016...
Multiple titles by the same author
When listing multiple titles by the same author, repeat the author's name instead of using 3 em dashes. In a bibliography, order multiple titles by the same author alphabetically according to the first word of the title, aside from A, An or The. When the source is a part of a greater title, like an article in a journal or a chapter in an edited book, the first title determines alphabetical order.
Example
Judt, Tony. A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe. Hill and Wang. 1996.
Judt, Tony. Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. Penguin Press, 2008.
Judt, Tony, ed. Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe, 1939-1948. Routledge, 1989.
Judt, Tony. "Understanding Power." Mediterranean European Studies (July 2000): 34-36.
List format by source
Audio & visual material
Chicago style referencing – how to format art works, video, audio and other visual material.
Books
Chicago style referencing – how to format books, chapters and eBooks.
Journals
Chicago style referencing – how to format print and online journal articles.
Online material
Chicago style referencing – how to format online material.
Other material
Learn how to format other material in a Chicago style reference list, footnote or bibliography.
Referencing disclaimer
This page is a guide to proper referencing. Your course, department, school or institute may prescribe specific conventions. Their recommendations supersede these instructions. If your questions are not covered here, ask your course coordinator or ask on our Academic Q&A forum.
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