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.
Author-date 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 author-date system. For information about the footnotes and bibliography system, go to:
Chicago footnotes & endnotes
Learn why and how to format Chicago Manual of Style footnotes using the notes and bibliography system.
Chicago bibliography
Learn why and how to format a Chicago Manual of Style bibliography and cite your sources using the footnotes and bibliography system.
When you have used a source in an assignment, credit the source for the reader within the body of the assignment as an in-text citation and at the end of the assignment in the reference list. List every source mentioned in an in-text citation in the reference list.
The in-text citation contains basic information about the source:
- the author or authors
- the date of publication
- the page number.
The reference list contains more detailed information about the source, including the title and publishing details.
Example in-text citation
(Cottrell 1999, 43).
(Grazer and Fishman 2015, 78).
Give the author and date followed by a comma, then the page, paragraph or section number if necessary. Web pages do not have page numbers, so the in-text citations generally only include the author's name and date. The date is always in brackets, even if the author is not.
Author element
In Chicago style, write the surname or family name of an author first, followed by the date.
If there are several authors, only write the first author's name family-name first. Separate each author with a comma. For every author after the first, write their name as 'first name, family name.' Write 'and' not & before the final author.
2 authors
2 authors
When there are 2 authors, write 'and' not & before the final author's name. There is no comma between the author's name and the date. You may give the page number after a comma, such as with a quote.
Example
According to Samson and Daft (2005), the ….
… from the influence of pressure groups (Samson and Daft 2005).
3+ authors
3+ authors
If there are 3 or more authors, give the first author's name and replace the other names with 'et al.' – an abbreviation of the Latin et alia, meaning 'and others'.
Example
According to Chen et al. (2010) the....
If 2 different sources become identical when shortening the list of authors with et al., add enough authors to the in-text citation to differentiate them. For instance, the sources have the same year and first author.
Example
(Scheele, Baker, et al. 2018)
(Scheele, Davis, et al. 2018)
No author or group author
No author or group author
If no author is named, the source may be written by 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 title or name in the author position.
Example
…matching New Zealand's curriculum documents (Ministry of Education, 1996).
Title in author position
Title in author position
If there's no group author, move the title to the author position. This method is often used for newspaper and magazine articles and encyclopedia entries with no identified author.
Include up to 4 words of the title in the in-text citation. Unlike Chicago note and bibliography style, short forms for in-text references must include the first word of the title (excluding any articles).
Example
(Beehive Updating Job 2007)
Same author and year of publication
Same author and year of publication
In some cases, you may need to cite 2 different sources with the same author and the same date of publication.
In the reference list, order the entries alphabetically according to the first word of the title (not including articles a, an, the). Add a lowercase letter, a, b and so on, after the year to distinguish them.
Example
According to (Johnson 2002a, 5), the …
Referencing software
Learn about EndNote and Zotero referencing software.
Page numbers
Cite the page or range of pages the paraphrased or quoted information appears on. Give the specific page numbers followed by a full stop.
Do not use p. or pp. to denote page range.
Example
(Benson 2006, 17-28)
No page numbers
No page numbers
Some sources do not have page numbers, such as web pages. Most of the time, it is enough to cite the author and the date of publication.
If you need to specify which part of an unpaginated electronic or online source you're quoting from, add:
- the section heading (sec. or §)
- chapter (chap.)
- paragraph (para. or ¶) number.
These locating abbreviations are only used in the in-text citations and are not included in the reference list.
Example
(Benson 2006, under "The Circus")
(Benson 2006, chap. 5)
(Benson 2006, sec. 4)
(Benson 2006, ¶ 2.15)
(Benson 2006, para. 2.15)
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 an in-text citation, use 'quoted in…' to show it is a secondary source. Mention the original author in the text and give the secondary source in the in-text citation and reference list.
Example
Steele (1978) suggests n-1 is used instead of n (quoted in Chang 2017).
…suggests n-1 is used instead of n (Steele 1978 quoted in Chang 2017).
Chang, Mike. 2017. Fundamentals of Quantitative Analysis. Harvard University Press.
Personal communications
Personal communications describe any source that is not archived. Personal communications include emails, conversations, interviews and face-to-face lectures.
Readers cannot access these sources, so a reference list entry is not required.
Use the terms 'personal communication,' 'pers. comm.,' 'unpublished data' or a more specific description after the full name of the person being cited. State the date after the description of the communication.
Example
(Julia Smith, pers. comm., 2019)
(Jonathan Lee, Facebook direct message to author, May 5, 2018).
(Sarah Jones, text message to author, April 10, 2016).
(Henri White, unpublished data, 2016).
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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