On this page
- Chicago style edition and punctuation
- Footnotes and bibliography system
- Footnotes and endnotes
- Author element
- Referencing software
- Page numbers
- Reference within a source (secondary source)
- Several citations in a single footnote
- Quotations and block quotations
- Personal communications
- Referencing disclaimer
- Related content
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.
Footnotes and endnotes
When using a source in an assignment, identify the author with a superscript number in the text. Give further details by number in a footnote at the bottom of the page or in an endnote at the end of the text. Footnotes are preferred for university-level writing. Endnotes may be used in writing for publication.
Inserting footnotes and endnotes using Microsoft
Format your footnotes depending on the source type, such as a book, journal or webpage. Footnotes may include:
- Author
- Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- Publication date
- Publisher
- Page numbers
- Month, season, volume or issue number.
Example footnote
1Mason Durie, Whaiora: Māori Health Development (Oxford University Press, 1994), 35.
Cite all sources in full in the bibliography, except personal communications and material you have sourced yourself, such as personal photos. If a source is cited in the bibliography, you can refer to it using a shortened version of the reference in the footnotes.
Check with your lecturers or course coordinators whether they prefer you to give the full footnote citation the first time, and the shortened form in subsequent citations.
Use shortened citations for each subsequent citation by the same author. Do not use 'ibid' or 'idem.'
In a shortened footnote, give the author’s family name, a shortened form of the book title and the page number:
Example shortened footnote
2Durie, Whaiora, 35.
Author element
In a footnote, write the name of the author in the order: first name, family name. If you are using a shortened footnote, give the author's family name only.
Example footnote
1Mason Durie, Whaiora: Māori Health Development (Oxford University Press, 1994), 35.
2 authors
When there are 2 authors, write 'and' not '&' before the final author's name. If using shortened footnotes, give both authors and a shortened form of the source title with a comma and the page number.
Example
According to Samson and Smith1…
1Mark Samson and Terry Daft, An Introduction to Financial Accounting (Rata Press, 2005), 56.
… from the influence of pressure groups"2
2Samson and Smith, Economics, 34.
3+ authors
When 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' – in a footnote citation. In the bibliography list, give up to 6 authors. If there are more than 6, list the first 3 only followed by 'et al.'
Example citation
According to Chen et al.1 the…
Example footnote
1Chen et al., Economic Fundamentals (Huia Press, 2010), 23.
2Chen et al., Economic Fundamentals, 23.
Example bibliography
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 title or name in the author position both in the footnote citation and bibliography.
Example
1Ministry of Education, Te Whāriki: Early Childhood Curriculum (Learning Media, 1996), 56.
2Ministry of Education, Te Whāriki, 56.
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. Put articles in double quotation marks.
Example
1"Beehive Updating Job Wins Award" The Post, (October 29, 2007), https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360696558/beehive-updating-job.
2"Beehive Updating Job."
Anonymous author
If a source is explicitly attributed to 'Anonymous', write 'Anonymous' in the author position:
Example
5Anonymous, "Government Backroom Shenanigans," Confessions of a Policy Maker (blog), February 15, 2015, https://confessionsofapolicymaker.com.
5Anonymous, "Government Backroom."
Referencing software
Learn about EndNote and Zotero referencing software.
Page numbers
In the footnote, cite the specific page of the information you are referencing following a comma and all other source details.
For journal articles, put the page range for the chapter or article in the bibliography. The page range is not required in the bibliography for chapters in edited books.
Give the specific page numbers followed by a full stop. Do not use p. or pp. to denote page range.
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 under "Title of section")
- chapter (chap.)
- paragraph (para.) number.
These locating abbreviations are only used in footnotes and are not included in the bibliography.
Example
1Benson, Tales of Woe, under "The Circus."
2Benson, Tales of Woe, chap. 5.
3Benson, Tales of Woe, sec. 4.
4Benson, Tales of Woe, ¶ 2.15.
5Benson, Tales of Woe, 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 a footnote citation, use 'quoted in…' to show it is a secondary source. Mention the original author in the text and give details of both the original source and the secondary source where you found the original author in the footnote citation. 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.
Several citations in a single footnote
If you have paraphrased or cited several sources within a single paragraph or sentence, put all the sources in a single footnote. Separate each citation with a semi-colon and format them as in a regular footnote, in the order they appear in your text.
If you have used several sources to substantiate the same claim, alphabetise the sources within the same footnote. Each source should have its own entry in the bibliography.
Example
.....which provides justification for the theoretical framework1.
1Paul Fussell, "Whitman's Curious Warble: Reminiscence and Reconciliation," in The Presence of Walt Whitman, ed. R. W. B. Lewis (Columbia University Press, 1962), 31; William Sutton, "The Analysis of Free Verse Form, Illustrated by a Reading of Whitman," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 18, no. 2 (1959): 241-54.
Quotations and block quotations
Put direct quotations inside quotation marks (" "), followed by the reference. Give the page number for the quote in the footnote only:
Example footnote
When gathering data it is important to remember that "only relevant types of demographic information should be requested"1
1Jonathon Lazar, Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach (Pearson Addison Wesley, 2006), 35.
Example bibliography
Lazar, Jonathon. Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach. Pearson Addison Wesley, 2006.
Do not use quotation marks if a quotation is:
- longer than a paragraph or 100 words
- a list
- correspondence.
Indent the quotation instead. Close the quote with a full stop before the footnote number.
Example
Lazar describes the delicate balance of survey design:
Only relevant types of demographic information should be requested. Asking inappropriate questions in a survey, interview, or focus group lessens the likelihood that users will respond. Also, if too many questions are asked, users are less likely to respond.1
1Jonathon Lazar, Web Usability: A User-Centered Design Approach (Pearson Addison Wesley, 2006), 35.
Quotations should be identical to the original source, but you can make some small changes.
When and how to use quotations in academic writing
Quotation within a footnote
When a footnote includes a quote, give the source after the final punctuation mark of the quote. Include the source of the quote in the bibliography.
Example
1Crouchman highlights the tension between causation and correlation: "If two variables are significantly correlated, this does not imply that one must be the cause of the other. Association is not sufficient to establish a casual relationship." John Crouchman, Introductory Mathematics and Statistics, 6th ed. (McGraw-Hill Education, 2016), 509.
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.
Open the Academic Q&A forum in Stream (login required)
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