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Chicago Citation Style Quick-Guide
The examples below are taken from A Writer’s Reference (4 th ed.), by Diana Hacker.
Chicago Bibliography Page
Below are a list of some of the most commonly used citation categories and examples of what information should be
included in that citation, as well as how the information should be arranged. When you need to cite a source, follow these
steps:
1. Decide to which category your source belongs. Is it a book? Anthology? Online source? Journal article? Etc.?
2. Collect the necessary information from your source. Sometimes this takes a bit of digging, especially with the online
sources.
3. Arrange the vital information exactly as it appears in the examples, including all styles and punctuation.
4. Once you have all of your citations written, arrange them in alphabetical order depending on the first word in the
citation on a “Bibliography” page at very end of your paper.
BASIC FORMAT FOR A PRINT BOOK:
Burchard, Peter. One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1965.
BASIC FORMAT FOR AN EDITED PRINT BOOK:
Sklare, Marshall, ed. Understanding American Jewelry. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1982.
A WORK IN A PRINT ANTHOLOGY:
Hurston, Zora Neale. “From Dust Tracks on a Road.” In The Norton Book of American Autobiography, edited by
Jay Parini, 333-43. New York: Norton, 1999.
AN ENCYLOPEDIA OR DICTIONARY ENTRY:
Garner, Bryan A. Garner’s Modern American Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT:
U.S. Department of State. Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943
Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1965.
AN ARTICLE IN A PRINT JOURNAL:
Paginated by volume:
Findlen, Paula. "Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance." American Historical Review
103 (1998): 83-114.
Paginated by issue:
Darnton, Robert. "The Pursuit of Happiness." Wilson Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1995): 42-52.
AN ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE JOURNAL:
Lennon, Brian. “New Media Critical Homologies.” Postmodern Culture 19, no. 2 (2009).
http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.109/19.2lennon.txt.
© The George Mason University Writing Center 2014
A JOURNAL ARTICLE FROM A DATABASE:
Leung, Constant. “Language and Content in Bilingual Education.” Linguistics and Education 16, no. 2 (2005): 23852. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2006/01/004.
A WEB SITE:
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. National Park Service. Last modified April 9, 2010.
http://www.nps.gov/choh/index.htm.
A SHORT WORK FROM A WEB SITE:
Landow, George P. “Victorian and Victorianism.” Victorian Web. Last modified August 2, 2009.
http://victorianweb.org/vn/victor4.html.
Chicago In-Text Citations
Below are the basic format rules for using Chicago style to cite sources in your writing. A professor may also ask
you to include the bibliography page. You should indicate sources for the quotations (exact words) and
paraphrases (ideas stated in your words) you use in your writing. Notes provide complete publication information
either at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or at the end of the paper (endnotes). A superscript numeral in the
text indicates that a quotation, summary, or paraphrase comes from an outside source; the corresponding
footnote or endnote contains the source’s publication information. The format of footnotes and endnotes is the
same.
BASIC FORMAT FOR A QUOTATION, PARAPHRASE, OR SUMMARY:
Text:
Governor John Andrew was not allowed to recruit black soldiers out of state.
"Ostensibly," writes Peter Burchard, "no recruiting was done outside Massachusetts, but
it was an open secret that Andrew's agents were working far and wide."1
Note at bottom of page for book:
1. Peter Burchard, One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1965), 85.
SUBSEQUENT REFERENCE TO A SOURCE ALREADY CITED:
2. Burchard, 31.
SUBSEQUENT REFERENCES TO MULTIPLE WORKS BY A SINGLE AUTHOR:
2. Burchard, One Gallant Rush, 31. (Shortened book title is italicized)
3. Burchard, "Civil War," 10. (Shortened article title in quotes)
A WORK WITH MULTIPLE AUTHORS:
Two or three authors:
4. Rudolph O. de la Garza, Z. Anthony Kruszewski, Tomás A. Arciniega, Chicanos and Native Americans: The
Territorial Minorities (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 8.
Four or more authors:
5. Gary B. Nash et al., The American People. 4th ed. (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998), 164.
BASIC FORMAT FOR AN EDITED PRINT BOOK:
6. Sklare, Marshall, ed, Understanding American Jewelry (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1982), 52.
A WORK IN A PRINT ANTHOLOGY:
7. Zora Neale Hurston, “From Dust Tracks on a Road,” in The Norton Book of American Autobiography, ed.
Jay Parini (New York: Norton, 1999), 336.
© The George Mason University Writing Center 2014
AN ENCYLOPEDIA OR DICTIONARY ENTRY:
8. Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), s.v. “bridprice.”
A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT:
9. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943
(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1965), 562.
AN ARTICLE IN A PRINT JOURNAL:
Paginated by volume:
10. Paula Findlen, "Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance," American Historical
Review 103 (1998): 100.
Paginated by issue:
11. Robert Darnton, "The Pursuit of Happiness," Wilson Quarterly 19, no. 4 (1995): 51.
AN ARTICLE IN AN ONLINE JOURNAL:
12. Brian Lennon, “New Media Critical Homologies,” Postmodern Culture 19, no. 2 (2009),
http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.109/19.2lennon.txt.
A JOURNAL ARTICLE FROM A DATABASE:
13. Constant Leung, “Language and Content in Bilingual Education,” Linguistics and Education 16, no. 2 (2005):
239, doi:10.1016/j.linged.2006/01/004.
A WEB SITE:
14. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, National Park Service, last modified April 9, 2010,
http://www.nps.gov/choh/index.htm.
A SHORT WORK FROM A WEB SITE:
15. George P. Landow, “Victorian and Victorianism,” Victorian Web, last modified August 2, 2009,
http://victorianweb.org/vn/victor4.html.
© The George Mason University Writing Center 2014