Chicago Style Citation Guide: Notes and Bibliography

In Text Citation Using Footnotes or Endnotes

Footnotes appear at the bottom of the relevant page. Endnotes are as a separate section at the end of the paper. Most often, sources have full entries in a Bibliography and use only the short form for notes. To create notes automatically in Word, go to the References tab and choose “Insert Footnote” or “Insert Endnote.” A note is signaled by a superscript number usually placed at the end of the relevant sentence outside the period.
Present the author name in a first note as First Name Last Name, after that use only the Last Name. For a source with more than three authors, list only the first author followed by et al. to represent the others, like this: ¹ Abdul Alpha et al. and for later notes, ² Alpha et al.
Use page numbers, short descriptions, or time stamps for locating quotes or paraphrases. For notes containing more than one source, separate each one with a semicolon.
Dictionaries and well-known reference works are normally cited only in full notes. An image or map should use a full note. Course materials, interviews, live lectures or performances are also credited in a full note Leave these types of sources out of a bibliography.
AI generated content must be disclosed and explained when it is used, either through a note or in the body of the paper (see CMOS 14.112).
For papers with no Bibliography, use a full note with all publishing details at the first mention of any work; after that use a short note to cite that work, like example footnote number 2 for the same source. If the next note immediately after also refers to the same source, then the title may be omitted.

Examples for Full and Short Notes

The Basic Format for a Full Note

… end of a sentence.¹

¹Author, Title of Work (Publisher, Year), page number or location.

The Basic Format for a Short Note

… end of a sentence.²

²Author, Shortened Title, page number or location.

¹ Benita Beta and Dee Delta, Chicago Style: So Cool (Chicago Press, 2017), 51–52.

² Beta and Delta, Chicago Style, 138.

Format for a Block Quote

For a quote longer than five lines create a block quote and use a colon at the end of a sentence introducing, ours gives detailed punctuation and format advice:

Place it on a new line, do not use quotation marks, single space the quote, and indent it. If a quote contains a quote, then use single marks, ‘like this’ to show its beginning and end. If you add a bit of text, use square brackets [like this] to leave out a little text replace it with an ellipsis like this . . . for the parts left out.³

Generally, it is a good idea to embed a block quote in a paragraph and comment on it in detail both before and after the quote.

³Beta and Delta, 220.

Secondary Source Example

For something quoted in a source you want to refer to directly in your essay, refer to both sources in the note and make entries for each in the Bibliography. It might look like this example sentence. According to Maria Morales, Ben Chau says that "‘pizza is best cold’ but [it] is most often eaten hot,” yet many would argue that pizza is delicious either way.⁴

⁴Maria Morales, Pizza Book (U Press, 2025), 25; Ben Chau, Cold Food (MN Press, 2024).

Bibliography

Create a separate page at the end of the paper titled Bibliography centered in bolded text on the first line; leave two blank lines before the first entry. The list is single-spaced; leave one blank line between source entries.
If an entry takes more than one line, the second line is indented one half inch, this is a hanging indent. To make a hanging indent, in Word, highlight the entry, then select the Paragraph tab’s indentation settings, then select “Special” and “Hanging.”
Entries are listed alphabetically by author’s last name.

Advice for Entries

For 7 or more authors, list the first six authors followed by et. al. (CMOS 13.23)
For more than one source by the same author, alphabetize them by title and list the author’s name(s) for each entry. (CMOS 13.72)
If there is no author, begin the entry with the title. If the author is an editor, compiler, or translator, label them like this: Chau, Ben, ed. or Chau, Ben, comp. or Chau, Ben, trans.
Titles of books, films, journals, newspapers, and blogs are in italics, Like This; title chapters, articles, webpages, posts, and comments are within quotation marks, “Like This”; a main website title like Google Scholar is in plain text, Like This.
For additional contributors provide explanations: adapted by, directed by, introduction by, edited by, translated by, illustrated by etc. or use the singular forms of ed., comp., etc. before the contributor’s name.
For missing dates, use n.d. instead of a year. For approximate or unclear dates use ca. YEAR for an approximation. Use [YEAR?] for uncertain accuracy. If an original publication date is relevant, include it and publisher if known after the title like this: Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Random House, 1952. Reprint, Vintage Books, 1995.

Sample Bibliography Entries

Book / Different Works by the Same Author (CMOS 14.30; 13.72)

Oates, Joyce Carol, and Robert Atwan, eds. The Best American Essays of the Century. Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. To Be the Poet. Harvard University Press, 2002.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Amidst Ghosts. A. A. Knopf, 1976.

Book Chapter in an Anthology (CMOS 14.9)

Aziz, Tovah. “Format for a Student Paper.” In The Art of Writing: Academic Scholarship, edited by A. B. Morales and B. Chau. Publisher Press, 2018.

E-book

Womack, Ytasha L. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. Chicago Review Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Journal Article with Multiple Authors

Oke, Ayodeji Emmanuel, Douglas Aghimien, and Abiola Aedoyin. “SWOT Analysis of Indigenous and Foreign Contractors in a Developing Economy.” The International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management 35, no. 6 (2018): 1289-1304. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQRM-11-2016-0210.

Newspapers and Magazines

Mack DeGeurin. “Almost Two Decades since 9/11, 10 Times as Many New York City Police Officers Have Died from 9/11-Related Illnesses than Perished in the Actual Attack.” Insider, September 10, 2019, Proquest.

Scott Kirkwood. “Looking Back: A Prisoner of the Japanese-American Internment Camp at Minidoka Recalls His Time There, 60 Years Ago.” National Parks, January 2008, EBSCO Academic Search Premier.

Published Diary or Correspondence

Zapruder, Alexandra. Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust. Yale University Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300127416.

Government Document

Minnesota Environmental Quality Board. 2020 State Water Plan: Water and Climate. Minnesota State Publication 20-0899. 2020. https://www.leg.mn.gov/docs/2020/mandated/200899.pdf.

Archives/Datasets

Histories of YMCA Indian Work, 1900-1911. Papers. Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Minneapolis, MN.

Bryan, Michael. “US Social Vulnerability by Census Block Groups, 2022.” Version 2. Harvard Dataverse, November 5, 2024. https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/ARBHPK.

Web Page / Blog Post

Metro State University. “Land Acknowledgement.” Accessed November 5, 2024. https://www.metrostate.edu/about/land-acknowledgment.

Quale, Jack. 2024. “The First Rescue Inhaler was a Cigarette.” Accessed November 12, 2024. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/355590c003bf4605b9e92e3f2ec43fc4.

Fischer, Anna Gray. “Black Women, Police Violence, and Gentrification.” Process: A Blog for American History (blog). September 17, 2020, http://www.processhistory.org/fischer-black-women/.

Online News Source with No Author / Social Media

“Uber Begins Helicopter Service in Brazil’s Biggest City.” New York Times. June 14, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/06/14/world/americas/ap-lt-brazil-uber.html.

The Chicago Manual of Style (@ChicagoManual). “Sometimes style takes more than 140 characters—or even 280. We welcome CMOS style questions at our Q&A.” Twitter, January 18, 2019, 2:50 pm. https://twitter.com/ChicagoManual/status/1086358863711010817.

Film / Podcast Episode/ YouTube Video

Paulson, John, director. Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like: A Retrospective of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. PBS, 2018. Video, 57:00. https://metrostate.kanopy.com/video/mister-rogers-its-you-i.

Meraji, Shereen Marisol, host. “COVID Diaries: Jessica and Sean Apply for a Loan.” Code Switch (blog). May 20, 2020. Audio, 34 min., 07sec. https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch.

Hadjiyanni, Tasoulla. “How Our Kitchen Tables Affect Our Ability to Thrive.” TedxMinneapolis, August 7, 2001. YouTube, 13 min., 56 sec. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxlwkPjyxGI.

Sources From Oral Traditions

Nesser, David. Fond du Lake Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. LaPointe Treaty. Lives in Cloquet, MN. “Turtle Management in Lake Systems.” Oral teaching shared at Coffee with the Elders in St Paul, Minnesota, May 25, 2025.

Saw Htoo. Pwo Karen. Lives in St. Paul, MN. “Story about a Tradition as Told to Saw Htoo by His Grandfather.” Oral teaching shared at Saw Htoo’s home, September 30, 2019.