Chicago Style Citation Generator

What is Chicago style?

Chicago style, defined by The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition), is the standard citation format in history, philosophy, and much of academic publishing. It actually offers two systems:

• Notes–Bibliography: numbered footnotes or endnotes in the text, plus a bibliography at the end. Common in history and the humanities.
• Author–Date: parenthetical citations like (Kahneman 2011, 24), plus a reference list. Common in the sciences and social sciences.

This generator produces bibliography entries — the full-detail format used in both systems — along with an author–date in-text citation.

Chicago citation examples

Key Chicago rules to remember

Invert only the first author's name ("Last, First, and First Last"). Titles of books and journals are italicized; article and chapter titles go in "quotation marks." In the bibliography, entries are alphabetized by the first author's last name and formatted with a hanging indent. Dates are written in full — March 12, 2024 — unlike APA's (2024, March 12).

Footnote vs. bibliography entry

In the notes–bibliography system, the same book appears differently in a footnote and in the bibliography. The footnote runs like a sentence, first name first, with the cited page; the bibliography entry inverts the name and uses periods:

After the first full footnote, later notes shorten to: 2. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 88.

Which Chicago system should I use?

Your instructor or publisher decides; when in doubt for a history paper, use notes–bibliography.