Chicago - Referencing Guide

There are two parts to referencing: the citations within the text of your paper and the reference list at the end of your paper.

Chicago style  is an "author-date" style, so the citation in the text consists of the author(s) name and year of publication given wholly or partly in round brackets.

Use only the surname of the author(s) and the year of publication. Include page, chapter or section numbers, preceded by a comma, if you need to be specific:

When citing in the text, no distinction is made between books, journal articles, internet documents or other formats, except for electronic documents that do not provide page numbers. In this case, use the paragraph number, if available, with the abbreviation para.

The full details of the source are given in a reference list at the end of the document:

Reference list entries contain all the information that someone needs to follow up your source. Reference lists in Chicago are arranged alphabetically by the primary author's surname.

Reference list entries vary depending upon the format of the source of your information. See Reference List Entries or All Examples for details on how to construct references for specific resources such as books, journals and web pages.

Created December 2010; modified December 2022

Please remember to check with your unit co-ordinator or tutor before submitting your assignments, as their style preference may vary from the guidelines presented here.

When using EndNote referencing software, please use the following output style - Chicago 17th edition Author-Date. Depending on which version of EndNote you are using, you may need to download this output style template. For information about EndNote and downloading output style templates, please see the EndNote Guide.

This referencing guide follows the principles and examples given in the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (2017).

This Chicago Referencing Guide will be updated to comply with the Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition ready for 2025.