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Chicago - Referencing Guide

Citation Examples

Citation Examples

Single author

The short citations within the text are given wholly or partly in round brackets.

Use only the surname of the author followed by the year of publication:

(Matthews 2019)

Include page, chapter or section numbers if you need to be specific:

Matthews discusses the role of drawings in the psychological evaluation of children (2019, 34-35). OR
... in the psychological evaluation of children has been studied elsewhere (Matthews 2019, 34-35).

Two or three authors

Cite all authors every time you cite within the text.

Separate the the authors name in the citation with and:

(Simmons and Green 2017, 62) … OR
Simmons and Green (2017, 62) were unable …

(Lester, Brown, and Withers 2007, 26) OR
Lester, Brown and Withers (2007, 26) agreed ....

More than three authors

When citing a work by Forman, Jones, Witham and Gonzales. Only the surname of the first listed author is used, followed either by "and others" or more commonly in science "et al.":

Forman and others (2021, 62-63) have found … OR
(Forman et al. 2021, 62-63)

Although "et al." is a Latin phrase, in Chicago style it is not italicised.

Please note that all authors' names are listed in the Reference List.

Authors with the same surname

Make a distinction between them by including the authors' initials.

Place the initials before the family name:

The theory was propounded in 1990 (A.E. Larsen 1991) … OR
M.K. Larsen (2003) is among those …

Multiple works by the same author in the same year

A distinction is made by adding lower case letters, a, b, c, etc. to the date.

These letters are also included in the full reference in the reference list to distinguish between the two documents:

Bursch (2015a, 14) described how the yak made transport possible in the high mountains of Inner Asia, as did the llama in the Andes of South America (Bursch 2015b, 231).

Corporate author

These are works without a personal author.

Corporate authors may be associations, agencies like government departments, corporations or organisations.

Names of organisations should be given in full the first time they are cited within the text.

In subsequent citations, these names may be abbreviated in the text if the abbreviation is meaningful or well known:

(CSIRO 2019) ...
As predicted by the Centre of Independent Studies (2022) ...

More than one work cited

List all sources of information either in the text or within the citation separated by a semicolon (;):

(Larsen 2001; Haddon 2019) ...
Larsen (2001) and Haddon (2019) demonstrated that ...
(Larsen 2001, 11; Haddon 2019, 3: 734)

No author

When a work has no author or the author is anonymous, cite the first few words of the reference list entry (usually the title) and the year.

Use italics for the title:

This was apparently not the case in seventeenth-century England (On Travelling to London 1683) ...
On Travelling to London (1683) reveals that this was not true.

No date of publication

Use the abbreviation n.d. to indicate that no date of publication is given:

Carruthers (n.d.) has suggested ... OR
(Carruthers, n.d.)

Page numbers included

 Include page, chapter, paragraph or section numbers if you need to be specific:

Matthews discusses the role of drawings in the psychological evaluation of children (2019, 34).

OR
... in the psychological evaluation of children has been studied elsewhere (Matthews 2019, 34).

Forman and others (2021, 62-63) have found …

OR

(Forman et al. 2021, 62-63)

Volume numbers included

For multivolume publications include the date, then a comma, followed by the volume number, then a colon and the page number(s):

This theory is dealt with in detail by Johnson (2023, 2: 23, 3: 17-36).

Newspapers

If the author of the article is named, cite in the normal way with the author and date.

If there is no author given, cite the newspaper title in italics.

Include the specific date as well as year and page or section numbers if appropriate:

(Canberra Times 24 Jan. 2017, B6) ...
The Weekend Australian (24-25 Jan. 2017, 19) reported ...


See the All Examples page for examples of in-text and reference list entries for specific resources such as articles, books and web pages.