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Chicago - Referencing Guide

Personal Communication

Information

• Personal communications include

  • conversations
  • electronic bulletin boards
  • emails
  • interviews
  • letters
  • memos
  • messages from discussion lists
  • online chats
  • personal interviews
  • telephone conversations
  • text messages
  • unpublished manuscripts

• Do not include references for personal communications in a reference list, as they are unpublished, and do not contain recoverable data.

• Cite personal communications in the text only.

• Follow the In Text Citation Guidelines for Citing Personal Communication when referring to a personal communication in text.

Examples

Personal communications (in text)

In a telephone conversation with the author on October 12, 2005, Dr J. W. Mueller stated that ...
OR
Professor Visser gave his reasons for closing the laboratory in an e-mail message to the author on January 16, 2004. The reasons given were...

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

Reference List Entries

For ease of use, this guide divides reference list entries into different formats.
Select the format you require from the Reference List Entries menu or select from the links below:

Subjects: Referencing