Chicago Style (18th Edition) Citation Guide

Chicago style was created by the University of Chicago as a set of rules for publications, including research papers. Chicago style is the preferred citation style for history and theology. 

There are two variations of Chicago style; UP typically uses the "notes and bibliography" form, not the "author date" format.

In Chicago style, you must cite sources that you have paraphrased, quoted or otherwise used in two places:

1. In the body of your paper where you add a footnote (which appears in the footer at the bottom of the page).
2. In the bibliography at the end of your paper.

[Note: Purdue Owl has not yet provided guidance for Chicago Style 18th edition]

Footnotes:

All citations should use first line indent, where the first line of the footnote should be indented by 0.5 inches; all subsequent lines are not indented. Footnotes should be the same font size and style as the rest of your paper.

See instructions for how to insert footnotes in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

Bibliography:

All citations should be double spaced and have a hanging indent.

A "hanging indent" means that each subsequent line after the first line of your citation should be indented by 0.5 inches.

Author

An author can be a person but can also be an organization, or company. These are called group or corporate authors.

If there is no known author, start the citation with the title of the item (which is the next element in the citation). 

In the bibliography and footnote, do not include titles, degrees, religious affiliations, or other abbreviations that are not part of the name (examples: Pope, PhD, C.S.C., Jr., Sr., III). 

Titles

Capitalize the first letter of every important word in the title. You do not need to capitalize words such as in, of, or an.

If there is a colon (:) in the title, include what comes after the colon (also known as the subtitle).Capitalize the first word after the colon, even if it is a word such as in, of, or an.

Publication Title

If the title of the source (journal / newspaper / book) starts with The, omit The from the start of the title. Non-English titles should always include the initial article (e.g. Der Spiegel, Le Monde). 

Access Date

Chicago style does not recommend including access dates in the citation, unless no date of publication for the source may be located.

Dates

The format of all dates is: Month Date, Year. e.g. September 5, 2012.

Whether to give the year alone or include a month and day depends on your source: write the full date as you find it there. A month or season is not needed for journal articles that include both a volume and issue number. 

If no date is listed, use the abbreviation n.d. for "no date." 

For websites: the best date to use is the date that the content was last updated. Otherwise look for a copyright or original publication date. This information may sometimes be located at the bottom of the pages of a website. If you do not know the complete date, put as much information as you can find. For example you may have a year but no month or day.

Editions

When an edition other than the first is used or cited, the number or description of the edition follows the title in the listing. If you are using the first edition, you do not have to include that information in the citation.

Publisher Names

If the publisher's name starts with The, omit it. Also omit abbreviations such as Inc., Ltd., and Co., as well as Company.