Chicago Referencing: A Student Guide

What is Chicago referencing?

Chicago referencing is a style developed by the University of Chicago Press, primarily used in humanities disciplines including history, philosophy, art history, and literature. It is used in some UK universities, particularly in humanities and interdisciplinary programmes. Like OSCOLA, the Chicago Notes-Bibliography system uses footnotes rather than in-text citations.

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Two Chicago systems

Chicago has two distinct systems. The Notes-Bibliography (NB) system, most common in humanities, uses footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography. The Author-Date (AD) system, used in social sciences and some science disciplines, uses in-text citations similar to Harvard. Always check which system your institution or module requires before beginning.

This guide covers the Notes-Bibliography system, which is more commonly required in UK humanities programmes.

Footnotes and endnotes

In Chicago NB, a superscript number in the text corresponds to a numbered footnote at the bottom of the page (or endnote at the end of the chapter). The first reference to a source gives full details; subsequent references to the same source may use a shortened form.

Example (full first footnote): John Smith, Academic Writing in the Humanities (London: Routledge, 2020), 47.
Example (shortened subsequent footnote): Smith, Academic Writing, 52.

Citing a book

Footnote format: Author First Last, Title of Book (Place: Publisher, Year), page.

Example: Mary Evans, The History of Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 112.

Bibliography format (note: surname first, and different punctuation): Evans, Mary. The History of Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Citing a journal article

Footnote format: Author First Last, "Article Title," Journal Name Volume, no. Issue (Year): page.

Example: James Carter, "Postcolonial Narratives in British Fiction," Journal of Modern Literature 42, no. 3 (2019): 78.

Bibliography format: Carter, James. "Postcolonial Narratives in British Fiction." Journal of Modern Literature 42, no. 3 (2019): 74–91.

Note that article titles use double quotation marks in Chicago NB; journal names are italicised.

Citing a website

Footnote format: Author First Last, "Page Title," Website Name, Month Day, Year, URL.

Example: Department for Education, "Student Attainment Statistics," GOV.UK, January 23, 2024, https://www.gov.uk/example.

If no author is identified, begin with the organisation name. Include an access date for pages that may change: "accessed March 10, 2024."

The bibliography

The bibliography in Chicago NB lists all sources cited in the footnotes, organised alphabetically by the author's surname. Unlike the footnotes, bibliography entries begin with the author's surname: Evans, Mary. Note also that punctuation differs between footnotes and bibliography entries, footnotes use commas between elements; bibliography entries use full stops.

For guidance on other referencing styles, see our articles on Harvard referencing and APA 7th referencing. If you need your references formatted professionally, GradeQuill's referencing and formatting service covers Chicago in both systems.