Chicago In-Text Citation: Footnotes and Parenthetical Examples (18th Edition)

The Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition, 2024) gives you two ways to show a source inside your paper. In the notes-bibliography system, the in-text part is a small superscript number, and the source details sit in a footnote at the bottom of the page or an endnote at the end. In the author-date system, the in-text part is a short parenthetical citation with the author, the year and the page.

Notes go with a bibliography; author-date goes with a reference list. Each Chicago in-text citation must match one entry in that list exactly.

Which system your class uses

Notes-bibliography is usual in history, literature, art and religion; author-date is common in the sciences and social sciences. If the syllabus just says "Chicago style," it usually means footnotes, but ask your instructor.

Try it with a real source

Paste a link, DOI or ISBN into the citation tool above, then switch between Notes & Bibliography and Author-Date to see each in-text form. For a longer list of sources, the free Chicago citation generator formats full notes, short notes and parenthetical citations together.

These ten rules cover almost every Chicago in-text citation you'll write in a class paper. Rules 1–5 apply to footnotes and endnotes; rules 6–8 apply to author-date; rules 9 and 10 apply to both.

A Chicago style citation in-text example

Notes-bibliography: Yu tells his novel as a television script.¹ Author-date: Yu tells his novel as a television script (Yu 2020, 45). Same sentence, same source, two forms. Every other Chicago style citation in-text example on this page follows one of these two patterns.

This Chicago citation footnotes example shows the pattern: a full note the first time you cite a source, and a short note after that.

The full note

A full note lists the author's name in normal order, the title, the publication facts in parentheses and the page, all separated by commas. The CMOS notes and bibliography quick guide gives this footnote citation Chicago example for a book: 1. Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown (Pantheon Books, 2020), 45. Book titles are italic; article and chapter titles go in quotation marks.

The short note

Every later note to the same source is shortened to the last name, a short title and the page: 2. Yu, Interior Chinatown, 48. Keep a short title to four words or fewer, drop a leading A, An or The, and keep the italics or quotation marks. Chicago 18 also allows a short note at the first citation when the paper has a full bibliography, but many instructors still expect a full note.

What our tool does

Our citation tool drops a leading article and the subtitle in short notes but doesn't cut long titles to four words, so trim those by hand.

Footnotes or endnotes

The format is identical; endnotes simply sit on a Notes page before the bibliography. For Word and Google Docs setup, see our guide to Turabian footnotes, which follows the same rules.

Ibid. (from the Latin ibidem, "in the same place") points to the source in the note just before. For decades it was the standard way to cite the same source twice in a row.

What changed

The 17th edition already discouraged ibid., and the 18th edition goes further in preferring a short note even for consecutive citations. A short note still makes sense when notes get moved during editing. Chicago 18 also asks you to repeat the page number in a short note, even when it matches the note before.

If your school still uses it

If your instructor requires it, write "Ibid." with a capital I and a period, add a comma and the page if it changed (Ibid., 50), and use it only when the previous note cites a single source. Use it consistently through the paper.

The number of names you give depends on how many authors the source has and on which edition your class follows. The 18th edition made one big change: three authors now become "et al." in notes and in parenthetical citations, where the 17th edition listed all three.

In the bibliography or reference list

Et al. in the text doesn't shorten the list entry. Chicago 18 lists up to six authors in a bibliography or reference list; for seven or more, it lists the first three followed by et al. That's why the entry for The Craft of Research still names all five authors, even though the note says "Booth et al."

Names in your sentence

For a Chicago in-text citation with multiple authors named in the sentence, write "Thaler and Sunstein (2008, 6) argue…" or "Booth et al. (2016, 12) suggest…".

In author-date style, the citation sits inside the sentence: the author's last name, the year and the page, such as (Yu 2020, 45). There's no comma between the name and the year, and a comma separates the year from the page.

Placement

Put this Chicago in-text citation at the end of the clause, before the period or comma. With a quotation, it goes after the closing quotation mark and before the period. If you name the author in your sentence, put the year right after the name and the page at the end, or both together: Yu (2020, 45) describes…

Learn the whole system

Author-date has its own reference list, its own rules for undated sources and its own way of separating two works from the same year. Our full guide to Chicago author-date citation covers all of that, along with the comparison between the two systems and how to cite a paraphrase.

A Chicago in-text citation for a source with no named author starts with the title instead. Don't write "Anonymous" unless the work says so.

In a note

Start the note with the title: 1. "Title of Web Page," Name of Website, Month Day, Year, URL. The short note uses a shortened title. If an organization published the page, you can usually treat the organization as the author.

In author-date style

Use the organization as the author if there is one. Otherwise, put a short form of the title where the name would go, followed by the year: (Short Title 2019, 12). Use italics or quotation marks as the title has them in the reference list. (Pattern only; the title and page are placeholders.)

When one sentence draws on two or three sources, a single Chicago in-text citation can hold them all. Don't stack note numbers side by side (¹²).

In notes

Put all the sources in a single note, separated by semicolons, in the order that makes sense to your reader: 7. Yu, Interior Chinatown, 45; Putnam, Bowling Alone, 27.

In author-date style

List the citations in one set of parentheses, separated by semicolons: (Yu 2020, 45; Putnam 2000, 27). Page numbers in these examples are illustrative.

A Chicago in-text citation for a quotation or a specific passage, including a paraphrase of one, needs a page number. Write the number alone, with no "p." or "pp."

Use an en dash for a range, such as 117–18.

Sources without pages

For a web page, an ebook with reflowable text or an audiovisual source, leave the page out or use a locator that helps readers find the spot, such as a chapter or section name, or a time stamp for a video. Don't use the location numbers a Kindle shows. For whole-work citations with no specific passage, author-date style needs only the name and year: (Putnam 2000).

Kate L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations is the student version of Chicago, so the in-text citation Chicago Turabian answer is simple: the forms are the same. An in-text citation Chicago Turabian style still uses either notes or (Author Year, page). Both offer notes-bibliography and author-date, and both use the same note numbers, short notes and (Author Year, page) citations.

Where they differ

Turabian adds rules for student papers, such as title pages and margins. The current Turabian (9th edition, 2018) still follows Chicago 17, so a Chicago Turabian citation in text written to Turabian 9 lists three authors in full and keeps the place of publication in full notes.

If your assignment says "Turabian," see our guides to Turabian footnotes, the Turabian bibliography and Turabian format for the paper itself.

Some classes still follow the 17th edition. These changes affect each Chicago in-text citation in your paper.

• Place of publication. The 18th drops it from book notes: (Pantheon Books, 2020) instead of (New York: Pantheon Books, 2020).
• Three authors. The 18th uses et al. for three or more; the 17th listed three in full.
• Ibid. Both discourage it; the 18th prefers short notes more firmly.
• Journal months. The 18th drops the month or season when a journal has volume and issue numbers.

Use the edition your instructor names; our citation tool has an edition switch for both systems.

Check every Chicago in-text citation in your paper against this list.

Keep going

For English classes that use MLA instead, our MLA in-text citation guide covers author-page citations, and the APA format guidelines cover APA's author-year style. Every guide is on our student writing guides page. When you're ready, let the Chicago footnote generator build each full note, short note and bibliography entry for you.