Documentation

Understanding the basics of Chicago style

Page contents:

Types of sources
Parts of citations

Why does academic work call for very careful citation practices when writing for the general public may not? The answer is that readers of academic work expect source citations for several reasons:

Source citations demonstrate that you’ve done your homework on your topic and that you are a part of the conversation surrounding it.
Source citations show that you understand the need to give credit when you make use of someone else’s intellectual property. (See more about acknowledging sources.)
Source citations give explicit directions to guide readers who want to look for themselves at the works you’re using.

Guidelines from The Chicago Manual of Style will tell you exactly what information to include in your citation and how to format that information.

Types of sources

Look at the Directory to Chicago-style notes and bibliographic entries. You will need to be careful to tell your readers whether you read a print version or a digital version of a source that consists mainly of written words. Digital magazine and newspaper articles may include updates or corrections that the print version lacks; digital books may not number pages or screens the same way the print book does. If you are citing a source with media elements—such as a film, song, or artwork—consult the other sections of the directory. And if you can’t find a model exactly like the source you’ve selected, see Quick Help.

Articles from web and database sources

You need a subscription to look through most databases, so individual researchers almost always gain access to articles in databases through the computer system of a school or public library that pays to subscribe. The easiest way to tell whether a source comes from a database, then, is that its information is not generally available free to anyone with an Internet connection. Many databases are digital collections of articles that originally appeared in edited print periodicals, ensuring that an authority has vouched for the accuracy of the information. Such sources may have more credibility than free material available on the web.

Parts of citations

Citations in Chicago style will appear in three places in your text—a note number in the text marks the material from the source, a footnote or an endnote includes information to identify the source (or information about supplemental material), and the bibliography provides the full citation. In her research essay, Amanda Rinder uses a footnote to link a source in her text to a numbered note and then to a bibliography entry, as shown in the figure below.