Chicago Style Format: Guide with Examples (18th Edition)

Chicago style format is a set of rules from The Chicago Manual of Style that covers both how a paper looks and how it credits sources. For a typical student paper, use 1-inch margins, a readable 12-point font, double-spaced text, and consistent page numbers, then choose one of Chicago’s two citation systems: notes and bibliography or author-date.

First published by the University of Chicago Press in 1906, the manual is now in its 18th edition, released in 2024.

This guide explains how to set up a Chicago-style paper, format the title page and headings, use footnotes and in-text citations, build a bibliography or reference list, and cite books, journal articles, and websites. You’ll also find a comparison with MLA and APA, plus a final checklist to review your paper before submitting.

What is Chicago style format?

The Chicago Manual of Style format is a set of editorial guidelines for writing, documentation, grammar, and publication. Students encounter it frequently in history, literature, religion, and the arts.

Turabian style adapts Chicago’s guidance for student research papers, theses, and dissertations. When an assignment asks for a “Chicago-style paper,” its layout requirements often follow these student-paper conventions.

Chicago provides two documentation systems:

• Notes and bibliography: Cite sources through numbered footnotes or endnotes, usually with a bibliography at the end. This system is common in the humanities.
• Author-date: Cite sources in parentheses, such as (Morrison 1987, 3), and provide a reference list. This system is common in the sciences and social sciences.

Check the assignment before choosing. “Chicago style” alone does not identify which system your instructor wants.

Why is the Chicago style format important?

Chicago style makes a paper easier to read, evaluate, and verify.

• Academic integrity: Citations identify the words, ideas, and evidence you borrowed.
• Verification: Page numbers and publication details help readers locate the passages that support your claims.
• Consistency: Shared rules prevent distracting changes in citation and formatting.
• Acknowledgment: Documentation gives credit to the people whose work informs your argument.
• Flexibility: Chicago accommodates books, archival documents, journal articles, websites, interviews, and multimedia.
• Digital-source guidance: Its rules address sources such as online publications, social media posts, and electronic books.

Correct formatting supports these goals, but accurate quotation, paraphrasing, and attribution remain essential.

Chicago style format basics: key components

A Chicago-style paper needs a clear layout and a consistent documentation system. It does not need a methodology or results section unless the assignment or research design calls for one.

Title Page

If your instructor requires a separate title page:

• Center the title roughly one-third of the way down the page.
• Put the subtitle on the next line, following a colon after the main title.
• Place your name, course, instructor’s name, and submission date several lines below.
• Use the same readable typeface as the paper.
• Leave the title page without a printed page number.

Main Body

Use double spacing, at least 1-inch margins, and a ½-inch first-line paragraph indent. Keep the right margin ragged rather than fully justified.

Begin the main text on a new page after a separate title page. For an ordinary class paper, start the main text with page 1 unless your instructor specifies another numbering system.

Citations

Choose notes and bibliography or author-date before drafting. Cite direct quotations, paraphrases, summaries, and borrowed findings or arguments.

Footnotes or Endnotes

In the notes and bibliography system, numbered notes identify sources and can also supply brief explanatory comments. They are not merely optional additions to parenthetical citations.

Bibliography or Reference List

Place the source list at the end of the paper. Use Bibliography for notes and bibliography or References for author-date.

Punctuation and Formatting Rules

These conventions apply throughout a Chicago-style paper:

• Short quotations: Enclose borrowed wording in double quotation marks and provide a citation.
• Block quotations: Chicago generally recommends setting prose quotations of about 100 words or more as indented blocks. Omit the surrounding quotation marks; student papers typically single-space the block.
• Titles: Italicize books and journals. Put article, chapter, and webpage titles in double quotation marks.
• Capitalization: Use headline-style capitalization for English-language titles: capitalize principal words, but generally lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions unless they begin or end the title or subtitle.
• Page numbers: In citations, give the page or range supporting your statement. A journal article’s bibliography entry includes its full page range; a whole-book entry does not.
• Author abbreviations: The abbreviation “et al” means “and others”; write it as “et al.” when shortening an author list under Chicago’s rules.
• Repeated citations: Prefer a shortened note to ibid. because the author, short title, and page number identify the source more clearly.

Elements of the Chicago Manual of Style

A student paper usually contains a title or title page, main text, citations, and a final source list. Add headings, block quotations, tables, or appendices when they help present the material.

Our writers can help with a student’s “write my research paper” request, including Chicago-style organization and citations.

For papers using author-date, follow these rules:

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1. Include the author and year: Use (Morrison 1987) for a general reference to the book.
2. Add a locator for a specific passage: Use (Morrison 1987, 3) when referring to page 3. Direct quotations normally include page numbers or other locators for unpaginated sources; a locator may be unnecessary for a short electronic work presented as a single searchable document.
3. Place the citation before ordinary sentence-ending punctuation: For example, The discussion establishes the central conflict (Morrison 1987, 3).
4. Keep quotation marks around direct quotations: A citation identifies the source; quotation marks identify the exact words you borrowed. Block quotations use indentation instead.
5. Handle multiple authors consistently: Name both authors for a two-author source, as in (Watson and Crick 1953, 737). For three or more authors, use the first author’s surname followed by “et al.”
6. Match each citation to a reference entry: The surname and year should lead readers directly to the corresponding source.

An author-date reference entry places the year immediately after the author:

Morrison, Toni. 1987. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf.

Footnotes and endnotes in Chicago style format

In the notes and bibliography system, a superscript number directs readers to a source note. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the page; endnotes appear in a separate section, normally before the bibliography.

Use your word processor’s Insert Footnote or Insert Endnote command rather than manually typing note numbers.

• Numbering: Number notes consecutively through a short student paper, starting with 1.
• Placement: Put the superscript after the relevant sentence or clause, normally after its punctuation; a dash is an exception.
• Punctuation: Place the note marker after closing quotation marks and most punctuation marks.
• Indentation: Indent the first line of each note ½ inch; do not use the bibliography’s hanging indent.
• Spacing: Single-space each note and leave a blank line between notes in a student paper.
• Type size: Notes can use a smaller readable font, such as 10-point text, when the body is 12-point.
• Source details: Give a full citation in the first note, then use shortened citations for later references.

Here is the difference between a full note and a shortened note:

First note:

1. Toni Morrison, Beloved (Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 3.

Later note:

1. Morrison, Beloved, 15.

The page number changes to match the passage you are citing. In Chicago’s 18th edition, a book’s city of publication is no longer required.

Bibliography and references

A bibliography accompanies the notes and bibliography system; a reference list accompanies the author-date. These headings are not interchangeable.

A bibliography can include works consulted as well as works cited, depending on the assignment. A reference list contains the works cited through author-date references.

To format either list:

1. Start a new page.
2. Center Bibliography or References at the top.
3. Alphabetize entries by the author’s surname, or by title when no author is identified.
4. Use a ½-inch hanging indent: the first line is flush left, and subsequent lines are indented.
5. Single-space each entry and leave a blank line between entries in a student paper.
6. Check author names, titles, dates, page ranges, and links against the source.

For an online journal article, prefer a DOI-based URL when one is available. For a webpage without a publication or revision date, include an access date; in author-date style, use “n.d.” in place of the year.

Examples of bibliography and reference entries

The following are notes-and-bibliography templates. Replace the bracketed information with details from your source.

Book:

Surname, First Name. Book Title. Publisher, Year.

Journal article:

Surname, First Name. “Article Title.” Journal Title volume, no. issue (Year): full page range. DOI or URL.

Webpage:

Surname, First Name. “Page Title.” Website Name. Month Day, Year. URL.

Newspaper article:

Surname, First Name. “Article Title.” Newspaper Name, Month Day, Year. URL.

For author-date references, move the year directly after the author:

Surname, First Name. Year. Book Title. Publisher.

Do not copy the year placement from one system into the other.

How to use Chicago style citations for different sources?

First, identify the source type, then select the correct citation system. The examples below use notes and bibliography and show how a source changes between a note and a bibliography entry.

Books

For a book, collect the author, title, publisher, year, and the page you used. Include an edition number or editor when relevant.

Full note:

1. Toni Morrison, Beloved (Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 3.

Shortened note:

1. Morrison, Beloved, 15.

Bibliography entry:

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

Notice the differences: the note uses the author’s normal name order and identifies a particular page; the bibliography reverses the first author’s name and describes the book as a whole.

For an ebook without stable page numbers, cite an available chapter or section rather than inventing a page number.

Journals and Periodicals

For a scholarly journal article, collect:

• Author names
• Article title
• Journal title
• Volume and issue
• Publication year
• Full article page range
• DOI or stable URL for an online version

Full note:

1. J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick, “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid,” Nature 171, no. 4356 (1953): 737, https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0.

Bibliography entry:

Watson, J. D., and F. H. C. Crick. “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid.” Nature 171, no. 4356 (1953): 737–38. https://doi.org/10.1038/171737a0.

The note identifies the cited page; the bibliography gives the article’s complete page range. Magazine and newspaper articles generally use a full publication date rather than the journal-style volume-and-issue structure.

Websites

Cite the specific webpage you used, not just the website’s homepage. Include a named author when available; an organization can also serve as the author.

A standard webpage citation includes:

• Author or responsible organization
• Page title in double quotation marks
• Website name, normally in Roman type
• Publication or last-modified date
• Direct URL

The following fictional example illustrates formatting only:

Full note:

1. Jane Smith, “How to Make the Perfect Cup of Coffee,” Coffee Lover’s Paradise, March 10, 2023, https://www.coffeeloversparadise.com/perfect-cup-of-coffee.

Bibliography entry:

Smith, Jane. “How to Make the Perfect Cup of Coffee.” Coffee Lover’s Paradise. March 10, 2023. https://www.coffeeloversparadise.com/perfect-cup-of-coffee.

When no date appears on a webpage, use an access date. When no personal author appears, check whether an organization is responsible; if no author can be identified, begin the bibliography entry with the page title.

Make your heading levels easy to follow

Use section headings to mark major steps in your argument and subheadings to divide those steps into smaller topics. Chicago does not impose a single mandatory heading style for every student paper. Follow your instructor’s required scheme first.

If no scheme is assigned, use a simple hierarchy:

Reserve each treatment for one level. Use only as many levels as the paper needs, and apply them in order rather than jumping from a main section to a third-level heading.

Make each heading describe the material directly beneath it. “Causes of Urban Migration” gives readers more direction than “Discussion.” Related subsections could distinguish economic pressures from changes in housing.

Keep headings at the same level, parallel in scope and wording. Avoid creating a lone subsection within a larger section, and keep each heading with the paragraph that follows it. Your word processor’s heading styles make these choices easier to apply consistently.

Chicago style vs. MLA and APA styles

Chicago, MLA, and APA all document borrowed material, but their citation structures differ.

Use the style assigned for the course. Do not select formatting rules from different systems simply because they look familiar.

Key differences and similarities

• Chicago notes and bibliography uses source notes. MLA and APA primarily use parenthetical or narrative citations.
• Chicago author-date and APA both identify the author and year. Their punctuation, title capitalization, and reference-entry rules differ.
• Chicago’s bibliography and MLA’s Works Cited use headline-style capitalization for English book titles, while APA format uses sentence case for book titles in reference entries.
• All three styles require attribution for paraphrases as well as quotations.
• All three connect brief citations to fuller source information, allowing readers to locate the original work.

To sum up

To format a Chicago-style paper, start with the assignment requirements, set up a readable page layout, and choose notes and bibliography or author-date. Keep that system consistent from the first citation to the final source list.

Before submitting, check that:

• Borrowed words appear in quotation marks or a block quotation.
• Borrowed ideas have citations.
• Notes and source-list entries follow different formatting where required.
• Headings, spacing, indentation, and page numbers are consistent.
• Source details match the original publications.

Our writers can help with drafting, editing, and revising a Chicago-style paper. A final formatting check should make your argument easier to follow and your evidence easier to verify.

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