A Chicago style citation usually means a numbered footnote. You put a small superscript number at the end of your sentence, and a matching note at the bottom of the page gives the source's details. The first note for a source is a full note, later notes are shortened, and a bibliography at the end lists every source in alphabetical order.
That's the notes-bibliography system, which Chicago says many writers in literature, history and the arts prefer. The current rulebook is the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, published in 2024. This guide covers the 18th-edition changes, footnote setup in Google Docs and Word, and copy-ready examples for books, articles, websites, YouTube videos, lectures, the Bible and AI tools.
Chicago gives you two citation systems, and your instructor or department decides which one you use. If an assignment just says "Chicago," ask which system to use. The official Chicago citation quick guide gives the same advice: students should check with their instructor before choosing.
| Notes-bibliography | Author-date | |
|---|---|---|
| Common in | History, literature, the arts, religion | Sciences and social sciences |
| What goes in your sentence | A superscript note number, like this.¹ | A parenthetical citation: (Yu 2020, 45) |
| Where the full details go | Footnotes or endnotes, plus a bibliography | A reference list |
| Sample entry | Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown. Pantheon Books, 2020. | Yu, Charles. 2020. Interior Chinatown. Pantheon Books. |
| Strength | Handles unusual sources such as letters, archives and scripture | Puts each source's date front and center |
Both systems style names and titles the same way. The difference is where the citation lives. The rest of this guide focuses on notes-bibliography, the system built around footnotes.
You may also see "Turabian" on a syllabus. Kate L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers is the student version of Chicago, with extra rules for title pages, margins and spacing. Its 9th edition came out in 2018, years before the 18th edition of Chicago. The University of Chicago Press now lists a 10th edition of Turabian (© 2026), updated to reflect the current Chicago Manual, so ask which edition your course uses and check the changes table below.
The biggest 18th-edition changes are no city of publication, fewer authors in notes, repeated author names instead of a 3-em dash, capitalized long prepositions in titles and new rules for AI. Here are the changes that matter most for student papers, with the paragraph numbers from Chicago's own list of what's new in the 18th edition.
| Rule | 17th edition (2017) | 18th edition (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| Book publication details | City, publisher and year: (City: Publisher, Year) | Publisher and year only: (Publisher, Year). See 14.30. |
| Authors in a note | Up to three names; with four or more, the first author plus "et al." | Up to two names; with three or more, the first author plus "et al." See 13.23. |
| Authors in a bibliography | Up to ten; with more than ten, the first seven plus "et al." | Up to six; with more than six, the first three plus "et al." See 13.23. |
| Same author, several works | A 3-em dash (⸻) replaced the repeated name | Repeat the name in every entry. See 13.72. |
| Chapter in an edited book | Bibliography entry gave the chapter's page range | Page range no longer required. See 14.8. |
| Ibid. | Discouraged in favor of shortened notes | Still discouraged; a shortened note may be author-title, author-only or title-only. See 13.37. |
| Prepositions in titles | Lowercase at any length: Much Ado about Nothing | Capitalize prepositions of five or more letters: Much Ado About Nothing. See 8.160. |
| AI-generated content | Not covered in the manual | New guidance on citing AI output. See 14.112. |
Watch for leftover 17th-edition habits. Any guide or citation tool built on the 17th edition will still add a city before the publisher or a row of dashes in the bibliography. Even the citation tool built into Google Docs offers Chicago Author-Date (17th ed.) only, according to Google's help page on citations, so it won't build footnotes for you.
If your instructor still teaches the 17th edition, follow your instructor. Just don't mix editions in one paper.
Chicago style footnotes link each quote, fact or idea you borrow to its source. A superscript number goes at the end of the sentence or clause, and the note with the same number at the bottom of the page gives the details.
Here's a Chicago style footnotes example. Your sentence reads:
Reyes argues that the railroads redrew the economic map of the West.¹
The footnote at the bottom of that page reads:
1. Daniel Reyes, Rivers of Iron: Railroads and the American West (Northfield Press, 2021), 87.
A few placement rules keep your notes clean:
The first time you cite a source, write a full note. Every later citation of that source gets a shortened note: the author's last name, a short title of up to four words and the page.
1. Daniel Reyes, Rivers of Iron: Railroads and the American West (Northfield Press, 2021), 87.
2. Hannah Brooks, “Women’s Letters and the Civil War Home Front,” Journal of Southern Social History 48, no. 2 (2022): 214, JSTOR.
3. Reyes, Rivers of Iron, 92.
Notice how a note differs from a bibliography entry. A note gives the author's name in normal order, separates its parts with commas and puts publication details in parentheses. A bibliography entry flips the name (Reyes, Daniel) and separates its parts with periods.
Chicago still allows ibid. ("in the same place"), but it recommends a shortened note instead. In paragraph 13.37, the manual explains that ibid. can hide which source you mean, saves no real space and can confuse readers of digital texts that link to one note at a time.
So if notes 4 and 5 both cite Reyes, note 5 reads "Reyes, Rivers of Iron, 97" rather than "Ibid., 97." This isn't brand new: the 17th edition already discouraged ibid. If your instructor requires it, use it only when the note right before cites a single source.
Footnotes sit at the bottom of each page, while endnotes are collected at the end of the paper, just before the bibliography. The citations themselves are identical. Chicago's editors suggest footnotes unless your department says otherwise, since they're usually easier to read (see CMOS Shop Talk on formatting footnotes).
In Google Docs, choose Insert > Page elements > Footnote; in Word, choose References > Insert Footnote. Both programs number and renumber notes for you, so never type note numbers by hand.
The menu path and shortcuts come from Google's footnote instructions. Google Docs has no built-in endnote option, so use Word if your instructor wants endnotes.
You can check every shortcut in Microsoft's list of Word keyboard shortcuts.
Each example below gives the full note, a shortened note where Chicago or a library guide shows one, and the bibliography entry, following the patterns in Chicago's notes and bibliography sample citations. The authors, titles and links are invented for illustration. Copy the order and punctuation, then swap in your source's details.
Full note: 1. Daniel Reyes, Rivers of Iron: Railroads and the American West (Northfield Press, 2021), 87.
Shortened note: 2. Reyes, Rivers of Iron, 92.
Bibliography: Reyes, Daniel. Rivers of Iron: Railroads and the American West. Northfield Press, 2021.
For an ebook without fixed page numbers, cite a chapter (chap. 6) instead of a page and add the format, such as Kindle, at the end.
Full note: 1. Grace Kim, “Letters from the Prairie,” in Voices of the Frontier, ed. Samuel Hart (Northfield Press, 2019), 64.
Shortened note: 2. Kim, “Letters from the Prairie,” 66.
Bibliography: Kim, Grace. “Letters from the Prairie.” In Voices of the Frontier, edited by Samuel Hart. Northfield Press, 2019.
Under the 18th edition, the bibliography entry no longer needs the chapter's page range.
Full note: 1. Hannah Brooks, “Women’s Letters and the Civil War Home Front,” Journal of Southern Social History 48, no. 2 (2022): 214, JSTOR.
Shortened note: 2. Brooks, “Women’s Letters,” 219.
Bibliography: Brooks, Hannah. “Women’s Letters and the Civil War Home Front.” Journal of Southern Social History 48, no. 2 (2022): 201–29. JSTOR.
If the article has a DOI, end with the DOI link (https://doi.org/ plus the DOI) instead of the database name. The note cites the page you used, while the bibliography gives the article's full page range.
Full note: 1. “History of the Harbor Lighthouse,” Harbor Point Historical Society, accessed October 1, 2026, https://www.example.org/lighthouse-history.
Shortened note: 2. “Harbor Lighthouse.”
Bibliography: Harbor Point Historical Society. “History of the Harbor Lighthouse.” Accessed October 1, 2026. https://www.example.org/lighthouse-history.
The note starts with the page title, but the bibliography lists the organization that owns the site first. If the page shows a publication or "last modified" date, use that instead of an access date.
Chicago also says a mention in your sentence ("As of October 2026, the society's website states...") is often enough for web content. Check whether your instructor wants a formal note instead.
Full note: 1. Lena Ortiz, “How the Printing Press Changed Europe,” posted March 4, 2025, by History Explained, YouTube, 14:32, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123.
Shortened note: 2. Ortiz, “Printing Press,” at 6:10.
Bibliography: Ortiz, Lena. “How the Printing Press Changed Europe.” Posted March 4, 2025, by History Explained. YouTube, 14:32. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123.
The 14:32 is the video's running time. To point to a specific moment, add a timestamp with "at," as in the shortened note.
Full note: 1. Maria Lopez, “Why Reconstruction Failed,” lecture, Northfield College, Northfield, MN, October 2, 2026.
Shortened note: 2. Lopez, “Why Reconstruction Failed.”
Bibliography: Lopez, Maria. “Why Reconstruction Failed.” Lecture, Northfield College, Northfield, MN, October 2, 2026.
The 18th edition dropped the parentheses that used to wrap these details in a note. This pattern matches Red Deer Polytechnic's 18th-edition lecture examples. Ask your instructor whether class lectures count as sources for the assignment.
Full note: 1. Romans 12:2 (New Revised Standard Version).
Later notes: 2. Romans 12:9–10.
Bibliography: Usually none. Chicago keeps references to scripture in notes or the text rather than the bibliography.
Cite book, chapter and verse, never page numbers, and name the translation in your first citation. If you quote a study Bible's commentary, cite that commentary like a chapter in an edited book. For more detailed biblical citations, library guides point to the SBL Handbook of Style.
Full note: 1. ChatGPT, response to “Summarize the causes of the Dust Bowl,” OpenAI, September 23, 2026, https://chatgpt.com/share/abc123.
Bibliography: Usually none. Chicago doesn't normally list AI-generated text in a bibliography.
If your text already gives the prompt, the note can simply read "Text generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI," followed by the date and the share link. That pattern comes from Chicago's Q&A on citing AI, which also says to mention it if you edited the output.
Before you use AI at all, check your instructor's policy. Where it's allowed, credit the tool every time you quote or paraphrase its output, and disclose how you used it. Our guide to citing AI and ChatGPT in APA, MLA and Chicago has more examples.
Citing a chart or image in your paper? Our guide to citing a diagram in Chicago, APA and MLA shows how to write the figure caption and credit line.
A Chicago style bibliography is an alphabetical list of your sources at the end of the paper, titled "Bibliography," with a hanging indent on every entry. If you use endnotes, the bibliography comes after them.
Not sure how a bibliography differs from a works cited page or a reference list? See our breakdown of the difference between a bibliography and a works cited page.
For a Chicago style paper, use 1-inch margins, a readable 12-point font and double spacing, with footnotes at the bottom of the page and a bibliography at the end. The Chicago Manual of Style is written mainly for published books, so the student layout rules come from Turabian. Use this checklist unless your instructor says otherwise:
Chicago's editors explain the margin and page-number rules in their post on formatting margins and page numbers in Turabian and Chicago. Their key reminder applies to everything here: your instructor's requirements override Chicago's defaults.
Before you submit, check your draft for these common Chicago mistakes:
If you'd like a second set of eyes on your footnotes or bibliography, a tutor can review your draft, mark what needs fixing and explain why, so you know the pattern next time. Request feedback on your citations, or get subject support from our history homework help tutors.
Working in another style? Our APA style guide and MLA style guide follow the same layout as this one.
Yes, for the main text. Turabian, the student version of Chicago, has you double-space the body of the paper but single-space block quotations, footnotes and bibliography entries, with a blank line between each note or entry. Some school guides call for double spacing throughout, so check the assignment sheet. Whichever you use, keep the spacing consistent from the first page to the bibliography.
In notes-bibliography style, the in-text citation is the superscript number at the end of your sentence, which points to a footnote or endnote. In author-date style, it's a parenthetical citation with the author's last name, the year and a page number, such as (Yu 2020, 45), matched to an entry in your reference list. Use the system your instructor assigns, not both.
In most cases, yes. Chicago says sources are usually listed in a bibliography as well as in the notes, and most research assignments expect one. Even then, a few sources normally stay out of it: personal emails and messages, AI chats and Bible verses are cited in notes only. If your instructor says notes alone are fine, make sure every first note is a full note.
Start the note with the title instead of a name, for example: 1. “History of the Harbor Lighthouse,” followed by the site owner, access date and URL. In the bibliography, Chicago lists a web page under the organization that owns or sponsors the site. For other works with no known author or editor, begin both the note and the bibliography entry with the title.
Use footnotes unless your instructor or department asks for endnotes. Both hold the same citations, but footnotes sit at the bottom of each page and are usually easier to read. Endnotes collect every note at the end of the paper, before the bibliography. Word can convert between the two, while Google Docs has no built-in endnotes.
Yes. Every bibliography entry gets a hanging indent: the first line starts at the left margin and each following line is indented half an inch. Footnotes work the opposite way, with the first line indented like a paragraph. In Word or Google Docs, use the program's hanging indent setting instead of pressing Tab on each line.
Include the specific page in every note that cites a quote, paraphrase or fact from a paginated source, such as 87 or 117–18. In the bibliography, give a full page range only for journal articles, not for books, news articles or, under the 18th edition, chapters in edited books. When a source has no page numbers, cite a chapter, section or timestamp instead.
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