Chicago Citation Generator

Footnotes, bibliography and author‑date references — free, no sign‑up.

Chicago Citation Generator (17th Edition)

Crafting precise footnotes and bibliographies becomes effortless with Chicago Citation Generator. Developed by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago style is widely recognized for its flexibility across academic disciplines. Whether you are citing books, journal articles, or online sources, maintaining strict formatting consistency keeps your paper professional and scholarly.

Our free Chicago style citation generator supports both major citation systems—notes-bibliography and author-date—adapting seamlessly to the requirements of history, humanities, and social science research. Simply enter your source details to create accurate references according to the Chicago 17th edition guidelines without any manual hassle.

Working on multi-subject assignments or different citation formats? You can easily switch between our APA Citation Generator, MLA Citation Generator, or Harvard Citation Generator to format all your academic references in one place.

Chicago Has Two Citation Systems

Unlike most referencing styles, the Chicago Manual of Style provides two distinct documentation formats. Each system is tailored to specific academic fields and publication standards, offering writers the flexibility to document sources effectively.

• Notes-Bibliography (NB): Uses numbered footnotes or endnotes within the text, paired with a full Bibliography page at the end of the document. This style allows for detailed source commentary alongside citations and is widely preferred in history, arts, literature, and general humanities disciplines.
• Author-Date: Employs brief parenthetical in-text citations—such as (Smith 2024, 45)—that directly correspond to an alphabetical Reference List at the end of the paper. This concise system highlights publication years and is standard practice across physical, natural, and social sciences.

Selecting the correct format depends primarily on your field of study or specific publisher instructions. The table below compares the key features of both Chicago citation systems:

In our Chicago Citation Generator, you can find both notes-bibliography generator and Chicago author-date generator. Then, this feature ensures your citations remain perfectly formatted regardless of your field of study.

A Side Version: What is Turabian Style?

Turabian style is a modified version of the Chicago Manual of Style designed specifically for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students writing research papers, theses, and dissertations. Developed by Kate L. Turabian, the former dissertation secretary at the University of Chicago, adopts the exact same core citation rules and two documentation systems—Notes-Bibliography and Author-Date—as standard Chicago style.

The primary difference lies in focus: while the comprehensive Chicago Manual caters to scholarly publishers and journal editors, Turabian concentrates on student paper formatting, offering refined guidance for title pages, margins, line spacing, and submission requirements.

Because the underlying reference and footnote rules are identical to the Chicago 17th edition, you can confidently use a Turabian citation generator to format all your student papers, footnotes, and bibliographies with total accuracy.

Notes-Bibliography: Footnotes & Bibliography

The Notes-Bibliography system is the traditional Chicago format favored by historians, literary scholars, and humanities researchers. In this system, every cited source requires a numbered footnote or endnote at the bottom of the page, supported by a full Bibliography entry at the end of the paper.

While footnotes and bibliography entries contain similar source details, their internal structure, punctuation, and author naming conventions differ significantly:

• Footnote Structure: Footnotes use standard author name order (First Name Last Name), separate details with commas, enclose publication details in parentheses, and identify specific page numbers:

• Bibliography Entry: Bibliography entries invert the primary author's name (Last Name, First Name) for alphabetical sorting, separate main elements with periods, omit publication parentheses, and list full page ranges for multi-page works:

Book:

Website:

Journal article:

Formatting every comma, parenthesis, and period manually across dozens of notes is often complex. You can find an online Chicago footnote generator to automatically build both matching footnote citations and bibliography entries simultaneously. This result will make your history or humanities paper adhere to precise Chicago style standards.

Author-Date: In-text & Reference List

The Author-Date system is the standard Chicago format used across the physical, natural, and social sciences. Instead of footnotes, this style uses brief parenthetical in-text citations within the main body of your text, which refer readers to a comprehensive Reference List at the end of the paper.

In the Author-Date format, the publication year plays a central role in both in-text pointers and end-of-paper references:

• In-Text Citation Structure: Placed inside parentheses before sentence punctuation, an in-text citation includes the author's last name, publication year, and specific page number separated by a comma (without additional abbreviations like "p." or "pp."): (Kahneman 2011, 45).
• Reference List Entry Structure: Unlike the Notes-Bibliography system where the date appears at the end, Author-Date entries place the publication year immediately following the author's name (Last Name, First Name. Year.). This structural shift makes it easy to match in-text date references directly with the final list:

If you want to make sure that your parenthetical citations and reference entries mirror each other perfectly, find and try a Chicago author-date generator! This tool can maintain complete accuracy across all your scientific and social science sources.

How Chicago Citation Generator Works

1. Choose citation style: Notes and Bibliography or Author-Date.
2. Select source type: Books, journals, websites, videos, and more.
3. Enter source details: Complete the required publication information.
4. Review generated citation: Check formatting before adding references.
5. Build bibliography: Save multiple citations in one reference list.
6. Copy or export: Download references in your preferred format.

Before generating your references to ensure complete accuracy and seamless formatting, you should review these essential notes:

• Check citation style: Confirm whether your paper requires Notes-Bibliography or Author-Date before filling in source fields.
• Verify auto-filled data: Double-check author names and title capitalization when searching by URL, DOI, or ISBN.
• Keep formatting consistent: Use the same citation system across all footnotes, in-text references, and your final reference list.