Example Of Chicago Manual Of Style Citation
The Chicago Manual of Style provides comprehensive guidance for citing books, articles and various additional materials in the bibliography, reference lists and notes of a manuscript. Specific provisions are made for citing electronic media to account for the creation of published material now available on the Internet. While individual citations for different types of sources will vary slightly in format, they all contain some very similar information.
Chicago Manual of Style: Citation Examples
Citation content for books, articles and additional materials require certain common information when using the Chicago Manual of Style:
- author (or editor or compiler)
- title and usually the subtitle
- the date of publication
Books will include the publisher and place of publication while articles from journals will give the journal name, volume and issue number and the page numbers of the article.
Notes will be numbered while bibliography and reference lists are not numbered; but rather, presented in alphabetical order.
Online works will also include retrieval information, including the URL and the date of access.
If a given work cited in the bibliography or reference list be excessively long due to title or subtitle, there are provisions for making the complete citation in the reference list and then using an abbreviated form in the notes list to avoid excessive documentation.
A Chicago Manual of Style should be consulted for the complete list of formatting guidelines.
Common Citation Format
The following example shows how to cite a work of fiction in bibliography and journal article format according to the Chicago Manual of Style:
- Bibliography (single author): Flynn, Vince. The Third Option. New York: Pocket Books, 2000.
- Bibliography (multiple authors): Barnes, Steven and Larry Niven. Dream Park. New York: Ace Books, 1981.
- Journal Article: Christopher, Darlene. “A Harder Focus on the Global Classroom.” Training + Development. February 2011, 30-31.
Note Citation Format
When citing works for a Notes section, the citation is similar to that of a bibliographic entry but there are some differences. Here is a Notes entry taken from the first bibliographic example above:
- 1. Vince Flynn, The Third Option. New York: Pocket Books. 2000.
Note entries are numbered for reference in the main body of work. The author’s name is given first name first rather than last name first as seen in the bibliographic entry. The inclusion of publishing city, publisher and year of publication remain the same.
Citing Online Sources
With the advent of the Internet and other online sources of information, it is often necessary to provide citation information from those sources.
Inclusion of as much information regarding the web address is necessary to allow finding of the exact location from which the citation originates. The date the site was accessed for the citation is often included as online content is much more malleable than printed works and can change on a daily basis.
Here is an example of a bibliographic online citation:
- Weston Liz Pulliam. My Best Financial Advice: Liz Pulliam Weston. Consumerist.com, August 2, 2007. http://consumerist.com/2007/08/my-best-financial-advice-liz-pulliam-weston.html.
Other Sources for Citation Information
The previous citation examples are just a small sampling of the various types of citations covered by the Chicago Manual of Style. More specific guidelines for other citation types can be found at the Chicago Manual of Style homepage as well as on a variety of other websites including:
These online references can cover the full breadth of the requirements for Chicago Style citations.
