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Chicago Citation Generator

Create accurate Chicago citations in seconds. This free tool builds Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition author–date references from a URL, DOI, or ISBN — then formats the punctuation, italics, and hanging indent for you.

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How to cite in Chicago

Chicago is the style of historians, art historians, and a long list of humanities and social-science fields. What makes it unusual is that the Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition, 2024) documents two parallel systems. Author–date uses (Author Year) citations in the text with a References list at the end — this is what the generator above produces. Notes–bibliography uses superscript footnotes with a Bibliography at the end and is the default in history and most humanities.

For an author–date in-text citation, give the surname and year with no comma between them — (Lin and Patel 2022) — and add a page number after a comma for direct quotes: (Chen 2021, 47). Three or more authors collapse to (Goldstein et al. 2024) from the first citation. In the reference list, invert the first author, place the year right after the author block, use title case for every title, and apply a half-inch hanging indent.

This page covers the essentials. For worked examples of every source type, the notes–bibliography rules, and what changed in the 18th edition, read the full guides:

Need a style other than Chicago? The free citation generator on the homepage supports APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, and AMA.

Chicago citation FAQs

Which Chicago system does this generator produce?

This tool generates Chicago 18 author–date citations — parenthetical (Author Year) citations in the text and a References list at the end. If your assignment requires the notes–bibliography system (common in history and the humanities), use the generated reference list as a starting point and adapt the footnotes by hand using our notes vs. author–date guide.

Does Chicago put a comma between the author and the year?

No. Chicago author–date drops the comma: write (Chen 2021), not (Chen, 2021). A page number for a direct quote follows after a comma with no p. abbreviation — (Chen 2021, 47). The comma between author and year is APA's convention, not Chicago's.

Does Chicago use title case or sentence case?

Chicago uses title case for every title — books, journals, articles, and chapters alike. (The 18th edition renamed the old "headline-style" to "title case.") Capitalize the first and last words and all major words; lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions, and prepositions of four or fewer letters. The generator applies this automatically.

Do Chicago references keep the https:// in a URL?

Yes. Unlike MLA, which strips the protocol, Chicago retains the https:// prefix on plain URLs and formats DOIs as full URLs (https://doi.org/…) at the end of the entry. An access date is optional for stable sources and recommended for pages that may change.

Is this Chicago citation generator free?

Yes — it is completely free, with no account required. Paste a URL, DOI, or ISBN, pick Chicago, and copy the formatted citation. Need a different style? Use the full citation generator on the homepage for APA, MLA, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, and AMA.