Chicago Style: Author-Date Format

Reference list citations for books should include the following information in this order whenever possible: {p. 693-694}

1. Full name of author(s) or editor as author or corporate/institutional author
2. Publication year
3. Title and subtitle
4. Editor, compiler, or translator in addition to author
5. Edition (only if not the first edition)
6. Volume information: total number of volumes of an entire multivolume work cited, individual volume of an multivolume work, title of individual volume if different from set
7. Series title and number (if applicable)
8. Facts of publication: city and publisher
9. Page information (if applicable)
10. For electronic books: URL or DOI [digital object identifier], or type of medium (Kindle, etc.)

***Remember to single space after all commas, colons, and periods.

Note: Single spacing is used in this guide for brevity; the 2.8 Formatting rule on p. 59 of CMS states that all references and the paper itself should be double spaced.

One Author

Reference list: 

Smith, James. 2009. Treading Lightly: How to Navigate in Today’s World. New York: Walker Press.

In-text citation: 

(Smith 2009, 126)

Two – Three Authors

For two to three authors, invert (put last name first) the first author only. 

Reference list:

Franklin, Jean, Helen Smith, and Patrice Ferguson. 2012.  Marketing for Business.  New York: Doubleday.

In-text citation:

(Franklin, Smith, and Ferguson 2012, 126)

Four or More Authors

For the reference list, for up to ten authors, list all names.  For more than ten authors, list the first seven authors, followed by the abbreviation "et al." 

Reference list:

Brooks, Janice, Franklin Toomer, Sarah Jaymes, Helen Sample, Jesse Haller, Samuel Sanders, Hailey Ford et al. 2017. Racing Against the Tide: Quality Management for Millenials. Boston: Pearson Education. 

In-text citation:

(Brooks et al. 2016, 65)

Reference list:

Pirolli, Peter L., and James G. Greeno. 1988. “The Problem Space of Instructional Design.” In Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Lessons Learned, edited by Joseph L. Psotka, Dan Massey, and Sharon A. Mutter, 181 – 201. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

In-text citation: 

(Pirolli and Greeno 1988, 191)

For an online book, include a URL as the last element.  For a book available through a database (e. g. Ebrary E-book Central), include the name of the database instead of the URL. Note: database names are not italicized. For other types of e-books, name the format (Kindle, iBook,etc.).

Reference list:

Cantor, Norman F. 1994. The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Standardized Edition of Medieval History.  New York: Harper Perennial. http://books.google.com.

In-text citation: 

(Cantor 1994, 123)

Include editions other than the first and volume numbers. For an encyclopedia available electronically,  include the URL if it leads directly to the encyclopedia, otherwise, use the name of the database.  If the electronic version does not provide all of the information that you need for a complete citation, consult the library catalog for additional information.  If articles are listed alphabetically in the encyclopedia, page numbers need not be included in the References list.

Reference list: 

Monty, Daniel Joseph. 2008. “Gangs.” In Encyclopedia of Social Problems. Edited by Vincent N. Parrillo. 2 vols. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. http://www.sage-ereference.com/socialproblems/.

In-text citation:

(Monty 2008)

Reference list:

McEwan, Gordon. 2008. “Machu Picchu.” In Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Edited by Erik Langer and Jay Kinsbruner. 2^nd ed. 6 vols. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

In-text citation:

(McEwan 2008, 310)