Chicago Referencing Guide: Formatting Guidelines

The Chicago author-date style of referencing involves citing sources within the text using the author's last name and the year of publication in parentheses. This is known as an in-text citation.

When directly quoting from a source, include the page numbers so that the quote can be easily found within your source. If you are indirectly quoting (or paraphrasing), a page number is not required.

Citations can be either narrative or parenthetical, this is a stylistic choice and up to the writer.

Direct Quotation vs Indirect Quotation/Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is a skill you will frequently use in your academic writing and is considered a best practice. It provides greater flexibility in integrating multiple sources into your writing, it can emphasise specific aspects of referenced research, whilst also enabling your marker to gauge your understanding of the subject. Paraphrasing is generally easier to read than multiple direct quotations.

Quoting directly provides precise definitions, conveys memorable points, and retains specific wording from another source, it should however be used sparingly within an appropriate context.

In terms of Chicago referencing, the only difference between the two is that you need to include "speech marks" around a direct quote, which denotes you have directly quoted from a source. Page numbers are required for both styles, unless you are referring to the whole work in general and not a specific page/section.

In the reference list, all sources cited in the text are listed alphabetically by the author's last name. Each entry includes the author's name, publication year, title of the work, and other publication details depending on the type of source (e.g., book, journal article, website).

The title of the source should be in italics, and presented in what is known as 'Title Case', so all the important words in the title should be capitalised.

All of the entries should be listed in alphabetical order by the author's surname and formatted with a hanging indent. See the following example for how a reference list should look: 

A secondary citation is where you cite information or quotes that the author of your reference has taken from a source that you have not read. If you quote or paraphrase this other author, you must acknowledge both the author of the quote, and the author of the source you are reading.

Where possible, attempt to track down the original work and find the quote. If unsuccessful, create a secondary citation where both authors and dates appear in-text, separated by the phrase 'quoted in', but only the author of the work you are viewing is placed in the reference list.

For example:

So only the 2006 source written by Butler would go into your reference list.