Runs in your browser; auto-fill uses our server. Citations are formatted in your browser. Only if you use Auto-fill is the DOI, ISBN or web address you enter sent to our server, which looks it up with Crossref or Open Library, or reads that page's title, author and date. Nothing is stored.
Free Chicago Style Citation Generator
The Tools Kit's free Chicago Citation Generator builds Chicago style bibliography entries for books, journal articles, and websites. Enter the source details, or auto-fill them from a DOI, ISBN, or web address, and the entry appears instantly. The first author is inverted, article and web page titles go in quotation marks, book and journal titles are in italics, and the punctuation Chicago expects sits between each part. There is no account to create.
The output is the full bibliography entry used in Chicago's notes-bibliography system, the version most history, humanities, and arts courses ask for. Under it you get the short note for citing the source again. It does not write the full first footnote or author-date citations. If your assignment calls for a different format, the multi-style Citation Generator formats the same source in APA, MLA, Harvard, Turabian, and other styles.
How to Use the Chicago Citation Generator
- 1
Auto-fill or choose a source type
Paste a DOI, ISBN, or web address into the auto-fill box and click Fill in, or select Website / Web Page, Book, or Journal Article and fill in the form yourself.
- 2
Enter the authors
Type each author as First Last, separated by commas or the word "and". The generator inverts the first author to Last, First automatically. After auto-fill, check the names.
- 3
Fill in the source details
Add the title plus the publisher and city, journal name with volume, issue and pages, or site name and URL. The entry appears as soon as a title is entered and updates as you type.
- 4
Copy the entry or add it to your bibliography
Click Copy Citation to paste the entry with its italics into Word or Google Docs, or Add to list to build your bibliography. Copy the short note too if you cite the source again.
Only a title is needed to see a preview, so you can start typing and fill in the rest of the details as you find them. Auto-fill uses the details the source publishes, which are not always right, so check every field, especially author names and capitalization.
Chicago Notes-Bibliography vs. Author-Date
The Chicago Manual of Style offers two citation systems. Notes-bibliography places a numbered footnote or endnote wherever you use a source and lists every source in an alphabetical bibliography at the end. Author-date uses short parenthetical citations in the text, such as (Smith 2020, 45), backed by a reference list. Use one system throughout a paper rather than mixing them.
This tool produces the bibliography entry for the notes-bibliography system. The matching footnote holds the same information in a different order: the author's name is not inverted, the parts are separated by commas instead of periods, and the note ends with the page you cited. For example, the book entry below becomes the note: Jane Smith, A History of Rivers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020), 45. Write that first full note yourself.
After the first note, Chicago uses a short note. The generator writes it under the bibliography entry: the author's last name, the title cut to four words, and the page from the Page box, such as Smith, A History of Rivers, 45. Book titles are italic and article titles stay in quotation marks: Smith, "River Policy," 45.
Chicago Bibliography Format by Source Type
These examples are the exact entries the generator produces for each source type. On the page, the book title and journal name are in italics, and they stay italic when you copy into Word or Google Docs.
- Book: Smith, Jane. A History of Rivers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020.
- Journal article: Smith, Jane. "River Policy." Journal of Water 12, no. 3 (2021): 45-52.
- Website: Smith, Jane. "How Rivers Form." National Geographic. 2024. https://example.com/rivers.
With several authors, the first is inverted and the rest keep their normal order, joined with ", and": Smith, Jane, John Doe, and Mary Lee. If a book or article has no year, the entry shows n.d. in its place; a website without a date simply leaves it out. Click Add to list for each source and the generator keeps a Bibliography in this browser, sorted alphabetically. Copy all pastes it with italics and a hanging indent, and you can download it as a .txt or BibTeX (.bib) file. The same list appears on the APA and MLA pages in their own format.
Chicago vs. APA, MLA, and IEEE
Chicago is the usual choice in history, philosophy, and the arts. Psychology, education, and the social sciences usually use APA, which puts the year right after the author; the APA citation generator handles that format. Literature and language courses tend to use MLA's Works Cited list, built by the MLA citation generator, while engineering and computer science papers use numbered references from the IEEE citation generator. Check your syllabus or journal guidelines before you start, because switching styles later means rewriting every entry.
Common uses
- Building the bibliography for a history, art history, or philosophy paper
- Citing a book, journal article, or web page in Chicago format
- Formatting Turabian bibliography entries for a thesis or dissertation
- Writing the bibliography that accompanies Chicago footnotes or endnotes
- Checking the punctuation and author order of an entry you wrote by hand
When the draft is done, the word counter checks it against your assignment's length limit, and the grammar checker catches errors before you submit. More tools for students and writers are collected under Writing & Citation Tools.
Chicago citation terms explained
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Notes-bibliography (NB) | The Chicago system used in history and the humanities: footnotes or endnotes in the text plus a bibliography at the end |
| Author-date | The Chicago system used in the sciences: short parenthetical citations such as (Smith 2020) plus a reference list |
| Bibliography | The alphabetical list of sources at the end of a notes-bibliography paper; this is the entry the generator builds |
| Footnote / endnote | A numbered note citing a source at the bottom of the page or end of the paper; the first author is not inverted in a note |
| Short note | The brief form of a note used after a source has been cited in full once: last name, short title, page |
| Hanging indent | The layout of a bibliography entry: the first line is flush left and later lines are indented |
| n.d. | Short for "no date", used when a book or article has no publication year |
| Turabian | A student version of Chicago style, written for papers, theses and dissertations, that uses the same citation formats |
Frequently Asked Questions
Choose the source type and enter the authors, title and publication details, or auto-fill them from a DOI, ISBN or web address. The generator builds the Chicago bibliography entry and a short note. In a notes-bibliography paper you add a numbered footnote where you use the source and list the full entry in the bibliography at the end.
Partly. Besides the bibliography entry, it writes the short note you use after a source has been cited in full once, such as Smith, A History of Rivers, 45. It does not write the full first footnote or author-date citations, so write the first note yourself.
A footnote lists the author in normal order (Jane Smith), separates parts with commas, and cites a specific page. A bibliography entry inverts the first author (Smith, Jane), separates parts with periods, and covers the whole source. The two contain the same information in a different arrangement.
A Chicago bibliography entry for a book follows the pattern Last, First. Title. City: Publisher, Year. For example: Smith, Jane. A History of Rivers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. The generator shows the book title in italics and keeps them when you copy.
Use Last, First. "Article Title." Journal Name Volume, no. Issue (Year): Pages. For example: Smith, Jane. "River Policy." Journal of Water 12, no. 3 (2021): 45-52. The generator shows the journal name in italics and keeps them when you copy.
Use Last, First. "Page Title." Site Name. Date. URL. For example: Smith, Jane. "How Rivers Form." National Geographic. 2024. https://example.com/rivers. If the page has no author, the entry starts with the title. You can auto-fill the details from the web address, then check them.
Type each author as First Last and separate them with commas, semicolons, "and" or "&". The first author is inverted to Last, First and the rest stay in normal order, joined with ", and". Do not type names as Last, First, because the comma is read as a separator between two authors.
For a book or journal article, the entry shows "n.d." (no date) in place of the year. For a website, the date is simply left out of the entry.
Yes. Book titles and journal names are shown in italics, and Copy Citation copies rich text, so the italics stay when you paste into Word or Google Docs. Article and web page titles go in quotation marks, and website names stay in plain type.
No. The form shows a Date Accessed field for websites, and auto-fill sets it to today, but the Chicago entry does not include it. Chicago only asks for an access date when a page shows no publication or revision date, so add it by hand in that case.
Turabian is the student version of Chicago style and uses the same citation formats, so a Chicago bibliography entry from this tool also works for a Turabian paper, thesis, or dissertation.
Yes. Click Add to list after each entry. The list is titled Bibliography, sorted alphabetically and kept only in this browser. You can copy it all with italics and hanging indents, download it as .txt or BibTeX, remove single entries or clear it.
Entries you type are formatted in your browser and are not uploaded. If you use auto-fill, the DOI, ISBN or web address goes to our server, which asks Crossref or Open Library or reads the page; nothing is stored. The tool is free and needs no account.
Reviewed by Raja Jahangir · Last reviewed: October 7, 2026
What are the two Chicago citation styles?
Chicago offers two systems. Notes-bibliography uses numbered footnotes plus a bibliography, and is standard in history and the humanities. Author-date uses parenthetical citations with a reference list, and is standard in the sciences. Pick one and use it consistently - they are not mixed.