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Chicago Citation Style: Bibliography

Basics

  • Start your bibliography on a new page with the word Bibliography centered as your heading
  • The first line of an entry is flush left, subsequent lines use hanging indents
  • Entries are in alphabetical order by the surname of the first author or by title if there is no author
  • Use the author's names in the order they appear on the title page, not the cover (15.12)
  • If the Bibliography includes two or more entries by the same author(s), list them alphabetically by title. A  3-em dash (---.) can be used to replace the author's name after the first entry (14.68). For example:

 

Shantz, Jeff. Against All Authority: Anarchism and the Literary Imagination. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2011.

---. Active Anarchy: Political Practice in Contemporary Movements. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011.

 

  • If the entry includes a DOI or URL that must be broken at the end of a line, break it after a colon or a double slash or before a tilde (~), period, single slash, comma or hyphen. (14.18)

Bibliography Details

 

For ONE author list the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the given name(s) as shown in the work. 

EXAMPLE:

Creese, Gillian Laura.

 

For TWO or THREE authors, put them in the order in which they appear in the work. Begin the entry with the last name of the first author, followed by a comma, the given name(s) and another comma. The names of the 2nd and 3rd authors are in normal order. Use the word and before the last author.

EXAMPLES:

Tellis, Gerard J., and Tim Ambler. ​
Bumsted, John M., Len Kuffert, and Michel Ducharme.

 

For FOUR to TEN authors: in the bibliography, list all the authors as described above. (However, in the footnote or endnote, list the first author in normal order followed by the words et al. (meaning "and others"), for example: Dvoskin et al.) 

EXAMPLE:

Dvoskin, Joel A., Jennifer L. Skeem, Raymond W. Novaco, and Kevin S. Douglas, eds.

 

For MORE THAN TEN authors: in the bibliography, list the first seven authors as described above followed by the words et al. (However, in the footnote or endnote, list only the first author in normal order followed by the words et al, for example: Smith et al.)

 

Note: author refers to the main person(s) of a source, such as: author(s), editor(s), creator(s), director(s), performer(s), translator(s), etc. Add the respective word after the name(s), separated by a comma. Example:

Green, William A., and Tom B. Moss, eds.

Note: An author can also be an organization, association, company or government. Example:

Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

 

Titles are given in full as they appear in the source. If there is a subtitle, it follows after the main title, separated by a colon and a space. Capitalize the first word of the title and subtitle and all principal words.  

Italicize titles of books, journals, magazines, newspapers, blogs, movies, paintings, and other standalone works.

EXAMPLE BOOK:

Creese, Gillian Laura. The New African Diaspora in Vancouver: Migration, Exclusion, and Belonging. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

 

Put titles of chapters, reference book entries, article titles, titles of poems in a collection and any other subsections of larger works in “quotation marks”.

EXAMPLE CHAPTER IN A BOOK:

Brooks, Steven. “Imagining Each Other.” In Canada and the United States: Differences That Count, edited by David M. Thomas and David N. Biette, 23-45. 4th ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

 

Note: Website titles that have a print counterpart are italicized. Subpages of websites are put in “quotation marks”. Websites with NO print counterpart are neither italicized nor put in quotation marks (when unsure, use normal script). (Chicago 14.86)