Chicago Style Author-Date Documentation

Excerpts from The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors,
and Publishers. 15th ed. (CMS15)
The Chicago author-date system is commonly used in the physical, natural, and
social sciences. Like the MLA and APA styles, it includes in-text parenthetical
citations and an additional reference list. The in-text citations include the authors
last name and the date of publication. The page number may be included if need
be. The reference list is in alphabetical order by last name and includes more
complete information. The CMS15 recommends using the note style (footnotes or
endnotes) if sources do not easily fit the author-date formatting.
Note to ENG 201 students: Please use the Chicago author-date system in your
writing; however, you may use a different system if need be. Please explain your
rationale for the different citation system when you send your research proposal
and/or final draft.
Example of in-text citations:
All of Eurasia was affected by climatic oscillations during Pleistocene glacial
and interglacials (Frenzel 1968). . . . Behavioral observations can provide
useful insights into evolutionary relationships, as Morris and Morris (1996, 124) first tried to show for the giant panda.
Note how the format is (Lastname Date, page). If the name is mentioned in the text,
it doesnt need to be included in the citation.
Reference-list entries:
Frenzel, B. 1968. The Pleistocene vegetation of northern Eurasia. Science.
161:637-49.
Morris, R., and D. Morris. 1966. Men and pandas. New York: McGraw-Hill.
More examples (T = In-text; R = Reference):
T:

(Heckathorn 1990, 370)

(Kasper 199, 10-11)
(Kurland and Lerner 2000, chap. 9, doc. 3)

R:
Heckathorn, D. D. 1990. Collective sanctions and compliance norms: A formal
theory of group-mediated social control. American Sociological Review
55:366-84.

Kasper, L. R. 1999. The Italian country table: Home cooking from Italys
farmhouse kitchens. New York: Scribner.
Kurland, P. B., and R. Lerner, eds. 2000. The founders Constitution. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/.
Single author versus several authors:
Pacini, E. 1997. Tapetum character states: Analytical keys for tapetum types and
activities. Can J Bot 75:1448-59.
Pacini, E., G. G. Franci, and M. Hesse. 1985. The tapetum: Its form, function, and
possible phylogeny in embryophyta. Plant Syst Evol 149:155-85.
Multiple authors in text:
T:

(Armstrong and Malacinski 1989; Beigl 1989; Pickett and White 1985)
(Whittaker 1967, 1975; Wiens 1989a, 1989b)
(Wong 1999, 328; 2000, 475; Garcia 1998, 67)

Use et al. for more than three authors in text:

T:

(Sechzer et al. 1996, 243)

R:
Sechzer, J. A., S. M. Pfaffilin, F. L. Denmark, A. Griffin, and S. J. Blumenthal, eds.
1996. Women and mental health. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Institutional authors:
U.S. Senate. 1917 Committee on Public Lands. Leasing of oil lands. 65th Cong., 1st
sess.
------. 1919-20. Committee on Foreign Relations. Investigations of Mexican affairs. 2
vols. 66th Cong., 2nd sess.
------. 1924. Committee on Public Lands. Leases upon naval oil reserves. 68th Cong.,
1st sess.
Online Book:
T:

(Sirosh, Miikkulainen, and Bednar 1996)

R:
Sirosh, J., Miikkulainen, and J. A. Bednar. 1996. Self-organization of orientation maps,
lateral connections, and dynamic receptive fields in the primary visual cortex.

In Lateral interactions in the cortex: Structure and function, ed. J. Sirosh, R.

Miikkulainen, and Y. Choe. Austin, TX: UTCS Neural Networks Research Group.
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/nn/web-pubs/htmlbook96/ (accessed August
27, 2001).
Older book republished online:
T:

(James 1909) or (James 1909/1996) or (James [1909] 1996)

R:
James, Henry. 1909. The ambassadors. Project Gutenberg, 1996.
ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext96/ambas10.txt.
Or:

James, Henry. 1909/1996 . . .

or:

James, Henry. [1909] 1996 . . .

Volume, Issue, and Months in Journals (Allison has volume and issue number,
Giraudeau has only volume number, and Testa has volume, issue, and
month):
Allison, G. W. 1999. The implications of experimental design for biodiversity
manipulations. American Naturalist 153 (1): 26-45.
Giraudeau, B., A. Mallet, and C. Chastang. 1996. Case influence on the intraclass
correlation coefficient estimate. Biometrics 52:1492-97.
Testa, B., and L. B. Kier. 2000. Emergence and dissolvence in the self-organization of
complex systems. Entropy 2, no. 1 (March): 1-25.
http://www.mdpi.org/entropy/papers/e2010001.pdf.
Website:
T:

(Federation of American Scientists)

R:
Federation of American Scientists. Resolution comparison: Reading license plates
and headlines. http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/resolve5.htm.
Interview:
Hunt, Horace [pseud]. 1976. Interview by Ronald Schatz. Tape recording. May 16.
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg.