Chicago Footnote Generator

Chicago footnote examples

The same two sources appear on every CiteTools generator page, so you can compare styles side by side.

Full and short notes

Full note, journal article

Yann LeCun et al., “Deep Learning,” Nature 521, no. 7553 (2015): 438, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539.

Short note, journal article

LeCun et al., “Deep Learning,” 438.

Full note, book

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 438.

Short note, book

Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, 438.

How Chicago formats a footnote

• A full note names the author in normal order and reads as one sentence: commas separate its parts, the publication facts of a book sit in parentheses, and one period ends it.
• A note gives the exact page you cite, where the bibliography entry of an article gives its whole page range. The DOI of an article follows the page.
• The first note for a source is a full note. Each later note for it is a short note: the family name, the title, shortened when it runs past four words, and the page.
• When a work has three or more authors, the full note and the short note both name only the first, followed by et al.
• The note number in your text is a superscript placed after any punctuation mark except a dash, which it precedes.
• Chicago discourages ibid. for a source cited twice in a row. A short note does that job and still reads correctly when notes move.

When to use footnotes

Footnotes belong to the notes and bibliography system of The Chicago Manual of Style, the usual choice in history, art history, religion, and many other humanities courses. A superscript number in the text points to a note at the foot of the page, or to an endnote at the end of the paper; both are written the same way. The bibliography at the end lists every source once, in alphabetical order, with the first author inverted and periods where the note has commas. Turabian, the student guide from the same publisher, uses the same system, but its 9th edition follows the 17th edition of Chicago, which names the place of publication and shortens a note to et al. only from four authors. This page opens the generator on its notes: paste one source and it writes the full note and the short note as plain text, so set the journal or book title in italics after you paste. Once the notes show, open the Locator list, choose Page, and type the number: both notes then carry it. The Reference button gives the bibliography entry.

Frequently asked questions