Academic Skills Unit Resources
Note Citations – Chicago
Referencing is an essential part of academic writing. Spending time learning how to reference your
assignments accurately will help you:
maximize the marks available to you for referencing
fulfil the assessment requirements set out in your Unit Outline
avoid allegations of plagiarism
comply with the Academic Honesty Policy (http://www.acu.edu.au/policy/172499)
Three essential parts of Chicago referencing:
A superscript footnote number is inserted in the text to indicate that another’s ideas have been
used. These ideas may be present as a direct quotation, paraphrase or summary. The superscript
footnote comes at the end of a sentence after punctuation.
A corresponding numbered footnote is placed at the bottom of the page which contains the
bibliographical information of the work from where the ideas were drawn.
The bibliography at the end of the text includes a full list of all the works cited. (Please see the
“Bibliography – Chicago” resource for more information).
First citation of a work and subsequent citations:
The first time a work is cited its full publication details are given (note that this format is slightly
different from that in the bibliography). The page number(s) from where the information was
taken is also included.
Subsequent citations take a shortened form:
o The author(s) last name(s), a shortened version of the work’s title, the page numbers used.
An important exception: the Bible
References to Biblical passages made in your text and should cite the version of the Bible the first time it
is used, for example: (Matt 11:25 NRSV). You need to give details of the book (abbreviated), chapter and
verse(s). There is no need to include the Bible in your bibliography.
Example for subsequent citations:
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you” (Matt 7:7).
More than one author
For four or more authors, only the first author is included, followed by “and others” or, in science, “et al.”
All the authors are presented in the bibliography (up to 10 authors).
Example:
4. Jeri A. Sechzer and others, eds., Women and Mental Health (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1996), 243.
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Citations taken from secondary sources
Chicago discourages citing a source that appears within the source you are reading. However, if the
original source is not available you should use the words “quoted in.” Both the original and the secondary
source must be listed.
Example:
1. Louis Zukofsky, “Sincerity and Objectification,” Poetry 37 (February 1931): 269, quoted in
Bonnie Costello, Marianne Moore: Imaginary Possessions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1981), 78.
Short and long quotations
When using a direct quotation that is under 100 words or 8 lines you must place the quoted words within
“double quotation marks”. Quotations that are more than 100 words or 8 lines are set off from the body
of the text in a block by 5 – 7 spaces, the quotation marks are left out, and single spacing is used.
Examples of footnotes
Below is a series of footnotes which include some common sources: a book, a printed journal article, a
journal article from an internet database service, a journal article with a digital object identifier (DOI), a
chapter in an edited book, an internet document, and a newspaper article from an online source. Some
shortened notes are also included.
1. Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand
Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2006), 33.
2. Charles Hedrick, “Realism in Western Narrative and the Gospel of Mark: A Prolegomenon,”
Journal of Biblical Literature 126, no. 2 (2007): 345-59, http://web.ebscohost.com (accessed November
22, 2007), 350.
3. James W. Friedman and Claudio Messetti, “Learning in Games by Random Sampling,” Journal
of Economic Theory 98, no. 1 (May 2001), doi:10.1006/jeth.2000.2694,
http://www.idealibrary.com/links/doi/10.1006/jeth.2000.2694.
4. Michael Roberts, “Women’s History and Gender History,” in Making History: An Introduction
to the History and Practices of a Discipline, eds. Peter Lambert and Phillip Schofield (London: Routledge,
2004), 192-203.
5. Borijove Jevtic, “The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,” The World War I Document
Archive, http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_Assassination_of_Archduke
_Franz_Ferdinand (accessed November 19, 2007).
6. Alison Mitchell and Frank Bruni, “Scars Still Raw, Bush Clashes with McCain,” New York Times,
March 25, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/25/politics
/25MCCA.html (accessed January 2, 2002).
7. Charles W. Eagles, “Towards New Histories of the Civil Rights Era,” Journal of Southern History
66, no. 4 (2000): 820.
8. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 40.
9. Hedrick, “Realism in Western Narrative,” 347-48.
Note: Whereas the particular page(s) from where the information was drawn is given for most sources,
when the source is a chapter in an edited book, the range of pages of the entire chapter is given.
For more detailed information on the Chicago referencing method:
view your Library’s copy of The Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition
see the Academic Skills Unit ACU site
read The ACU Study Guide
contact an Academic Skills Adviser.
Last updated: 25/11/09
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