Chicago Citation Generator
Chicago Manual of Style is the citation standard for history, theology, art history, classical studies, and many academic publishing houses in the humanities.
Generates Chicago notes-bibliography citations
Handles footnote and bibliography entries
Marks unknown fields rather than guessing
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Chicago notes-bibliography vs author-date: which one does your course use
Chicago Manual of Style has two distinct citation systems, and choosing the wrong one is the most common student error. Notes-bibliography is the standard for history, art history, theology, classical studies, and most humanities disciplines. In this system, citations appear as footnotes at the bottom of the page (or endnotes at the end of the chapter), and a separate bibliography at the end of the paper lists every source cited. The first footnote citation of a source is the long form with full publication details, and subsequent citations of the same source use a shortened form with just the author last name and a shortened title. Author-date is the alternative system used in some social sciences, where in-text citations follow the parenthetical (Smith 2021, 14) format and a reference list at the end of the paper replaces the bibliography. The two systems are not interchangeable: a paper that uses footnote citations should use the notes-bibliography system end to end, not mix in author-date citations partway through.
In the notes-bibliography system, footnote and bibliography entries have different formatting even when they describe the same source. The footnote uses first-name-last-name order for the author, while the bibliography uses last-name-first-name with a comma between. The footnote uses commas as primary separators with the publication details in parentheses, while the bibliography uses periods and no parentheses around the publication details. The footnote ends with the specific page number cited, while the bibliography lists the page range of the article or omits page numbers for books. The tool produces both forms in the Chicago section of the output so you can paste the right one into the right place. Many student errors come from using the bibliography format in a footnote or vice versa.
The shortened footnote form is its own source of confusion. After the first full citation, subsequent footnote citations of the same source use just the author last name, a shortened version of the title, and the specific page number. For Smith, John. The Long Title of My Book: With Its Subtitle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021, the shortened form would be Smith, Long Title, 47. The shortened title should be three or four key words that clearly identify the source, italicized for books or in quotation marks for articles and chapters. Ibid. for consecutive citations of the same source was deprecated in the 17th edition of Chicago in favor of the shortened form, though some professors still accept it.
For online sources, Chicago includes the DOI when available, the URL otherwise, and an access date is included only when the source has no clear publication date or the content is likely to change. Page numbers in books and journals are critical in Chicago because footnotes typically cite a specific page, not the source as a whole. The tool extracts page ranges from the metadata when available, but for citations to specific pages within a longer source, you will need to add the precise page number when you write the footnote. As with any citation generator, verification still matters. Compare the metadata summary against the source. If a field reads [unknown], fix the input or fill it in manually before trusting the citation.
How to use this tool
Paste a DOI, URL, ISBN, or raw citation. The tool returns a Chicago entry alongside APA, MLA, Harvard, IEEE, and BibTeX. Copy the Chicago block, which contains both the footnote and bibliography forms.
How It Works
Step-by-step guide to chicago citation generator:
- 1
Open the FixTools Citation Generator
Click through to the Citation Generator. The page loads in seconds and runs entirely in your browser.
- 2
Paste a DOI, URL, ISBN, or raw citation
Paste any of these into the text box. For books, ISBN is most reliable. For journal articles, DOI. For web sources, URL.
- 3
Click Run Citation Generator
The tool produces six styles including Chicago in 5 to 10 seconds.
- 4
Verify the metadata summary
Confirm author, year, title, publisher, and DOI match the source. Fix [unknown] fields before copying.
- 5
Copy the Chicago footnote or bibliography entry
The Chicago section provides both the footnote form and the bibliography form. Use the footnote form when inserting a footnote in your paper, and use the bibliography form when adding the source to the alphabetical bibliography at the end.
Real-world examples
Common situations where this approach makes a real difference:
Undergraduate history major writing a research paper
A junior history major writing a 4,000-word paper on the French Revolution has 25 sources spanning primary sources, scholarly monographs, and journal articles. He pastes each into the tool and copies both the footnote and bibliography forms into a working document. The bibliography assembles in alphabetical order in 30 minutes.
Graduate student in theology writing a dissertation
A PhD candidate in theology working on a 300-page dissertation has roughly 200 sources in the bibliography, many of them obscure primary sources and theological journal articles. The tool handles the journal articles cleanly from their DOIs. For the obscure primary sources, the tool flags [unknown] fields that the student fills in manually from the original texts.
Art history student citing museum collection objects
A student writing on Renaissance painting needs to cite specific works in museum collections. The tool produces Chicago entries from museum URLs and correctly identifies the artist, work title, date, medium, and collection. For very small museum databases without rich metadata, the tool marks some fields [unknown] and the student adds them from the museum catalog.
Classics student citing ancient texts in translation
A classics student writing on Thucydides needs to cite both the original Greek and the English translation. The tool handles the translator field in Chicago format, listing the translator after the title with the label "translated by" and the translator name.
When to use this guide
Use this when your history, theology, art history, or classical studies professor requires Chicago Manual of Style formatting. Notes-bibliography is the default for humanities.
Pro tips
Get better results with these expert suggestions:
Cite specific page numbers in footnotes, not page ranges
Chicago footnotes typically cite the specific page where the quoted or referenced material appears, not the page range of the whole source. For a quotation from page 47 of a book that spans pages 1 to 320, the footnote ends with 47, not 1-320. The tool produces the page range from the metadata, which is correct for the bibliography entry, but you will need to override it with the specific page in your actual footnote.
Use ibid. only if your professor accepts it
The 17th edition of Chicago deprecated ibid. in favor of the shortened form for repeat citations, but many professors still accept ibid. for consecutive citations of the same source. Check the syllabus or ask. If in doubt, use the shortened form (author, short title, page) because it is the current Chicago recommendation and always acceptable.
Bibliographies are alphabetical, footnotes are sequential
The bibliography at the end of the paper lists every source cited in alphabetical order by author last name. Footnotes appear in the order they are cited in the text, numbered sequentially from 1. The tool produces both forms; assemble the bibliography in alphabetical order and the footnotes in citation order.
Export BibTeX even for Chicago papers
Even if you are writing a Chicago-style history paper in Word, copy the BibTeX block alongside the Chicago entry. A Zotero library imported from BibTeX can re-export to Chicago 17th edition on demand and handles the difference between footnote and bibliography forms automatically.
Confirm which Chicago system your course uses
Notes-bibliography for humanities, author-date for social sciences. The two are not interchangeable. Ask your professor if the syllabus does not specify.
Use shortened footnote form after the first citation
The first footnote citation of a source uses the full long form. Every subsequent citation of the same source uses the shortened form with author, short title, and page number.
Italicize book titles, quote article titles
In Chicago, book titles and journal names are italicized. Article titles, chapter titles, and short-story titles go in quotation marks.
Frequently asked questions
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