Chicago Style (18th ed.): How to Make a Reference List

Create a spot-on reference in Chicago 18

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The 18th edition of the popular Chicago citation style was released in late September 2024, and by October, our automatic bibliography generation service Grafiati had already added support for this style on its website.

Differences Between the 17th and 18th Editions of Chicago Style

The new edition of The Chicago Manual of Style adheres to the same general citation rules as the previous one. However, some changes are significant and require thorough familiarization with the new rules to apply them correctly. Some of the changes include:

  • From now on, the city of publication is no longer listed for books and other sources; only the publisher's name is required (unless it's an old source where the city is a key identifying feature).
  • If a source has more than six authors, only the first three are listed in the bibliography. In footnotes, no more than two authors can be mentioned. If the number exceeds this, the phrase 'et al.' is added to the author list.
  • The full page range of a cited source is no longer indicated, except for journal articles. Instead, only the specific cited page is mentioned in footnotes or in-text citations.

You can learn about other changes on the official CMOS website: https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/help-tools/what-s-new.html, or try generating an automatic bibliography on Grafiati, where all necessary details will be considered.

Example Reference List in Chicago Style (18th ed.)

Notes and Bibliography System

Website (Webpage)

European Commission. "7 Places That Shaped the EU’s History." Medium, May 5, 2023. https://europeancommission.medium.com/7-places-that-shaped-the-eus-history-28a7fa61e998.

Journal Article

Krauss, Alexander. "Science’s Greatest Discoverers: A Shift Towards Greater Interdisciplinarity, Top Universities and Older Age." Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11 (2024): 272. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02781-4.

Book

Quigg, Chris, and Robert Cahn. Grace in All Simplicity. Pegasus Books, 2023.

Author-Date System

Website (Webpage)

European Commission. 2023. "7 Places That Shaped the EU’s History." Medium, May 5, 2023. https://europeancommission.medium.com/7-places-that-shaped-the-eus-history-28a7fa61e998.

Journal Article

Krauss, Alexander. 2024. "Science’s Greatest Discoverers: A Shift Towards Greater Interdisciplinarity, Top Universities and Older Age." Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:272. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02781-4.

Book

Quigg, Chris, and Robert Cahn. 2023. Grace in All Simplicity. Pegasus Books.

Chicago Style (18th ed.) and the Grafiati Automatic Reference Generator

You can use the Grafiati citation generator to create a bibliography and compose in-text citations according to the Chicago standard. We support the latest 18th edition of Chicago, as well as the 16th and 17th editions, in both the 'author-date' and 'notes and bibliography' formats.

To start adding sources, go to the homepage, click the 'New reference' button, and choose from the options on the screen. To change the citation style to Chicago-18, select it in the 'Citation style' menu at the top of the page.

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