Chicago citation & footnote generator
Full footnotes, short notes and bibliography entries in Chicago style, or the author-date system if your course uses it. Fill in the page number and copy each note straight into Word or Google Docs.
Create a Chicago citation
Bibliography entry · Chicago notes & bibliography
Your citation appears here as you type, set exactly as it will look in your paper.
Footnotes
Fill in the author and date to see the in-text version.
How Chicago footnotes work through a paper
Chicago’s notes system trips people up because one source appears in three different forms. Step through a short passage to see which form goes where.
People rely on two systems of thought: one fast and intuitive, one slow and deliberate.1
Students who took notes by hand remembered concepts better than laptop users.2
Fast thinking is also where most cognitive biases come from.3
1. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), 20.
Step 1 of 4. The first time you cite a source, the footnote gives the full details: author’s name in normal order, title, publication facts in brackets, and the page you used.
Chicago examples
Bibliography entry first, then the full footnote.
Book
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Footnote: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions, 2013), 45.
Journal article
Doudna, Jennifer A., and Emmanuelle Charpentier. “The New Frontier of Genome Engineering with CRISPR-Cas9.” Science 346, no. 6213 (November 28, 2014): 1258096. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1258096.
Footnote: Jennifer A. Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, “The New Frontier of Genome Engineering with CRISPR-Cas9,” Science 346, no. 6213 (November 28, 2014): 1258096, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1258096.
Website
Cherry, Kendra. “What Is the Zeigarnik Effect?” Verywell Mind, March 4, 2025. https://www.verywellmind.com/zeigarnik-effect-memory-overview-4175150.
Footnote: Kendra Cherry, “What Is the Zeigarnik Effect?” Verywell Mind, March 4, 2025, https://www.verywellmind.com/zeigarnik-effect-memory-overview-4175150.
Author-date version of a book
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions.
In-text: (Kimmerer 2013, 45) or Kimmerer (2013, 45)
More detail on both systems, including block quotes and “Ibid.”, is in the Chicago style guide.
Chicago questions
Notes-bibliography or author-date?
Chicago has two systems. Notes-bibliography (footnotes plus a bibliography) is standard in history, art history, philosophy and theology. Author-date (parenthetical citations plus a reference list) is used in the sciences and social sciences. Use the one your instructor names; if they just say “Chicago”, they almost always mean notes-bibliography.
Is this Chicago 17th or 18th edition?
The generator follows the 18th edition (2024), which differs from the 17th only in small ways for student papers: short notes are preferred to “Ibid.”, and “et al.” is used for three or more authors in notes.
How do I make a footnote in Word or Google Docs?
Word: References → Insert Footnote (Ctrl+Alt+F / ⌘+Option+F). Google Docs: Insert → Footnote (Ctrl+Alt+F). Paste the note CiteForge gives you without the number; the software numbers it.
Do I need a bibliography if I use full footnotes?
Chicago says a bibliography is optional when full notes are given, but most instructors require one. Sources cited only in notes, such as AI chats and personal communications, usually stay out of it.