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Chicago style

Chicago notes and bibliography style provides guidelines on how to format the bibliography and how to arrange the entries of this list in your research paper.

Formatting the bibliography entries

The principles for arranging entries in a bibliography, the capitalization rules, the use of italics, and abbreviations are some of the guidelines that the Chicago notes and bibliography system provides to help you format your citations accurately and consistently.

The bibliography entries follow specific rules in terms of alphabetization, capitalization, and italicization.

Click on the collapsible panel to find out more.

Alphabetization

Bibliography entries are placed in alphabetical order. Alphabetize letter by letter by the author's last name or the title of the work when no author is available.

Variations Examples
Names (letter by letter) Aydemir, Abdurrahman

Gilroy, Marilyn

Glenn, Norval

Roupa, Zoe
Same name of author,
different works		 Stern, Julian. Involving Parents. . . .

———. The Spirit of the School. . . .

Capitalization

All principal words in a citation should be capitalized. You should also capitalize words which appear at the beginning of a title or a subtitle. Check the table below to find out which words are considered to be principal words and therefore should be capitalized.

Words to capitalize Words not to capitalize
Nouns
e.g. United States| Freedom		 Prepositions
e.g. against| as| between| in| of| to
Pronouns
e.g. I| Me| Mine| Myself| Who		 Articles
a| an| the
Verbs
e.g. Continue| Appear| Leave		 The acronym doi
doi: 10.1016/j.jssr.2014.02.006
Adjectives
e.g. Illegal| Homeless| Beautiful		 The to in infinitives
e.g. How to Play Chess
Adverbs
e.g. Simply| Slowly| Terribly		 The word number in its abbreviated form e.g. no. 1
Subordinating Conjunctions
e.g. After| Although| As If| That| Because| Before| Unless| Until|
While| As Soon As| If| When		 Coordinating Conjunctions
e.g. and| but| for| nor| or| so| yet

Italicization

Stand alone titles, such as books, periodicals, reports, images, etc. are italicized.

Variations Examples
Book Handbook of research on Multicultural Education
Periodical American Sociological Review
Report Statistics in Brief: New Americans in Postsecondary Education
Image Mona Lisa