Author-Date Variation
Chicago Style gives the option of using an author-date citation system. In this system, an abbreviation citation appears in the text of your paper which directs readers to the citation in the reference list at the end of the paper. Each source cited in the text of your paper must appear in the reference list, and each source in the reference list must appear in the text of your paper.
Kerouac (1958) reported...
The Dharma Bums showed... (Kerouac 1958, 19).
Parenthetical vs. Narrative Citations
In-text citations can be formatted in two ways: parenthetical and narrative.
- In parenthetical citations, the author name(s) and publication date for the source appear in parentheses at the end of a sentence.
- In narrative citations, the author name is incorporated into the actual text of the paper, with the publication year immediately following in parentheses.
Multiple Authors and Group Authors
| Author type |
Parenthetical citation |
Narrative citation |
| One author | (Smith 2020) | Smith (2020) |
| Two authors | (Smith & Jones 2020) | Smith and Jones (2020) |
| Three or more authors | (Smith et al. 2020) | Smith et al. (2020) |
| Group author | (Stanford University 2019) | Stanford University (2019) |
Citing Parts of a Source
To cite part of a source, provide the page, page range, chapter, section, or figure/table number after the date in your in-text citation.
- (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2005, 10).
- (Daniels 2013, 175-196).
- (Sakamura 1999, Chapter 5).
- (American Psychological Association 2020, para. 3).