Chicago Citation Generator (author-date, 18th edition)
Paste a DOI, PubMed ID or reference and get it in Chicago author-date, built from the real Crossref or PubMed record so the details are right.
Chicago author-date example
The paper Deep learning by LeCun, Bengio and Hinton (Nature, 2015), formatted by this tool from DOI 10.1038/nature14539:
In text: (LeCun et al. 2015)
Who uses Chicago author-date
History, economics and many sciences that follow the Chicago Manual of Style.
Chicago author-date reference rules
- Invert only the first author’s name; later authors are written first name first.
- Give the year straight after the authors, without parentheses.
- Put article titles in quotation marks and headline-style capitalisation.
- Italicise the journal title, then volume, issue in parentheses, and pages after a colon: 521 (7553): 436–44.
- Finish with the DOI as a URL.
In-text citations
Author, year and page with no comma between author and year. Since the 18th edition, three or more authors become "et al." in the text: (LeCun et al. 2015, 437).
Common mistakes
- Mixing the notes-bibliography system (footnotes) with author-date. This page and the tool produce author-date.
- Dropping the issue number, which Chicago includes when available.
How this generator avoids wrong references
Every reference is looked up in Crossref, PubMed and OpenAlex before it is formatted. When the database record disagrees with what you pasted (a year off by one, a missing co-author, pages from a different issue) the citation is built from the record and you see what changed. A paper that cannot be found is still formatted, exactly as typed, but marked as unverified, and a retracted paper is flagged in red. Always check your institution's or journal's own guidance: many add small house rules on top of the official style.
Other styles
Frequently asked questions
Is this Chicago author-date citation generator free?
Yes, with no sign-up. Anonymous use covers 30 reference checks a day; a free Phở account raises that to 300 a month.
How do I cite a journal article in Chicago author-date?
Paste its DOI or PubMed ID above and choose Chicago author-date. For example, 10.1038/nature14539 becomes: LeCun, Yann, Yoshua Bengio, and Geoffrey Hinton. 2015. “Deep Learning.” Nature 521 (7553): 436–44. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539.
What does an in-text citation look like in Chicago author-date?
Author, year and page with no comma between author and year. Since the 18th edition, three or more authors become "et al." in the text: (LeCun et al. 2015, 437).
Why does the tool change details I typed?
Because it looked the paper up and the publisher’s record disagrees. The warnings under each citation list exactly what changed, so you can check.