How to Cite a Book in Chicago Style

To cite a book in Chicago style, you need to know which of Chicago's two systems your paper uses and where the citation is going: a footnote, a bibliography, an in-text parenthetical, or a reference list. This guide gives you every form, with worked examples for each kind of book you're likely to cite: single-author, multiple authors, edited collections, chapters, translations, later editions, multivolume works, and ebooks.

All examples follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition (2024), which dropped the publisher's city from book citations and replaced ibid. with shortened notes. If your templates predate September 2024, they're still producing 17th-edition citations. For choosing between the two systems, see the complete Chicago Style guide. For the mechanics underneath these forms, see the guides to Chicago footnotes and endnotes and the Chicago bibliography.

Every Book Citation Form at a Glance

This table shows the same book in all five positions, so you can find the form you need before reading the detail. Use the row that matches your system and where the citation sits.

Three patterns to notice. The note puts the author in normal order and uses commas; the bibliography inverts the author and uses periods. The note ends with the specific page you're citing; the bibliography entry has no page at all for a whole book. And in author-date, the year jumps up to sit right after the author's name.

Which System Are You Using?

Chicago has two citation systems, and the book forms differ between them. Your discipline decides which one you use, not your preference.

Notes-bibliography uses superscript numbers tied to footnotes or endnotes, plus a bibliography. It's standard in history, art history, religious studies, theology, and trade nonfiction. If your paper has footnotes, you're here, and you need the note forms and the bibliography entry.

Author-date uses parenthetical citations and a reference list, with no footnotes. It's standard in economics, anthropology, and the sciences when they use Chicago. If your paper uses parentheticals like (Hollis 2021), you're here, and you need the in-text and reference-list forms.

Work in the section that matches your paper. Mixing forms from the two systems in one document is one of the fastest ways to get a manuscript sent back.

Book Variants: Every Form You'll Need

Most citation trouble comes from books that aren't a simple single-author volume. Each variant below gives the note and the bibliography entry, which are the two forms you'll reach for most. The author-date reference-list version follows the bibliography entry, with the year moved up after the author's name.

Single author

The base case. Everything else is a variation on this shape.

Note. 1. Margaret Hollis, Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire (Yale University Press, 2021), 47.

Bibliography. Hollis, Margaret. Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire. Yale University Press, 2021.

Two or three authors

Name every author. In the bibliography, only the first author's name is inverted; the rest stay in normal order.

Note. 2. Margaret Hollis and James Renshaw, The Atlas and the Archive (Princeton University Press, 2023), 112.

Bibliography. Hollis, Margaret, and James Renshaw. The Atlas and the Archive. Princeton University Press, 2023.

Four or more authors

List all authors in the bibliography, but use only the first author plus "et al." in the note.

Note. 3. Elena Ruiz et al., Cartographies of Power (Duke University Press, 2021), 88.

Bibliography. Ruiz, Elena, Thomas Blake, Margaret Hollis, and James Renshaw. Cartographies of Power. Duke University Press, 2021.

The cutoffs for how many names to list in each position are covered in detail in the guide to how to use et al. in citations.

Edited book (no author)

When you're citing the whole collection rather than one chapter, the editor takes the author position, followed by "ed." or "eds."

Note. 4. Thomas Blake, ed., Empire and Image (University of Chicago Press, 2020), 15.

Bibliography. Blake, Thomas, ed. Empire and Image. University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Chapter in an edited book

The chapter author leads, the chapter title goes in quotation marks, and the editor follows the book title after "ed." (note: "ed." here means "edited by," not "editor").

Note. 5. Elena Ruiz, "Mapping the Margins," in Empire and Image, ed. Thomas Blake (University of Chicago Press, 2020), 62.

Bibliography. Ruiz, Elena. "Mapping the Margins." In Empire and Image, edited by Thomas Blake, 55–78. University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Note the difference: the note abbreviates to "ed." while the bibliography spells out "edited by." Chicago 18th made the chapter page range optional in the bibliography entry, though it's still required in the note and most publishers still expect it in the bibliography.

Translated book

The translator follows the title, after "trans." in the note or "Translated by" in the bibliography.

Note. 6. Sofia Marchetti, The Cartographer's Republic, trans. James Renshaw (Harvard University Press, 2022), 30.

Bibliography. Marchetti, Sofia. The Cartographer's Republic. Translated by James Renshaw. Harvard University Press, 2022.

Later edition

The edition number follows the title, abbreviated as "2nd ed.," "3rd ed.," and so on. Only note the edition when it isn't the first.

Note. 7. Margaret Hollis, Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire, 2nd ed. (Yale University Press, 2024), 51.

Bibliography. Hollis, Margaret. Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire. 2nd ed. Yale University Press, 2024.

Multivolume work

When citing one volume of a multivolume set, give the volume number and, if it has one, the volume's own title.

Note. 8. Thomas Blake, A History of Cartography, vol. 2, The Age of Empire (University of Chicago Press, 2019), 204.

Bibliography. Blake, Thomas. A History of Cartography. Vol. 2, The Age of Empire. University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Ebook or online book

Name the format or platform at the end. For books read online, give a DOI or stable URL instead.

Note. 9. Margaret Hollis, Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire (Yale University Press, 2021), chap. 3, Kindle.

Bibliography. Hollis, Margaret. Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire. Yale University Press, 2021. Kindle.

Ebooks often lack stable page numbers, since pagination shifts with the reader's font size. When a page number isn't fixed, cite a chapter, section, or heading instead, as in "chap. 3" above.

Books in Author-Date Style

In author-date, a book appears as a parenthetical citation in the text and a full entry in the reference list. There are no footnotes.

The in-text citation

Give the author's last name and the year, with no comma between them. Add a page after the year, separated by a comma, when citing something specific.

(Hollis 2021, 47)

Two authors: (Hollis and Renshaw 2023, 112)

Four or more: (Ruiz et al. 2021, 88)

If you name the author in your sentence, only the year and page go in parentheses: Hollis (2021, 47) argues that the map concealed as much as it revealed.

The reference-list entry

The year moves up directly after the author's name, which is the signature of author-date. The rest of the entry follows the bibliography shape.

Hollis, Margaret. 2021. Maps of Power: Cartography and Empire. Yale University Press.

Ruiz, Elena. 2020. "Mapping the Margins." In Empire and Image, edited by Thomas Blake, 55–78. University of Chicago Press.

Because the year already appears after the author, it doesn't repeat at the end of the entry. A reference list also holds only the sources you actually cited, unlike a notes-bibliography bibliography, which includes background reading too.

Notes vs. Bibliography: The Punctuation Shift

The most common Chicago book error is punctuating a note like a bibliography entry, or the reverse. This table isolates the differences on one book so the pattern is easy to hold.

What Changed in Chicago 18th

Two 18th-edition changes affect book citations directly, and both are easy to miss if your reference tools haven't been updated since September 2024.

• The publisher's city is gone. For books published since 1900, Chicago 18th dropped the city from both notes and bibliography entries. "New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021" is now just "Yale University Press, 2021." Citation managers built on the 17th edition still insert the city automatically, which is now an error.
• Ibid. is out; shortened notes are in. Where the 17th edition used "ibid." for a repeat citation of the source in the previous note, the 18th uses a shortened note every time: Hollis, Maps of Power, 84. This applies even to two consecutive citations of the same book.
• Chapter page ranges are now optional in the bibliography. For a chapter in an edited book, the 18th edition makes the page range optional in the bibliography entry, though it remains required in the note. Most publishers still expect it, so including it is the safer choice.

Common Mistakes When Citing Books

• Including the publisher's city. The single most common 18th-edition error, because older templates and citation managers still add it. Drop it for anything published since 1900.
• Punctuating a note like a bibliography entry. Notes use commas and parentheses; bibliography entries use periods and no parentheses. Mixing them is the classic Chicago slip.
• Inverting every author's name. In the bibliography, only the first author is inverted. The rest stay in normal order.
• Using ibid. Chicago 18th replaced it with the shortened note. If ibid. is in your draft, it came from an older template.
• Putting a page number in a whole-book bibliography entry. The bibliography entry for an entire book has no page reference. Only chapters get a page range there.
• Citing fixed page numbers in an ebook. Ebook pagination shifts with font size. Cite a chapter or section instead.
• Mixing the two systems. Footnotes in an author-date paper, or parentheticals in a footnoted paper, tell a reviewer the writer never settled on a system.

Get Your Chicago Citations Reviewed

Book citations reward consistency, and a book-length manuscript with a hundred notes is where a single wrong pattern multiplies quietly. Chicago is the house style of most US trade and academic publishers, so citation errors are the kind of thing an acquiring editor or committee notices immediately. Editor World's book editing, academic editing, and dissertation editing services include Chicago citation review at the note, bibliography, and document level, applying the 18th-edition rules older templates miss. You choose your own editor by field, and a free sample edit is available before you commit. For journal articles specifically, see the guide to citing a journal article in Chicago style.

Frequently Asked Questions

Content reviewed by the Editor World editorial team. Chicago guidance reflects The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Editor World, founded in 2010 by Patti Fisher, PhD, graduate of The Ohio State University, provides professional human-only academic, dissertation, book, and journal article editing worldwide. 100% human editing, no AI at any stage. BBB A+ accredited since 2010 with 5.0/5 Google Reviews and 5.0/5 Facebook Reviews. More than 100 million words edited for over 8,000 clients in 65+ countries. Multiple Gold and Bronze Stevie Award winner. Native English editors from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Less than 5% of applicants are accepted to the editor panel. Recommended by the Boston University Economics Department, University of San Diego, University of Michigan, UCLA, University of Missouri, and more. Page last reviewed July 2026.