The Chicago Manual of Style has two methods of documentation, the notes and bibliography style and the author-date style. The humanities style is preferred in literature, history, and the arts. The author-date style is useful in the physical, natural, and social sciences. For author-date style, sources cited in the text use author's last name, publication date, and page number. For notes/bibliography style, sources cited in the text are superscripted numbers. Details about each reference are listed in the Bibliography or References section, by author's last name.

This citation quick guide is for Chicago 17th Edition (released summer 2017).

** It is important to note that throughout this Chicago Style guide only the color-coded examples have the proper hanging indentation for reference/bibliography entries. Hanging indentation means the second and any subsequent lines of the citation are indented.