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Research Handbook: Chicago Author Date Style In-Text Citations

Include in the text the first item that appears in the Reference list entry that corresponds to the citation (generally the first author's or creator's last name, or a shortened version of the title), the year of publication, and if a location is known such as a page number for a book or article or a paragraph number for a website or webpage. NOTE: If you provide the author's last name or shortened title of the work in the sentence, do not use it in the in-text citation.

  • If you cite more than one work by an author, include a shortened title for the work from which you are quoting, putting the titles of larger works such as books and plays in italics, and smaller items such as articles, essays, or poems in quotation marks
  • If you are citing a work with one, two, or three authors, include all names. If you are citing a work with 4 or more authors, put First Author et al.
  • When there is no author, use up to four keywords from the title in the in-text citation, formatted as in the entry on the Bibliography.

 

A short quotation is up to four lines in one paragraph.

A long quotation is at least five lines, at least two paragraphs, or at least two lines of a poem or lyrics.

According to some, "quotations should be enclosed in quotation marks" (Last Name, YEAR, p. #), though others disagree.

According to Last Name (YEAR), "quotations should be block indented" (para. #).

In general, the formatting of quotations depends on the length of the quotation (Last Name & Last Name, YEAR paras. #-#)

... and while some say that quotations are annoying, it can also be noted that

Here you will see an example of how to format your parenthetical citation for three or more authors. Note that each line is indented five spaces on the left. Note also that there are no quotation marks around the quote. Also note that the ending in-text citation comes after the closing punctuation as more than one sentence has been quoted. This is a change from where there is only one sentence or part of a sentence being quoted, where the in-text citation comes before the end of the punctuation. (Last Name et al., YEAR, p. #)

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