Chicago 18th Author-Date

This brief checklist highlights some general points to pay attention to when editing your in-text citations and reference list. For the components and formatting required for specific reference types, please consult the relevant sections of this guide.

In-text citations

Have you included an in-text citation each time you have paraphrased, summarised or quoted information from another source, providing information about the author and the date of your source?

Are direct quotations enclosed in quote marks with a page or paragraph number provided, in addition to the author and date for the source?

Is a comma used between author names when citing works with more than two authors?

Example: (Smith, Jones, and Lopez 2018).

Does each in-text citation have a corresponding reference list entry?

Reference list

Does the reference list only include sources that have been cited in text?

Does the reference list start on a new page or slide, after the content of your assignment, with the word ‘References’ centred at the top of the page?

Is the reference list ordered alphabetically by the first author’s last name or name of the organisation responsible for the content? If the reference has no author, does the reference use the first significant word in the title?

Do all references have a hanging indent of 1.27cm? How do I create a hanging indent?

Is the first author’s name inverted with the surname (or family name) appearing first, followed by the first and middle names (if given)? Are all subsequent author names listed in the format First name Surname?

Example: Smith, Ben, Brooke A. Burke, and Jay M. Lopez.

Are all author names listed in full, except when only author initials are provided?

Are titles displayed in headline style capitalisation, where each significant word is capitalised?

Example: Networked Privacy: How Teenagers Negotiate Context in Social Media

Do all online sources have an address to help the reader locate the item such as a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) or URL if there is no DOI?

Are all DOIs preceded by https://doi.org/?

Are all DOIs and URLs presented as plain text (no live links and not underlined)?

Is there a full stop after the DOI or URL for each reference entry?