Citation guides -- Chicago

Footnotes / endnotes for webpages

Please also note that these examples refer to Web pages retrieved from the free Internet.  They do not refer to e-books, nor do they refer to articles from databases or online encyclopedias accessible through the library.  For examples of citing these types of materials, click on the books, articles, and/or encyclopedias links to the left.

Section 14.245 of the Manual presents the elements of a webpage citation (which are in a slightly different order than a citation for a book or article):

• Webpage title (or a description of the page if there is no title)
• Webpage author (if any)
• The owner or sponsor of the site
• Publication, revision, or last updated date if any; if no date of this nature is available, include an access date
• Webpage address.  Unlike in other citation styles, you do include a period at the end of a webpage address when citing webpages in the Chicago style.

Web Page, Author:
Kathie Nunley, "The Caffeine Craze of Youth," Layered Curriculum, accessed July 28, 2008. http://help4teachers.com/caffeine.htm.

Web Page, Group Author: 
United Nations Platform for Action Committee, “Globalization and Clothes,” Women and the Economy, last modified March 2011,
     http://unpac.ca/economy/g_clothes.html.

Web Page, No Author:
"Leave no Veteran Behind: A Special Court Tries to Keep Troubled Veterans out of Prison,” The Economist, June 2, 2011,
     http://www.economist.com/node/18775315.

• There is a distinction between a webpage and a website:  a webpage is an individual page that forms part of a larger, broader website -- for example the Ask A Librarian page is a webpage within the Library's website.
• When citing content from the Web, cite the individual page where you found the information you are citing, not the broader website
• The title of a webpage is analogous to chapter or article title, and as such should be "put in quotation marks."  The title of a website is analogous to a book or journal title, and as such should be italicised.

Blog Entry:
Rebecca MacKinnon, “Internet freedom is dead. Long live Internet freedom,” RConversation (blog), September 27, 2010,
     http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2010/09/internet-freedom-is-dead-long-live-internet-freedom.html.

• Section 14.243 of the Manual defines a blog as being a webpage with dated entries (posts) and dated comments

For additional information, see sections 14.243-246 of the Manual.

Bibliography for webpages

Citations in a bibliography are formulated in a similar way to a footnote or endnote, but do have slight variations from the way a footnote or endnote is formulated.

Web Page, Author:
Nunley, Kathie.  "The Caffeine Craze of Youth."  Layered Curriculum.  Accessed July 28, 2008.  http://help4teachers.com/caffeine.htm.

Web Page, Group Author: 
United Nations Platform for Action Committee.  “Globalization and Clothes.”  Women and the Economy.  Last modified March
     2011.  http://unpac.ca/economy/g_clothes.html.

Web Page, No Author:
"Leave no Veteran Behind: A Special Court Tries to Keep Troubled Veterans out of Prison.”  The Economist.  June 2, 2011.
     http://www.economist.com/node/18775315.

Blog Entry:
MacKinnon, Rebecca.  “Internet freedom is dead. Long live Internet freedom.”  RConversation (blog).  September 27, 2010.
     http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2010/09/internet-freedom-is-dead-long-live-internet-freedom.html.