With the internet at our fingertips 24 hours a day, who needs books any more? Not students or researchers, that’s for sure! Actually… that’s not quite true. Print sources are still vital when writing an essay. But you can also cite a website if you find useful information online.
Most referencing styles even have specific rules for doing this, including the Chicago referencing footnote system. As such, here’s our guide to citing websites Chicago style.
Footnote Citations
The first time you cite a website, you should give full source information in the footnote:
n. Author Name(s), ‘Title of Page’, Publishing Organisation or Name of Website, publication date, URL.
If all of this information is available for the source, your footnote should look something like this:
1. Nick Stone, ‘Hidden history: Myths – Tombland, Norwich and the Plague’, Invisible Works, last modified 5 June 2015, http://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/myths-tombland-and-the-plague/.
We use the term ‘last modified’ here because web pages are often updated, but often you will just need to give the date the page was first published. If citing the same source more than once, you can then use a shortened format for subsequent footnotes.
Missing Information
Not every website will have a named author or date of publication. When this happens, you will need to adapt your footnotes accordingly.
If the author is not named, you can give the page title in first position. When no date of publication is given, include the date you accessed the site instead:
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2. ‘The Murderers Pub History’, The Murderers & The Gardeners Arms, accessed 31 July 2017, http://www.themurderers.co.uk/norwich-pub-history.html.
You need to include the ‘accessed’ date in case the content on the page changes after you access it.
Bibliography Entry
The bibliography entry for a website in Chicago referencing is similar to the first footnote. The main differences are the punctuation and the fact the author’s names are given surname first:
Author Surname, First Name. ‘Title of Page’. Publishing Organisation or Name of Website. Last modified/access date. URL.
One important difference here is that, when a page has no named author, you should give the publishing organisation or website name first. You can then use this instead of a surname when listing sources alphabetically. For example, the sites above would be listed as follows:
The Murderers & The Gardeners Arms. ‘The Murderers Pub History’ Accessed 31 July 2017. http://www.themurderers.co.uk/norwich-pub-history.html.
Stone, Nick. ‘Hidden history: Myths – Tombland, Norwich and the Plague’. Invisible Works. Last modified 5 June, 2015. http://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/myths-tombland-and-the-plague/.
Finally, as shown above, if a website or organisation name starts with ‘the’, the next word is used when listing sources alphabetically in the bibliography.