How to cite a piece of software in Chicago (author-date)
Research software or a code repository. Chicago's author-date system. Dominant in history, sociology, and the natural sciences.
Quick answer
To cite a piece of software in Chicago (author-date), include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Willighagen, L.. 2024. "citation-js." . https://github.com/citation-js/citation-js
This example is rendered with the official CSL definition for Chicago (author-date). For the exact style required by your journal, paste your references into DEEPNOTIS and pick that style from the dropdown — the app covers 2,800+ variants.
What you need
For a piece of software, Chicago (author-date) expects these fields at minimum:
- Author(s) / maintainers
- Year
- Software name
- Version or commit hash
- Repository URL
- DOI (Zenodo if released)
Common mistakes
- Mixing bibliography formatting with in-text citation rules. Reference-list entries and in-text cites follow different patterns — use the style's official guide for both.
- Forgetting the DOI. When a DOI exists, most styles now require it (usually as a full https://doi.org/… URL).
- Inconsistent capitalization. APA uses sentence case for titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. Mixing them is the single most common style error.
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Last updated: 5 May 2026