How to cite a thesis in Chicago (author-date)
A master's or doctoral thesis submitted to a university. Chicago's author-date system. Dominant in history, sociology, and the natural sciences.
Quick answer
To cite a thesis in Chicago (author-date), include the author(s), year, title, and container or publisher details. A concrete example is below.
Example
Jumper, J.. 2017. "Deep learning approaches to protein structure prediction." University of Chicago.
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.
Official source
Chicago (author-date) is defined and maintained by the The Chicago Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press). When a formatting rule is ambiguous, their official guidance is the authoritative reference. DEEPNOTIS renders Chicago (author-date) from the same canonical CSL definition.
What you need
For a thesis, Chicago (author-date) expects these fields at minimum:
- Author
- Year
- Thesis title
- Degree type (PhD, Master's…)
- Institution
- URL or database if online
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