APA vs Chicago: Side-by-Side Citation Style Comparison
Most students get assigned one style and never switch. When you do switch — or when a class lets you choose — the differences between APA 7th edition and Chicago 17th (Notes-Bibliography) matter in small but graded-down ways.
In-text citation
APA: (Brown, 2018, p. 42)
Chicago: Footnote 1, then "Brown 2018, 42"
Notice the punctuation, the page-number prefix, and the comma placement — those are the bits professors mark down.
Reference list entry (a book by one author)
APA:
Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead. Random House.
Chicago:
Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead. New York: Random House, 2018.
Author names
APA: Last, F. M. with initials only. Up to 20 authors listed; an ellipsis for 21+ before the final author.
Chicago: Same as MLA in bibliographies. Notes use First Last (not inverted). Up to 10 names listed.
Dates
APA: Year in parentheses immediately after author: (2018). Day/month appear only for newspapers, blogs, and dated web content.
Chicago: Month Day, Year: March 14, 2024. Full month names. Day-Month-Year is allowed in British editions.
Where each is used
APA is the default in social sciences, education, psychology, nursing, and most STEM fields outside the humanities.
Chicago dominates history, philosophy, theology, and the broader humanities at the graduate level.
Frequently asked
Can I convert a APA paper to Chicago automatically?
No tool does this losslessly. The author order, date format, and italicization rules differ. Our generator can produce either style from the same input fields — easier to redo references than to convert them.
If my professor accepts either, which should I pick?
Pick the one used most in your field — social sciences, education, psychology, nursing, and most STEM fields outside the humanities for APA, history, philosophy, theology, and the broader humanities at the graduate level for Chicago. Future readers will be expecting that one.
Do the in-text citation rules differ as much as the reference rules?
Yes. The in-text format is usually what catches most students out first because it appears more often than the reference list.