Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography)
How to cite a interview in Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography)
Interviews you conducted yourself are usually personal communication — cited in the text but absent from the reference list — while published interviews are cited like any other recorded source.
THE FORMAT
A interview in Chicago, at a glance
Last, First. “Title of Interview.” By First Last. Publication, Date. URL.
Adeyemi, Folasade. “On Building without Concrete.” By Marta Ruiz. The Calder Review, February 8, 2023. https://www.calderreview.com/adeyemi-interview.
1. Folasade Adeyemi, “On Building without Concrete,” interview by Marta Ruiz, The Calder Review, February 8, 2023, https://www.calderreview.com/adeyemi-interview.
In prose: 6. Adeyemi, “Building without Concrete.”
Adeyemi, Folasade. Interview by the author. Calder, March 3, 2024. Recording in the author’s possession.
In text: 2. Folasade Adeyemi, interview by the author, Calder, March 3, 2024.
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the bibliography builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What Chicago needs from a interview
Elements to collect
- Name of the person interviewed
- Name of the interviewer, for a published interview
- Full date of the interview
- Where it was published or broadcast, when it was
- Format — transcript, audio recording, personal communication
Rules specific to this entry
- The person interviewed is the author. The interviewer follows the title — “interview by Marta Ruiz” in a note, “By Marta Ruiz.” as its own element in the bibliography entry.
- An interview you conducted yourself is normally cited in a note alone and left out of the bibliography: “Folasade Adeyemi, interview by the author, Calder, March 3, 2024.” Add a bibliography entry only if your department asks for a list of interviews.
- An untitled interview simply drops the title: the note runs from the subject’s name straight to “interview by.”
- When a subject spoke on condition of anonymity, Chicago allows you to describe them rather than name them — “interview with a former ministry official, March 3, 2024” — and to explain the convention in a first note.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Chicago needs for a interview: Name of the person interviewed; Name of the interviewer, for a published interview; Full date of the interview; Where it was published or broadcast, when it was.
Build the bibliography entry
Arrange those details in the Chicago order: Last, First. “Title of Interview.” By First Last. Publication, Date. URL.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as 1. Folasade Adeyemi, “On Building without Concrete,” interview by Marta Ruiz, The Calder Review, February 8, 2023, https://www.calderreview.com/adeyemi-interview. — or work the same reference into your sentence as 6. Adeyemi, “Building without Concrete.”.
Check it against the exceptions
The person interviewed is the author. The interviewer follows the title — “interview by Marta Ruiz” in a note, “By Marta Ruiz.” as its own element in the bibliography entry.
Chicago RULES
The conventions behind every Chicago entry
The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the bibliography is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the bibliography is sorted, and where Chicago entries most often go wrong — are collected on the Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography) guide.
The same interview in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Chicago and interviews
What if the interview has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a interview?
Name of the person interviewed, Name of the interviewer, for a published interview, Full date of the interview, and the rest of the elements listed above. Interviews you conducted yourself are usually personal communication — cited in the text but absent from the reference list — while published interviews are cited like any other recorded source.
Is there anything unusual about a interview in Chicago?
The person interviewed is the author. The interviewer follows the title — “interview by Marta Ruiz” in a note, “By Marta Ruiz.” as its own element in the bibliography entry.
What else catches people out here?
An interview you conducted yourself is normally cited in a note alone and left out of the bibliography: “Folasade Adeyemi, interview by the author, Calder, March 3, 2024.” Add a bibliography entry only if your department asks for a list of interviews.
Can I reformat this interview in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole bibliography at once.
