Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography)
How to cite a preprint article in Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography)
Preprints carry DOIs but lack journal volumes and page numbers; styles require explicit repository names (arXiv, bioRxiv) and clear preprint designation.
THE FORMAT
A preprint article in Chicago, at a glance
Last, First. “Title of Article.” Preprint, submitted Month Day, Year. Repository Name. DOI or URL.
Dubois, Henri, and Camille Laurent. “Archival Preservation Metrics for Early Modern Manuscripts.” Preprint, submitted October 4, 2023. HAL Open Science. https://hal.science/hal-04128956.
1. Henri Dubois and Camille Laurent, “Archival Preservation Metrics for Early Modern Manuscripts” (preprint, submitted October 4, 2023, HAL Open Science), https://hal.science/hal-04128956.
In prose: 8. Dubois and Laurent, “Archival Preservation Metrics.”
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 preprint article
Elements to collect
- Author or authors
- Year and month of posting
- Article title
- Preprint repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv)
- DOI or persistent repository URL
Rules specific to this entry
- Chicago treats preprints as unpublished papers, adding "Preprint" in the entry.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Chicago needs for a preprint article: Author or authors; Year and month of posting; Article title; Preprint repository name (e.g. arXiv, bioRxiv).
Build the bibliography entry
Arrange those details in the Chicago order: Last, First. “Title of Article.” Preprint, submitted Month Day, Year. Repository Name. DOI or URL.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as 1. Henri Dubois and Camille Laurent, “Archival Preservation Metrics for Early Modern Manuscripts” (preprint, submitted October 4, 2023, HAL Open Science), https://hal.science/hal-04128956. — or work the same reference into your sentence as 8. Dubois and Laurent, “Archival Preservation Metrics.”.
Check it against the exceptions
Chicago treats preprints as unpublished papers, adding "Preprint" in the entry.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 preprint article in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Chicago and preprints
What if the preprint article 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 preprint article?
Author or authors, Year and month of posting, Article title, and the rest of the elements listed above. Preprints carry DOIs but lack journal volumes and page numbers; styles require explicit repository names (arXiv, bioRxiv) and clear preprint designation.
Is there anything unusual about a preprint article in Chicago?
Chicago treats preprints as unpublished papers, adding "Preprint" in the entry.
Can I reformat this preprint article 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.
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