Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography)
How to cite a report in Chicago 17th edition (notes–bibliography)
Reports from governments, NGOs, and think tanks usually have a corporate author rather than a person, and often a report number that has to be preserved exactly.
THE FORMAT
A report in Chicago, at a glance
Organization. Title of Report. Report number. Place: Publisher, Year. URL.
Halden Commission on Rural Transport. Bus Provision after Deregulation: Final Report. HCRT Report 14. Edinburgh: Halden Commission, 2021. https://www.haldencommission.org/reports/14.
1. Halden Commission on Rural Transport, Bus Provision after Deregulation: Final Report, HCRT Report 14 (Edinburgh: Halden Commission, 2021), 32, https://www.haldencommission.org/reports/14.
In prose: 10. Halden Commission, Bus Provision, 40.
Rural Mobility Directorate, Ministry of Transport. Concessionary Travel: 2020 Review. Wellington: Ministry of Transport, 2020. https://www.transportministry.org/reviews/2020.
In text: 5. Rural Mobility Directorate, Ministry of Transport, Concessionary Travel: 2020 Review (Wellington: Ministry of Transport, 2020), 17.
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 report
Elements to collect
- Issuing organization, used as the author when no individual is named
- Year of publication
- Full title of the report
- Report or publication number, when there is one
- Publisher, when it differs from the author
- URL
Rules specific to this entry
- A corporate author occupies the author slot but is never inverted — there is no given name to move. Alphabetize the bibliography by the first significant word of the organization’s name.
- Chicago italicizes report titles, because a report is a standalone work rather than a part of one. That is the opposite of the treatment a thesis gets.
- Reproduce the report or series number exactly as printed, including any letters, and place it after the title.
- When the issuing body is also the publisher, Chicago lets you shorten the publisher rather than repeat the full name twice in one entry.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element Chicago needs for a report: Issuing organization, used as the author when no individual is named; Year of publication; Full title of the report; Report or publication number, when there is one.
Build the bibliography entry
Arrange those details in the Chicago order: Organization. Title of Report. Report number. Place: Publisher, Year. URL.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as 1. Halden Commission on Rural Transport, Bus Provision after Deregulation: Final Report, HCRT Report 14 (Edinburgh: Halden Commission, 2021), 32, https://www.haldencommission.org/reports/14. — or work the same reference into your sentence as 10. Halden Commission, Bus Provision, 40..
Check it against the exceptions
A corporate author occupies the author slot but is never inverted — there is no given name to move. Alphabetize the bibliography by the first significant word of the organization’s name.
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 report in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about Chicago and reports
What if the report 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 report?
Issuing organization, used as the author when no individual is named, Year of publication, Full title of the report, and the rest of the elements listed above. Reports from governments, NGOs, and think tanks usually have a corporate author rather than a person, and often a report number that has to be preserved exactly.
Is there anything unusual about a report in Chicago?
A corporate author occupies the author slot but is never inverted — there is no given name to move. Alphabetize the bibliography by the first significant word of the organization’s name.
What else catches people out here?
Chicago italicizes report titles, because a report is a standalone work rather than a part of one. That is the opposite of the treatment a thesis gets.
Can I reformat this report 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.
