How to Cite a Magazine Article in Chicago Style
Chicago cites a magazine by author, headline, italicized magazine title, and the cover date — not by volume and issue. This page follows the Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition (2024), §§14.87–14.88, plus the Notes-Bibliography and Author-Date Quick Guide magazine samples. It is the weekly and monthly periodical page. Daily newspapers and news sites live on How to Cite a Newspaper Article in Chicago Style.
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How to Cite a Magazine Article in Chicago: Quick Answer
Name the writer if there is a byline, put the article title in quotation marks, italicize the magazine, and give month, day, and year as the issue printed them. Weekly and monthly magazines are cited by that date even when a volume and issue number sit on the masthead. In a note you may add a page you actually quoted. Inclusive page ranges do not belong in the bibliography, because magazine features often jump over ads. For an online piece, add a URL or, if that URL is a poor substitute, the name of the library database.
CMOS 18 magazine templates
Notes-Bibliography first note:
First Name Last Name, “Article Title,” Magazine Title, Month Day, Year, page, URL or Database.
Notes-Bibliography shortened note:
Last Name, “Shortened Title,” page.
Notes-Bibliography bibliography:
Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Magazine Title, Month Day, Year. URL or Database.
Author-Date in-text:
(Last Name Year, page)
Author-Date reference list:
Last Name, First Name. Year. “Article Title.” Magazine Title, Month Day. URL or Database.
Author-date already places the year after the name. Do not write the year a second time after the month and day. That is a CMOS 18 habit. The still-current Turabian 9th-edition Author-Date Quick Guide says it can be helpful to repeat the year; do not treat that student handbook as CMOS 18. The atomic how-to-cite page shows one formatted magazine; this guide is the workflow around it.
Official CMOS 18 Wording
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, Notes and Bibliography
Articles from newspapers or news sites, magazines, blogs, and the like are cited similarly. Page numbers, if any, can be cited in a note but are omitted from a bibliography entry. For articles consulted online, include a URL or the name of the database.
Readers’ comments are cited in the text or in a note but omitted from a bibliography.
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, Notes and Bibliography, “News or magazine article.” CMOS points to 14.87–14.88 for magazines and 14.89–14.98 for newspapers and news sites.
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, Author-Date
Articles from newspapers or news sites, magazines, blogs, and the like are cited similarly. Page numbers, if any, can be cited in the text but are omitted from a reference list entry. For articles consulted online, include a URL or the name of the database.
Readers’ comments are cited in the text but omitted from a reference list.
Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide, Author-Date, “News or magazine article.”
CMOS 18 §14.87, as reprinted by university libraries
Weekly or monthly (or bimonthly) magazines, even if numbered by volume and issue, are usually cited by date only.
To cite an article consulted online, authors should include a URL or, if no suitable URL is available, the name of the database...Specific page numbers may not be available but may be cited if they are
The date-only sentence is CMOS 18 §14.87 as university guides reprint it (RMIT Easy Cite; Shorter University; University of Manitoba). The URL-or-database sentence is CMOS 18 §14.87 as Douglas College reprints it. The handbook HTML itself is paywalled.
Official Quick Guide Magazine Samples
The Quick Guide “News or magazine article” family mixes newspapers and magazines. The newspaper page already owns Blum and Pegoraro. This page owns the two magazine specimens: Rebecca Mead’s print New Yorker feature and Elana Klein’s online Wired story. Those lines are official CMOS 18 samples, not stand-ins.
Official CMOS 18 Quick Guide print magazine (Mead)
First note:
2. Rebecca Mead, “Terms of Aggrievement,” New Yorker, December 18, 2023, 21.
Shortened note:
6. Mead, “Terms of Aggrievement,” 23–24.
Bibliography:
Mead, Rebecca. “Terms of Aggrievement.” New Yorker, December 18, 2023.
Author-Date in text:
(Mead 2023, 21)
Author-Date reference list:
Mead, Rebecca. 2023. “Terms of Aggrievement.” New Yorker, December 18.
The Quick Guide models the print issue: department title “Terms of Aggrievement,” cover date December 18, 2023, a quoted page in the note, and no URL. The 18 December 2023 issue still lists that Leo Reich profile. The live online file uses a different headline and an earlier web date.
Same Mead feature on the public website (not the Quick Guide wording)
Web headline and URL:
Rebecca Mead, “A Gen Z Comedian Strafes His Elders—and Himself,” New Yorker, December 18, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/18/a-gen-z-comedian-strafes-his-elders-and-himself.
The public page heading is the web headline. The contributor line in the print issue calls the piece “Terms of Aggrievement.” The online file also displays December 8, 2023, which is a web date, not the cover date CMOS cites. Cite the copy you read. Do not mix the print title with the web date, and do not invent pages 21 or 23–24 unless you had the print issue.
Official CMOS 18 Quick Guide online magazine (Klein)
First note:
4. Elana Klein, “Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff,” Wired, December 21, 2023, https://www.wired.com/story/flip-viral-video-app-shopping-free-stuff/.
Shortened note:
8. Klein, “Meet Flip.”
Bibliography:
Klein, Elana. “Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff.” Wired, December 21, 2023. https://www.wired.com/story/flip-viral-video-app-shopping-free-stuff/.
Author-Date in text:
(Klein 2023)
Author-Date reference list:
Klein, Elana. 2023. “Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff.” Wired, December 21. https://www.wired.com/story/flip-viral-video-app-shopping-free-stuff/.
Klein is the official online-magazine specimen: cover date, no volume or issue, a stable story URL, and no page numbers. SNHU reprints the same Mead and Klein lines under CMOS 18 §14.87. If your assignment names notes-bibliography or author-date, follow that instruction. If it only says “Chicago,” history and most humanities courses want notes and a bibliography.
Magazine, Journal, or Newspaper?
Students lose points when they force a New Yorker feature into the journal pattern or treat Harper's Magazine like a daily paper. A scholarly journal is built to be retrieved by volume, issue, page range, and often a DOI. A magazine is built to be retrieved by the week or month on the cover. A newspaper is a dated dispatch that may exist in several editions the same day. Chicago’s magazine rules sit next door to its newspaper rules, but the two pages are not interchangeable: magazines more often have a useful note page, they rarely need an edition statement, and a long feature is more likely to earn a bibliography line.
| You are citing | Typical locating facts | Use this guide |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly or monthly magazine (New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Scientific American, Wired, Time) | Cover date; optional note page; URL or database | This page (CMOS 14.87–14.88) |
| Peer-reviewed journal | Volume, issue, page range, DOI | Journal articles in Chicago (14.67–14.86) |
| Daily newspaper or news site | Full date; optional edition or section; URL or database | Newspaper articles in Chicago (14.89–14.98) |
| Ordinary website that is not a dated magazine story | Site owner, page title, revision or access date | Websites in Chicago (14.104) |
A science story in Scientific American is still a magazine article even when it reports a journal study. Cite the magazine you read. If you later quote the underlying journal article, that second source uses the journal pattern. For help telling popular periodicals from scholarly ones, see Scholarly vs Popular Sources.
Current Edition: Chicago 18th (2024)
Cite magazines from The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition, published by the University of Chicago Press in September 2024. Older handouts still describe the 17th edition (2017), where the same date-only rule lived at §14.188. CMOS 18 moved magazines to §§14.87–14.88 and newspapers to §§14.89–14.98.
Turabian 9th edition is still the live student handbook, and it follows CMOS 17. Its Author-Date Quick Guide still repeats the year after month and day. The University of Chicago Press lists Turabian 10 for 24 November 2026; it is announced, not in force. Do not write that Turabian 9 implements CMOS 18.
Official Turabian 9 Author-Date wording (not CMOS 18)
In the reference list, it can be helpful to repeat the year with sources that are cited also by month and day.
Turabian 9 magazine sample:
Cunningham, Vinson. 2017. “You Don’t Understand: John McWhorter Makes His Case for Black English.” New Yorker, May 15, 2017.
Same source in CMOS 18 Author-Date:
Cunningham, Vinson. 2017. “You Don’t Understand: John McWhorter Makes His Case for Black English.” New Yorker, May 15.
Turabian Citation Quick Guide, Author-Date, “News or magazine article.” CMOS 18 Mead and Klein drop the second year. Follow the manual your syllabus named.
Three 18th-edition habits show up constantly. First, an initial The is capitalized and italicized in running text when it is part of the official name — write The New Yorker or The Atlantic in a sentence — but CMOS still lets you drop The in the source citation. The Quick Guide examples use New Yorker and Wired. Second, an author-date reference already carries the year after the writer’s name, so the month and day after the magazine title do not repeat that year. Third, a specific page belongs in a note when you have the print issue; the bibliography still omits the inclusive span.
| Question | CMOS 18 paragraph | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Signed magazine feature | 14.87–14.88 | Author, title, italicized magazine, date; URL or database if online |
| Unsigned magazine piece | 14.87 | Note may start with the article title; bibliography lists the magazine in the author position |
| Notes-only option | 14.96 | Like news, a magazine piece cited once may stay in the note |
| Newspaper or news site | 14.89–14.98 | Same family; see the newspaper guide |
| Book review | 14.100 | Add “review of Book Title, by Author” after the review headline |
| Year in author-date | 14.87 / 14.89 | Do not write the year twice in the CMOS 18 reference list |
Notes-Bibliography Format
In notes-bibliography, the first citation is a full footnote or endnote. Later citations use a shortened note: family name plus a shortened title. CMOS 13.32–13.39 is the general shortened-note rule. Keep the words that identify the feature — Klein’s “Meet Flip, the Viral Video App Giving Away Free Stuff” shortens to “Meet Flip.” CMOS 18 prefers that shortened form over ibid.
Weekly print feature
Jill Lepore’s Wonder Woman essay ran in the 22 September 2014 New Yorker under the department title “The Last Amazon.” The online file is at newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/last-amazon. The public page also displays September 15, 2014, which is a web date. CMOS wants the cover date in the /2014/09/22/ path. Cite the copy you read. If you have the print issue and quote a page, put that page in the note only.
First note:
1. Jill Lepore, “The Last Amazon,” New Yorker, September 22, 2014, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/last-amazon.
Shortened note:
2. Lepore, “Last Amazon.”
Bibliography:
Lepore, Jill. “The Last Amazon.” New Yorker, September 22, 2014. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/last-amazon.
Monthly magazine
Monthly magazines often print only a month and year. Rebecca Solnit’s essay “The Mother of All Questions” appeared in the October 2015 Harper's Magazine and is archived at harpers.org/archive/2015/10/the-mother-of-all-questions/. Do not invent a day the cover does not show.
First note:
3. Rebecca Solnit, “The Mother of All Questions,” Harper's Magazine, October 2015, https://harpers.org/archive/2015/10/the-mother-of-all-questions/.
Shortened note:
4. Solnit, “Mother of All Questions.”
Bibliography:
Solnit, Rebecca. “The Mother of All Questions.” Harper's Magazine, October 2015. https://harpers.org/archive/2015/10/the-mother-of-all-questions/.
Combined season or double issue
Some magazines print a joined date on the cover. Sarah Elizabeth Adler’s “The Power of Negative Thinking” is the January/February 2018 Atlantic feature at theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/the-power-of-negativity/546560/. Keep the slash the magazine used. Do not recast the issue as “January 2018” merely because the URL contains /2018/01/.
Note:
5. Sarah Elizabeth Adler, “The Power of Negative Thinking,” Atlantic, January/February 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/the-power-of-negativity/546560/.
Bibliography:
Adler, Sarah Elizabeth. “The Power of Negative Thinking.” Atlantic, January/February 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/the-power-of-negativity/546560/.
Science magazine reporting a study
Jason G. Goldman’s “Lizards Learn a Silly Walk after Losing Their Tails” is the 1 December 2017 Scientific American report at scientificamerican.com/article/lizards-learn-a-silly-walk-after-losing-their-tails/. Cite Scientific American, not the Scientific Reports paper Goldman summarizes, unless you also read that paper.
Note:
7. Jason G. Goldman, “Lizards Learn a Silly Walk after Losing Their Tails,” Scientific American, December 1, 2017, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lizards-learn-a-silly-walk-after-losing-their-tails/.
Bibliography:
Goldman, Jason G. “Lizards Learn a Silly Walk after Losing Their Tails.” Scientific American, December 1, 2017. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lizards-learn-a-silly-walk-after-losing-their-tails/.
Unsigned magazine article
Do not write Anonymous. CMOS 14.87: if an unsigned article is listed in the bibliography, the magazine title stands in the author position so the item sorts under the publication. In a note you may begin with the article title. For more missing-author cases, see How to Cite a Source with No Author.
| Form | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Note | “Article Title,” Magazine Title, Month Day, Year, URL. |
| Bibliography | Magazine Title. “Article Title.” Month Day, Year. URL. |
Database instead of a session URL
When you read a magazine through EBSCOhost, ProQuest, Gale, or a publisher archive, the address bar is often a long proxy string that dies when your session ends. CMOS 14.87 prefers a stable article URL when one exists. If the only locator is that session string, name the database and stop. Do not cite the database as if it were the magazine, and do not add “Retrieved from.” The Quick Guide’s Pegoraro line on the newspaper page is the official database specimen in this family: Washington Post plus LexisNexis Academic, not a proxy URL.
| Form | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Note | First Name Last Name, “Article Title,” Magazine Title, Month Day, Year, Database Name. |
| Bibliography | Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Magazine Title, Month Day, Year. Database Name. |
Do magazine articles belong in the bibliography?
Sometimes. CMOS 14.96 says magazine pieces, like newspaper stories, can be cited in notes or in the text without a matching bibliography entry. That option exists for a passing mention. A 6,000-word New Yorker feature you analyze for ten pages is not a passing mention. Include a bibliography entry when the magazine is a main source, when you cite several pieces from the same title, or when the syllabus wants every note source listed.
Note only is enough
- A single statistic or anecdote used once
- A letter to the editor
- A reader comment on a magazine site
- A short unsigned brief
Add a bibliography entry
- The feature is a central source
- You cite the same magazine throughout a chapter
- The syllabus says every source must be listed
- You need the magazine to alphabetize as a corporate author
Author-Date Format
Author-date moves the year beside the name and drops footnotes. The parenthetical citation is (Last Name Year, page). The reference-list entry still italicizes the magazine and still uses the cover date — it simply places the year after the writer and does not repeat that year after the month and day. The author-date Quick Guide uses the same news-or-magazine family as the notes guide.
The same verified magazine features in CMOS 18 author-date
In text:
(Lepore 2014)
Reference list:
Lepore, Jill. 2014. “The Last Amazon.” New Yorker, September 22. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/last-amazon.
In text:
(Solnit 2015)
Reference list:
Solnit, Rebecca. 2015. “The Mother of All Questions.” Harper's Magazine, October. https://harpers.org/archive/2015/10/the-mother-of-all-questions/.
In text:
(Adler 2018)
Reference list:
Adler, Sarah Elizabeth. 2018. “The Power of Negative Thinking.” Atlantic, January/February. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/the-power-of-negativity/546560/.
Wrong in CMOS 18: Lepore, Jill. 2014. “The Last Amazon.” New Yorker, September 22, 2014. Right: the year appears once, after the name. If you have no date at all, see How to Cite a Source with No Date and add an access date only when CMOS requires one.
Book Reviews, Departments, and Sunday Magazines
A review in a magazine follows CMOS 14.100: after the review headline, add “review of Book Title, by Book Author,” then the magazine and date. The Quick Guide’s official review sample is a newspaper line — Alexandra Jacobs on Mary Gabriel’s Madonna: A Rebel Life in the New York Times — and lives on the newspaper page. Magazine reviews use the same pattern. Regular departments (Talk of the Town, The Mail) are capitalized and not placed in quotation marks; the specific piece still takes quotation marks if it has its own title. A Sunday newspaper magazine is cited under that magazine title — New York Times Magazine, not New York Times — and otherwise follows this page rather than the daily-paper page.
| Form | Pattern |
|---|---|
| Note | First Name Last Name, “Review Headline,” review of Book Title, by Book Author, Magazine Title, Month Day, Year. |
| Bibliography | Last Name, First Name. “Review Headline.” Review of Book Title, by Book Author. Magazine Title, Month Day, Year. |
Letters to the editor are usually notes only: First Name Last Name, letter to the editor, Magazine Title, Month Day, Year. Do not invent a correspondent. Cite the letter you actually have.
When a Magazine Is the Right Source
Long-form magazines are not automatically weaker than journals. For cultural history, contemporary reporting, and public argument, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper's Magazine are standard evidence. Treat them as what they are: edited journalism, not peer-reviewed research. When you need the study behind a science feature, go to the journal. When you need a contemporary reaction to an event, the magazine feature is the primary source — the same way a historical newspaper is. Record the cover date carefully; later web updates can change wording, and New Yorker online files often display a web date that is not the issue date.
Common Errors
1. Citing a magazine as if it were a journal
Do not write New Yorker 90, no. 29 (2014): 64–73. CMOS wants September 22, 2014. Volume and issue are extra, not a substitute for the date.
2. Copying the web headline and the web date
The official Mead sample is “Terms of Aggrievement,” December 18, 2023, page 21. The public file uses a different headline and shows December 8. Lepore’s public file shows September 15; the issue is September 22. Cite the version you used. Do not invent the print title or the note page if you only had the website.
3. Inventing a day, a page, or a DOI
A monthly cover that says “October 2015” is cited as October 2015. Online magazines often have no stable pagination and no DOI. Omit both rather than guessing. An access date is unnecessary when the publication date is printed on the story.
4. Repeating the year in CMOS 18 author-date
Once the year sits after the name, the rest of the date is month and day only. This is the same CMOS 18 habit the newspaper page teaches at §14.89. Turabian 9 may still repeat the year; that is a different handbook.
5. Pasting a proxy or tracking URL
Cite the canonical story URL. Strip utm_ tags. If the only address is a campus-proxy session string, name the database instead.
6. Mixing The in prose and in citations
In a sentence, write The New Yorker when that is the official name. In citations, drop The and stay consistent: New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, Wired.
7. Treating the database as the publication
EBSCOhost and ProQuest are how you opened the file. The source is still Time or Atlantic. Name the database only as a locator.
A Practical Workflow
Before you leave the article
- Copy the byline exactly; if there is none, plan to start with the article title or the magazine
- Copy the headline as the copy you read printed it (print department title or web headline, not both mixed)
- Record the magazine title and decide whether a citation drops an official The
- Record the cover date as printed (day, month only, or January/February), not an earlier web-publish date
- Save the canonical URL or the database name, not the proxy address bar
- Note a page only if you have the print issue and you quoted that page
- Decide now whether this feature is a passing note or a bibliography-level source
Then format once in the system your course named. The Chicago generator and the magazine citation generator will arrange the same fields. The Chicago cheat sheet is the punctuation reminder. For APA’s version of the same source type, see How to Cite a Magazine Article in APA.
Generate the Chicago magazine citation
Paste the article URL or enter the byline, headline, magazine, and cover date. Switch between notes-bibliography and author-date without retyping the source.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I cite a magazine article in Chicago style?
- Give the author, article title in quotation marks, italicized magazine, and the cover date. In notes-bibliography that is a first note plus an optional bibliography line. In author-date it is (Last Name Year) plus a reference-list entry that does not repeat the year after the month and day. CMOS 18 §§14.87–14.88.
- Do I include volume and issue numbers for a magazine?
- No. Weekly, monthly, and bimonthly magazines are cited by date even when they also number volumes and issues (CMOS 18 §14.87). Save volume and issue for scholarly journals.
- Should magazine page numbers go in the bibliography?
- No. A specific page you quoted may appear in a note or in an author-date parenthetical. Inclusive page ranges are omitted from the bibliography because magazine features are often split by advertisements. The official Mead sample puts 21 in the note and omits pages from the bibliography. Online pieces with no pagination simply omit the page.
- How do I cite an online magazine article in Chicago?
- Cite it like the print feature, then add the article URL. The official Klein sample is the model. If the URL is a database session string, name the database instead. An access date is needed only when no publication date is available.
- The New Yorker website title does not match the Chicago Quick Guide. Which do I use?
- Cite the version you read. CMOS’s official Mead sample uses the print department title “Terms of Aggrievement” and the 18 December 2023 cover date, with page 21 and no URL. The public file is headed “A Gen Z Comedian Strafes His Elders—and Himself” and shows a 8 December web date. Do not mix those facts.
- How do I cite a magazine article with no author?
- Do not use Anonymous. In a note, begin with the article title. In a bibliography entry, put the magazine title in the author position so the item sorts under the publication (CMOS 14.87). See How to Cite a Source with No Author.
- Do magazine articles need a Chicago bibliography entry?
- Not always. CMOS 14.96 allows a note-only citation for a piece mentioned once. Add a bibliography entry when the feature is a main source, when you cite the same magazine repeatedly, or when your instructor wants every source listed.
- Is Scientific American cited as a journal or as a magazine?
- As a magazine: author, title, Scientific American, and the cover date, plus a URL if you read it online. Do not add a volume–issue–page-range journal pattern unless you are actually citing a scholarly journal, not the magazine report of that journal.
- How do I cite a book review that appeared in a magazine?
- Use CMOS 14.100. After the review headline, add “review of Book Title, by Book Author,” then the magazine and date. The official Quick Guide review sample is Jacobs in the New York Times; a magazine review uses the same wording. Put a page in the note if you have one. The bibliography omits the inclusive page span.
- Does Turabian cite magazines the same way as Chicago 18?
- Not quite. Turabian 9 is still the live student handbook and follows CMOS 17. Its author-date Quick Guide repeats the year after month and day. CMOS 18 does not. Turabian 10 is listed for 24 November 2026 and is not in force. Your department may also require a full bibliography; that is a local rule. See Turabian vs Chicago.
Related Guides
- How to Cite a Newspaper Article in Chicago Style
- How to Cite a Journal Article in Chicago Style
- How to Cite a Website in Chicago Style
- How to Cite a Magazine Article in APA
- Turabian vs Chicago
- Scholarly vs Popular Sources
- How to Cite a Source with No Author
- Chicago notes-bibliography style page
- Chicago author-date style page
- Chicago cheat sheet