How to cite a web page in Chicago 17
Short answer
How do you cite a web page in Chicago 17?
You need author or organisation, year, page title, site name, url, date accessed. The reference list entry looks like this:
Agency, Quality Assurance. "Academic Integrity Charter for Uk Higher Education." QAA. 2025. Accessed August 14, 2026. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity.
The matching in-text citation is (Agency 2025).
Gather the details
You need: Author or organisation, Year, Page title, Site name, URL, Date accessed. Take them from the source itself, not from a database record, which is often incomplete.
Order the elements
Chicago 17 is a footnote style, so the full citation appears in a note and again, reordered, in the bibliography. Follow the pattern in the example below exactly, including its punctuation.
Add the in-text citation
Every reference needs a matching in-text citation. In Chicago 17 that is (Agency 2025). Missing or mismatched in-text citations are penalised more often than formatting slips.
Check against your own guide
Institutional variants exist, particularly in Harvard. Where your department's published guide differs from any generator, the department's guide wins.
What you need
Details to collect
- Author or organisation
- Year
- Page title
- Site name
- URL
- Date accessed
Watch out
Mistakes this pairing invites
- Concluding there is no date without checking the page source or copyright line.
- Using the site name as the author when a named author is present.
- Omitting the access date in styles that require it, such as Harvard and MLA.
- Two distinct systems — notes–bibliography and author–date. They are not interchangeable.
- Footnotes use commas where the bibliography uses full stops.
Compare
The same web page in all eight styles
Agency, Q. A. (2025) Academic integrity charter for uk higher education. Available at: https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity (Accessed: 14 August 2026).
Agency, Q. A. (2025). Academic integrity charter for uk higher education. QAA. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity
Agency, Quality Assurance. "Academic Integrity Charter for Uk Higher Education." QAA, 2025, https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity. Accessed 14 August 2026.
Chicago 17
This pageAgency, Quality Assurance. "Academic Integrity Charter for Uk Higher Education." QAA. 2025. Accessed August 14, 2026. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity.
Agency QA. Academic integrity charter for uk higher education [Internet]. QAA; 2025 [cited 14 August 2026]. Available from: https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity
Quality Assurance Agency, 'Academic Integrity Charter for Uk Higher Education' (QAA, 2025) <https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity> accessed 14 August 2026
Q. A. Agency, "Academic integrity charter for uk higher education," QAA, 2025. Accessed: August 14, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity
Agency QA. Academic integrity charter for uk higher education. QAA. Published 2025. Accessed August 14, 2026. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity
Frequently asked questions
- How do you cite a web page in Chicago 17?
- Agency, Quality Assurance. "Academic Integrity Charter for Uk Higher Education." QAA. 2025. Accessed August 14, 2026. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/academic-integrity. — that is the reference list entry. The matching in-text citation is (Agency 2025). You need author or organisation, year, page title, site name, url, date accessed.
- What details do I need to cite a web page?
- Author or organisation, Year, Page title, Site name, URL, Date accessed. If a detail is genuinely unavailable, most styles have a defined substitute — for example 'n.d.' or 'no date' where no publication year exists — rather than simply omitting the element.
- What is the in-text citation for a web page in Chicago 17?
- (Agency 2025). The number refers to a footnote at the bottom of the page carrying the full citation on first use and a short form thereafter.