Q. In an informal meeting with a colleague she mentioned a statistic that is of great help with my master’s thesis. How do I cite in text as well as in the bibliography this oral information?
A. A bibliography is better suited for published works than for conversations and informal sources. To cite your friend in the text or in a note, give her name and the date and place. Please see CMOS 14.214 for examples of such citations. (Ideally, you will also be able to explain why she is an authority on the subject.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am editing a book that will be published as a series of individual chapters online. The author uses the author-date system for references and footnotes. Each chapter has its own bibliography that includes references cited and other works. What format should we use for this bibliography, author followed by date (as in a reference list) or author followed by title of the work (as in the notes-bibliography system)? In the second case should the list be called Bibliography? (It includes both works cited and others.)
A. If citations are author-date, then references must also be author-date. You can find samples of Chicago-style author-date reference list entries at our Citation Quick Guide. As you can see from the guide, what you have isn’t a bibliography, which takes a different form. Works Cited or Reference List is the conventional title. Although neither of these normally contains further reading, there’s no harm in their doing so. If you want to be very clear, use the title Reference List and Further Reading.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do you author-date cite multiple quotations by the author in one paragraph?
A. If it’s clear from the context that the quotations are all from the same source, you can combine the page citations at the end of the paragraph, in the order they appear (Charles 1991, 47, 212, 21). If the source is clear but the quotations are many and scattered, after the first author-date citation (Charles 1991, 47) you may put simple page citations at the end of each quote thereafter (212).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Using the author-date system, how do I include an in-text reference to a website? What goes in the parens? The URL? The title of the page? There’s no author, and it’s not part of a journal or a book.
A. A website is not always a good candidate for an author-date citation, but you can find examples of how to cite them in our Citation Quick Guide (scroll to “Website content”).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do I cite a single-volume book that contains two books by two different authors but with one editor? (This is a contemporary publication of two eighteenth-century novellas.)
A. Even such a book must have a title, so you may cite it as you would any other book that has an editor and no author (CMOS 14.103). In the unusual case that there is no collective title—that your work consists of two works bound together—just do your best to describe the work:
Author A, Title A, and Author B, Title B (City: Publisher, date).
or
Author A, Title A (City: Publisher, date), and Author B, Title B (City: Publisher, date). Bound as a single volume.
In a bibliography, add a cross-reference under Author B: see Author A.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How does one cite a food label? My friend is writing her dissertation on the local-food movement and branding (among other things), and she’s curious about how to properly cite some labels she’s using in her research.
A. There is no particular “proper” way to cite a food label in the sense that a style manual will include an example you can follow. Even so, it’s understandable that your friend wants something more scholarly than “I saw this Twinkie label . . .” Following general guidelines for citing, your friend should list whatever will help a reader locate the label to check it personally, such as the brand, the type of food, the type of packaging, the date on the label, or the date observed. There is no point in trying to force the information into a standard note or bibliography citation format. Photos of the labels might be more helpful than pseudocitations.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am editing an article that includes the following citation:
Lactantii Firmiani, Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem, ed. J. Davisius (Cantabrigia, 1718).
The author of the book is actually Lactantius Firmianus, and his book is entitled Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem. But the edition cited is entitled Lactantii Firmiani Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem. So should I change it to Lactantii Firmiani Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem (all italics, no comma) and not put in the author’s undeclined name (although that might be confusing when text references have it undeclined)? Or should I change it to Lactantius Firmianus, Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem (leaving Lactantii Firmiani out of the title, since it’s not part of the original title)? Or should I write Lactantius Firmianus, Lactantii Firmiani Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem? Furthermore, should I cite the editor as J. Davisius (as printed in the book) or J. Davis (which was his real name)? Aaaarrrgh!!!!
A. It’s best to cite the information as it appears (presumably) on the book itself, as in your first version. If you feel the need to gloss any part of it (rarely necessary for classical authors and places), do so in square brackets:
[Lactantius Firmianus], Lactantii Firmiani, Epitome Divinarum Institutionum ad Pentadium Fratrem, ed. J. Davisius [J. Davis] (Cantabrigia [Cambridge], 1718).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When can we use apud in a note?
A. Apud (Latin for “at,” “beside,” “within”) precedes the name of an author or title to indicate a source. It is used like the French word chez to mean “in the works of” or “according to”: apud Homer. It’s appropriate for those occasions when you just want to impress classics teachers or elderly readers and it doesn’t really matter whether anyone else understands.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I searched high and low but could not find how to cite computer programs according to the CMOS. It’s a rather complicated thing, it seems to me, with programs published by many anonymous people
on the net, ever-changing versions (do these need a date?), and even very obscure and obsolete programs running on long-forgotten
operating systems. I’d love to know the rules!
A. A computer program is not well suited to citing; instead, you may simply identify it. Generally the name and version are
sufficient, but if you have other information that your readers will find useful (e.g., the maker or the year it was introduced),
include it as well.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’ve always thought that when you use any as a pronoun it should be treated as singular. But in the following sentences, “Do they all match?
Is any missing?” using is feels awkward. Does any in this case refer to they in the previous sentence?
A. Yes, it does. Any can be singular or plural (which I’m sure by now you have learned from checking the dictionary you
keep at hand): “Have you checked the pizza? Is any missing?” or “Have
you checked the Twinkies? Are any missing?” Both are correct (and around here, most likely missing).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]