Q. At one time, the location of a publisher could be used to get a phone number via directory assistance. This is no longer
how anyone would do it, and publishers have frequently moved, been acquired, and so forth, so the location is often highly
ambiguous. Authors spend tens of thousands of hours annually looking up or making up publisher locations. I’m
staring now at a copy editor’s request that I identify the location of Cambridge University Press—and
the editor says it is because you insist on it. Can you give me any sane reason for this collective expenditure of effort
and print in 2012? It would make me feel better, as it feels like an empty ritual of no contemporary value, engaged in by
a field that is unaware of the digital era. Insistence on archaic rules brings to mind the replicant lament in Blade Runner, “Then we’re stupid and we’ll die.”
A. We are so misunderstood! CMOS is not in the business of insisting on this or that. From our very first edition in 1906 we have stated very clearly that
“rules and regulations such as these, in the nature of the case, cannot be endowed with the fixity of
rock-ribbed law. They are meant for the average case, and must be applied with a certain degree of elasticity.”
As for place of publication, in scholarly research it can be useful in tracking the development of the literature within a
discipline (especially in instances where publishers are old and obscure). In fact, it’s not unusual
for an academic to write a bibliography that includes only the place of publication for each work cited, without the publisher.
When that happens, the editor or publisher must decide whether to require more information.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do you recover from a real proofreading blooper—the kind that has everyone in gales and is terribly
embarrassing?
A. Naturally, we have very little experience with this. Is there absolutely no way to blame it on someone else? If not, you
probably should keep a low profile until it blows over. Lucky for you, proofreaders automatically have a fairly low profile.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I want to cite a newspaper article contained within a microfilm edition that has been scanned into a PDF and is available
online at a (US) state archive. I am inclined to cite it as a newspaper article and include the online database tag at the
end of the citation, ignoring the microfilm finding aids that still define the PDF of the page (reel no., image no., etc.).
Is my inclination correct? And if not, how would I go about citing this article?
A. Your plan is a good one. You can always annotate a citation, if you like, in a note or bibliography. Just add a line with
whatever extra information you think is helpful.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Sometimes a journal is not published during its cover year, and sometimes there is a considerable gap between the cover date
and the actual publication, and it is important to include both dates—the cover date so that the article
can be found, and the publication date so that its up-to-dateness upon publication can be assessed. Should the date be given
as 1989 [1992], or as 1992 [1989]?
A. Journal users typically are aware of the time lag, but if it’s important to note it, simply annotate
the citation. The formulation you suggest might confuse the matter, since it is normally used in citations to indicate date
of original publication and date of reprinting.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Should a Russian journal title appearing in an English-language bibliography be Latinized? Or should both the Russian and
transliterated versions of the journal’s title be listed? Is it correct to transliterate names of journals?
A. This is a matter of editorial judgment rather than correctness. Factors in making the decision include whether your expected
readers are able to read untransliterated Russian, whether special characters can be produced (or typeset), whether the preparer
knows how to transliterate correctly, and whether the publisher (if the document is going to be published) has a policy about
transliteration.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Dear Chicago, what verb tense do you recommend for the literature review section of a scholarly article? APA insists on the
past tense, arguing that any work included in a literature review was obviously published in the past. People writing about
English literature, on the other hand, discuss works in the present tense because readers always experience the book in the
present. I’m editing a Canadian public policy journal, and the author uses the present tense to discuss
works published ten or fifteen years ago. Should I change these tenses to the present perfect? The journal has no in-house
rule on this.
A. Since the use of the present tense in literature reviews is widely accepted, and since any decision about where to cut off
“past” from “present” literature would
have to be arbitrary, using the present tense for everything is a fine option. You shouldn’t worry about
using it if a journal doesn’t express a preference.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hi, there! In a bibliography or reference list, Chicago recommends inverting only the first author’s
name and not subsequent author names. What’s the reason for this? Why not invert all author names? I
trust in Chicago’s expertise, but I would like to know why, because I often have to defend my copyediting
decisions.
A. Because it’s so darned hard to read names backward. You might rather ask the opposite question: why
on earth would anyone reverse the names? The first author’s name is reversed to facilitate alphabetizing,
but there’s no reason to tangle up the rest.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How should one style the titles of blogs? Should they be headline capitalized? In quotation marks? Italicized? Some combination of these? Thank you.
A. Chicago uses italic type. Here’s an example (where “Blog” happens to be part of the title):
In a comment posted to The Becker-Posner Blog on March 6, 2006, Peter Pearson noted . . .
You can find examples of Chicago citation styles in our Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I accessed a website regularly during the course of my research and noted the dates of that access. Today, as I am finalizing
the notes and bibliography, I find that the website was removed! Thus, the link is no longer good or active. Is there a way
you’d like to see this handled?
A. All you can do is note that you accessed it on a certain date. You’re all set.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have a number of federal government publications to cite in endnotes, and it seems I have more information about the publication
than I know where to put. For example, is it better to cite the authors listed or the publishing government agency as the
author? If I list the specific individuals, should I list the agency in the publication information, i.e., “(Washington,
DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1985)”? And if the agency is best listed under publication
information, which level of the agency is best to cite? For example, one document was published by the Department of HHS,
Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, Division of Vital Statistics.
(These are the hierarchy levels.) Finally, if publication numbers are available for these documents, should I include them?
If so, where? After the title, and before publication information? Thanks in advance for your help.
A. Even as our taxpaying hearts swell with pride, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information presented by a single
source like this. The most important guideline in deciding what to include is that you want a reader to be able to understand
the reference well enough to find the source for herself. If an author’s name is given, start the citation
with that. If not, let the department title stand in for the author. (Use the one at the top of the hierarchy. Sometimes this
will mean repeating the department name in the publication information.) Publication numbers are extremely helpful; sometimes
they can take a reader directly to the complete online text when typed into a search engine. Put the number where it makes
sense, usually right before the publication information.
If there are many such references in your document and they all must be cited in full, consider using a list of abbreviations
in order to shorten them. In the example above, DVS could be used to stand for the Department of Health and Human Services,
Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, Division of Vital Statistics.
Finally, there are many university websites that give guidelines for citing government publications (type “citing
government publications” into your search engine). You might also look at The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, published by the Harvard Law Review Association.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]