Q. I have a question about citing archival documents for an organization whose name has changed. The records in the archive
are under one name, but the name during the period discussed in the paper was another name. We want to ensure that readers
can get back to the actual documents. One option we discussed is including text in the first note that explains this difference
in names.
A. Exactly. Explain in a note or as an annotation to the citation itself. Withhold the information only if you wish to cause
confusion and wild goose chases.
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am editing a thesis, and for the bibliography I have arranged titles by the same author in alphabetical order. Librarians at the university have told me that these titles should be in chronological order. Is there an error in the Chicago Manual of Style Online?
A. Chicago style for ordering titles in bibliographies is alphabetical. However, if you are in fact editing a reference list instead of a bibliography, the order would be chronological. (See CMOS 13.2 or our Quick Guide to determine which you are editing.) Please note too that most universities have rules and guidelines for formatting citations, and not all follow CMOS.
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m using Shelley Jackson’s short story “Skin”
as a primary source in an article I’m writing, but the story is published only as tattoos on the bodies
of volunteers (one word per volunteer). How do I cite this work?
A. Cite it the same way you would “cite” your sandwich or your miniblinds or the
fluff under your bathroom rug—not by trying to pretend it is a bibliographic source, but simply by telling
what it is. In the text or in a note, write something like “Shelley Jackson’s
‘Skin’ is a story published only as tattoos on the bodies of volunteers (one word
per volunteer).”
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hi—I’m editing a MS where the author has included the page reference for a quotation
as follows:
. . . a performative intervention that would “challenge the conceptual categories that frame”
such historical encounters (Merrill 2006, 65).
Is the citation placement correct? In APA the citation immediately follows the quotation, e.g.,
. . . that frame” (Merrill 2006, p. 65) such historical encounters.
But as the author has adopted this generally as a style, I’m thinking it might be right according to
Chicago (with which I am less familiar). Can you help, please?
A. CMOS does not dictate a single approach to placing citations, but if you move a citation, you must be careful not to change the
nature of the attribution. Presumably your writer wants to attribute the entire thought to Merrill 2006, but APA style obscures
that point (in addition to separating the verb from the direct object). If you move citations in this MS, be prepared to explain
why, and ask the author to check that you haven’t introduced any problems.
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have a question about in-text citations. In my reference list I have website sources that do not have a date of creation or a last modified date. How would I cite these references in the text? Would I use n.d. or the access date following the author in the parentheses?
A. Yes, n.d. stands in for a date that can’t be determined. The date of access may be relegated to the reference list, unless it’s relevant to the discussion in the text. See CMOS 14.104 for more details.
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In a reference list I’m editing, page ranges don’t seem to be provided for chapters in edited volumes. Should I query the author for page numbers?
A. Ideally, the page ranges would be included, but it’s up to you whether to ask for them, require them, or merely point out where they’re missing. Consider how many ranges are missing, how much else there is for the author to tend to, and how much you think the author would care about this if it were pointed out. (You can sometimes guess this from the general level of meticulousness in a manuscript.) You don’t want to peck an author to death, and it’s not a disaster for readers to be without this information, so you might decide to let the matter go.
[Editor’s update: Starting with the 18th edition, page ranges are no longer required for cited chapters in books. See CMOS 13.25.]
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Our group has chosen The Chicago Manual of Style as a reference for our university translation project (textbook on international trade). What I’d like to know is whether, since we have chosen CMOS, it now supersedes the capitalization rules used by the publishing agencies of works cited in the text. For example, would it be “Customs—Trade Partnership Against Terrorism” as it appears on their website or “Customs—Trade Partnership against Terrorism,” following CMOS rules for lowercasing prepositions?
A. Chicago now capitalizes prepositions of five or more letters in title case—including Against—so you can keep the original. But to maintain consistency, you would need to adjust anything that does run contrary to Chicago style. See CMOS 8.160.
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do I acknowledge that a quotation is a translation made by myself? (I’m writing in Dutch; all sources are in English.)
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 copyeditor’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.
[Editor’s update: Chicago no longer requires a place of publication in citations for books, though books published before 1900 are still usually cited by city and date alone. See CMOS 14.30.]
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) 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 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]