Q. In our reference section, websites will not show dates (of access or site creation). Where would you then place a website
entry (without a date) within an alphabetized entry that has numerous em-dash entries by the same author? Thank you.
A. Chicago style uses n.d. to mean “no date” at the beginning of such an entry.
You can put all the n.d. items together at the top or bottom of that author’s works, arranged in alphabetical
order by title.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hi. I need to list resources in many documents, and sometimes URL listings are not enough. How can I find author information at websites?
A. Are you asking how to find out who is the author of a given website? I’m afraid I can’t help you—if the owner of the site hasn’t posted his or her name, I don’t think there’s any way to know. It’s just one of the reasons that some internet documents may not be suitable for citing in careful research.
Update from another reader: If you want to find out the owner of a website (its domain) you can look it up using the Whois database from InterNIC. It will tell you who owns the domain name. While it may not tell the person doing the search who is the author of a particular article, it will give contact information for the owner of the domain, such as his or her email address, and that person may be able to answer questions such as who is the author of a particular article.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I would like to quote a sentence from my textbook that was initially a quote from another source. Which source do I cite? Do I cite my textbook or the original source (or both)?
A. Please see CMOS 14.260: “To cite a source from a secondary source (‘quoted in . . .’) is generally to be discouraged, since authors are expected to have examined the works they cite. If an original source is unavailable, however, both the original and the secondary source must be listed.” Here’s an example:
1. Louis Zukofsky, “Sincerity and Objectification,” Poetry 37 (February 1931): 269, quoted in Bonnie Costello, Marianne Moore: Imaginary Possessions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 78.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I was wondering how I would cite an educational movie. Thank you.
A. CMOS doesn’t answer this question, but it’s one of the most frequently asked. I’m
getting the impression that research papers are a lot more fun than they used to be. When you cite a book, you include author
or editor, title, place of publication, and year. So for a movie, you could treat the director like an editor, and style it
something like this:
Movie Title. Directed by Mary Smith. Hollywood, CA: Bigshot Productions, 2004.
When you have to deal with odd citations, just include all the information you think your readers will want or need, and
don’t worry too much about how to style the bits that don’t fit into the conventional
format. Try to style similar citations in the same way.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How many lines of a published poem or song may be quoted in an article or book manuscript without having to obtain the author or lyric writer’s permission? And, what if the author or lyric writer is deceased?
A. The legalities of quoting poetry and music lyrics—even just a line or two—are very strict and complex. If you don’t have knowledge of them yourself, you should work closely with your publisher to make sure permissions are in order. (CMOS, chapter 4, presents an overview of rights and permissions issues.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am a writer and occasionally quote material from my own works, some that have been published and some that are not published
but are available as working papers. Should I handle these quotations the same as I would those of other authors? What about
paraphrased material—do I need to reference that? Does it make a difference if the material is published
or unpublished, and if I hold the copyright or the publisher holds the copyright?
A. Many scholars use their own material, but instead of quoting themselves, they put a note somewhere that portions of the work
were previously published, and they give full references to the original publications. If the amount of recycled material
is significant, rather than what amounts to fair use, you may indeed need permission, regardless of who owns the copyright,
and you should let the permissions office of your publisher see a draft so they can tell you whether this is the case.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am confused about how to cite a video recording of a live performance (an opera). It was originally performed and recorded by a Metropolitan Opera Television production in 1991, but a 2000 version (a rerelease in DVD format) is being distributed by another organization. It also comes in the 1991 version in the VHS format. It is important to distinguish between the two for a variety of reasons, especially if someone were looking for the DVD. The 2000 DVD is in German, but can have subtitles in English, Chinese, and French. How would I cite the 2000 DVD?
A. CMOS gives several examples of how to cite musical recordings in paragraph 14.263. Probably the closest to your example would be the following:
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Don Giovanni. Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Sir Colin Davis. With Ingvar Wixell, Luigi Roni, Martina Arroyo, Stuart Burrows, Kiri Te Kanawa, et al. Recorded May 1973. Philips 422 541-2, 1991, 3 compact discs.
In styling your citation, you’d put the facts about the DVD in place of the information about the compact discs. If you needed to, you could add “Also available in VHS from . . .” When you have extra bits of information that don’t appear in one of our examples, include everything you think your readers will want or need. State the facts clearly without worrying too much about how to style them. For instance, to your DVD citation you could add “In German. Includes subtitles in English, Chinese, and French.” Try to style all similar citations in the same way.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What is the proper way to reference an email in a report?
A. To cite any form of personal correspondence, give the person’s name, the medium of the correspondence (letter, fax, email), and the date. For the sake of privacy, do not cite the sender’s address (home or email). See CMOS 14.214 and 15.53.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When writing an academic paper that is based on the analysis of one book, do you need to footnote each sentence that paraphrases an idea from the book or does the fact that it is known and stated that the entire paper is an analysis of the book’s themes sufficient?
A. You should be very careful to cite the page references to every idea you use from another source. You don’t have to create a whole new footnote for each one. In the first footnote, where you give a complete citation, you can add “Hereafter cited in the text.” Then you can cite further page references in parentheses in the text (Jones, Methods, 312). See CMOS 13.67 for more ideas on how to treat frequent references to a single source.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How would you treat web page citations where access to the web pages is restricted?
A. So much internet content—after connection costs and the price of hardware and software—still seems to be free. But before this age of “free” access to thousands of newspapers and scores of ancient, out-of-copyright works, you could still cite, for example, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a subscription to which has probably never been free. And just as we don’t recommend including costs and availability in citations to books or journals, we don’t require or recommend any statement related to accessibility when citing an internet source. For one thing, the status and location of online material is so often subject to change that any such information is likely to become obsolete and possibly misleading. And, as has long been the case, libraries can provide access to many materials that may not be available to individuals.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]