Q. Hi. I’m creating a handout for students that’s kind of a quick guide to simple
kinds of citations following CMOS and referring them to their copies of CMOS for more info. I’m having trouble finding your preference for television show citations. I can find
info on citing them within a text or for citing reviews, but how about citing the actual program in a bibliography?
A. Here goes:
Friends. Season 7, episode 7, “The One with Ross’s Library Book.” Directed by David Schwimmer and written by Scott Silveri. Aired November 16, 2000, on NBC.
You can also list under the name of the director. See CMOS, chapter 14, for more examples.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am attempting to proofread and fix the style of the endnotes of a book on communications for a generally humanities audience. My problem is that the author of the book is a lawyer and has cited many law review articles that he considers governed by the Bluebook style. Should I use the general style for citing periodicals in CMOS for the legal articles? As it is, the humanities articles are in CMOS format and the law review articles are in Bluebook format. This hybrid style doesn’t seem acceptable to me. Please help.
A. I agree that only one style should prevail for journal articles. If the audience were primarily legal scholars, I would advocate following Bluebook style for all citations, journal articles and otherwise; in this case Chicago style is preferable since the intended audience is general. Following Chicago style will require a bit more research on the author’s part since Chicago recommends that the page range of the entire article be provided whereas Bluebook requires only the first page of the article.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m copyediting a book that’s using endnotes with no bibliography. For multiple
authors, should I use the rule in CMOS and list up to ten authors in the first endnote? What if each chapter in the book I’m copyediting is
written by a different author, and these authors differ in the number of authors they list in the endnotes? Does the copyeditor
then have a role in imposing consistency?
A. In note citations of works with four or more authors, Chicago recommends naming only one author and adding et al. to stand for the rest, but that’s assuming there’s a bibliography. If there isn’t
one, it’s up to the writer how many names to include. In a multiauthor work, the copyeditor should decide
(or ask) at the start whether chapters need to be consistent only within themselves or across the entire book.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. If a number of references are given in the same endnote, should they be given in any particular order (e.g., alphabetically)?
A. References are usually given in the order that they apply to the text or in order of importance. If neither is relevant,
then alphabetical (or chronological) order is fine.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]