Q. CMOS 13.128 shows how to use author-date citations in a footnote, but what about an informational footnote like, “The history of exclusion of Chinese people in the United States has been highly researched. To begin, see . . .”? Should the parentheses around the citations be removed, as in “To begin, see Chan 1991, Lee 2003, and Kurashige 2016”? Otherwise, it might seem as though the citations are substantiating the statement, rather than being offered as suggested reading.
A. In Chicago style, the “see” in “see Chan” means that you’re referring to a work rather than a person, and the year would retain parentheses whether in the text or in a note: “To begin, see Chan (1991), Lee (2003), and Kurashige (2016).” If you’re instead referring to the author in terms of the work, the wording would need to make that clear: “See the earlier efforts by Chan (1991) to digitize the archival records.”
Parentheses for the year are omitted only when the citation is itself in parentheses, in which case semicolons rather than commas separate the sources, as in “(to begin, see Chan 1991; Lee 2003; Kurashige 2016).” But if your parenthetical reference is to an author rather than a work, the year would get square brackets: “(See the earlier efforts by Chan [1991] to digitize the archival records.)” See CMOS 13.122 and 13.124.