Q. Dear Manuscript Editing Department, I am proofreading a bibliography using CMOS and wanted to ask where the period should go relative to the following title of a journal article: “In/Visibility and the (Post-Soviet) ‘Queer Closet.’ ” That placement seems to be the generally accepted solution in American English. I wonder, however, if, for the computational age, the following solution were not more appropriate: “In/Visibility and the (Post-Soviet) ‘Queer Closet’.” I find that it makes the string that one copies in order to search for it online correspond to what is in databases and on journal sites. Many thanks!
A. The period does look good between the two marks—where it solves the spacing problem between consecutive single and double quotation marks (we’ve added a narrow nonbreaking space to the first version of the title in your question, per CMOS 6.11)—but it’s not Chicago style.
And though we could make an exception for titles like the one you cite, we’d arguably then need to apply that same exception for periods (and commas) relative to single quotation marks everywhere for the sake of consistency—which, again, wouldn’t be Chicago style.
As for searches, the placement of the period (as well as its presence or absence) didn’t seem to make any difference in our tests, whereas the quotation marks and other marks of punctuation in the article title caused the occasional hiccup in certain library databases.
For a brief history of quotation marks relative to periods and commas—including the rationale for Chicago style (and, by extension, American English style)—see “Commas and Periods with Quotation Marks” at CMOS Shop Talk.