Q. I am a fourth-grade teacher and am currently teaching my students how to insert dialogue into their personal narratives.
Can the students insert the dialogue directly into their paragraph, or do they need to create a new paragraph and indent?
What is the rule? When looking at novels I see dialogue being written each way.
A. It’s traditional to start a new paragraph with each new speaker. That is, a piece of dialogue can go
straight into the paragraph as long as the person saying it was the last person mentioned. If someone else speaks, begin a
new paragraph instead. This makes it clear who is speaking and when the speaker changes; it eliminates the need to write “Louise
said” or “Fernando said” every time. Tell your students
that experienced writers break the rule when it gets in the way, but that they should follow the rule until they’re
able to give a reason for breaking it.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. A manuscript I am editing uses a lengthy extract from a source that uses brackets; in fact the original is sprinkled with
unitalicized bracketed “sics.” What do I do? I don’t want
readers to think these interjections are added by us! I could say “brackets in original,”
but there are a couple of things we have had to add in brackets, too. Perhaps I should put a [ sic] next to every [sic]. (Just kidding.)
A. Yes, adding a note “Brackets in original” is the right thing to do (although
I love your idea of siccing the sics!). When you add your own comments within brackets, append “Eds.” (or just “Ed.”) to the text to clarify.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Can I write dialogues without quotation marks as the author Frank McCourt did in his three memoirs?
Q. Dear Editor, I am editing a quarterly bulletin for a church, and have run into a problem. “It’s”
is confused with “its” in a lengthy article an author quotes in his text. Given
your feeling on the overuse of “sic,” I’m wondering how
best to handle this. Simply ignore it, or “sic” it? I appreciate your help. Thank
you.
A. A bit of quiet copyediting is best in cases like this, where sic would serve only to embarrass the original author and as a result reflect poorly on the current author as well.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am having a serious debate with a colleague concerning interpolations/alterations to quotations. We are quoting a source that uses abbreviations in the copy: “A WBS displays . . .” I believe the correct way to provide the missing information to clarify the abbreviation is the following: “A W[ork] B[reakdown] S[tructure] displays . . .” However, she believes it should read: “A WBS [Work Breakdown Structure] displays . . .” Can you please clarify which is correct and if interpolations/additions should always come after the item you are trying to clarify. Thank you for your help with this!
A. Either way is fine, but the second version is easier to read, and more clearly introduces the reader to the abbreviation WBS. It is indeed our practice to place the information in brackets after the item we want to clarify, as in your second version. In some cases, this means that the abbreviation will follow in parentheses: “A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) . . .”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Look at the following example from CMOS 6.124:
What did she mean when she said, “The foot now wears a different shoe”?
Shouldn’t the question mark be INSIDE the quotation? If we are incorrect, please advise us.
A. Actually, CMOS is correct. If we had put the question mark inside the quotation marks, it would mean that the person was asking a question about the shoe. But the part about the shoe is a statement, not a question. The question is “What did she mean?” so the question mark must go outside the quotation marks.
Thank you for writing—please do write again if you suspect you have found a typo. We’re keeping a list of corrections for future printings.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have a question concerning the use of brackets. In the sentence below, taken from an NPR article, what purpose do the brackets
serve? “In almost two years, we find about 31 percent of papers with unreasonable copy[ing] and plagiarism,”
she says, shaking her head.
A. The brackets indicate that the writer of the article altered or inserted something in order to make sense of the sentence.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I typed out a transcript of a video online to use in a paper. The lecturer says “uh”
several times. Should I include these in my quotation or remove them?
A. Some transcribers include such noises; others edit them out. If coughs and stutters are irrelevant to your point, it’s
better (and kinder) to omit them, but if you omit anything potentially meaningful, you should include a note with the transcript
explaining your method.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m looking for the etched-in-stone rule that states that a dialogue tag should be lowercase after
a question (i.e., “What is it?” she asked, as opposed to “What
is it?” She asked). I have both the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style and the trial online version here and have so far been unable to find it. Any help is appreciated.
A. The rule is fundamental: If a word continues a sentence, lowercase it (unless it’s a proper name).
If a word begins a new sentence, uppercase the first letter. Thus, if “She” is
capped after a quotation (as it sometimes is), it signals a new sentence: “What is it?”
She asked three times before she gave up.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Although CMOS 6.9 states clearly that commas and periods should always go within quotation marks, it doesn’t provide a solution when you have to put the single and double quotation marks together, as in “He announced, ‘These quotation marks look terrible.’” Is there a prescribed amount of space that goes between the single and double quotes in these cases?
A. Please see CMOS 6.11: “When single quotation marks are nested within double quotation marks, and two of the marks appear next to each other, a space between the two marks, though not strictly required, aids legibility.” (You can find this by typing “single quotation marks” into the Search box or by looking in the index under “Quotation marks: single: double next to.”)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]