Documentation
Q. I notice that in CMOS examples of bibliography entries, when the words “edited by” follow a book’s title, they are sometimes linked to it by a comma and sometimes separated from it by a period. Could you please explain the difference to me?
A. I think you’re referring to the difference between the bibliography examples in 17.42, which use a period and caps with the phrase “Edited by,” and the example in 17.69, which uses a comma and lowercases the phrase “edited by.” The styles vary according to whether one is citing a whole book or a particular article or chapter within a book. Putting a period and cap in the example in 17.69 would leave unclear whether Angle edited the entire book or only Ellet’s chapter.
