Documentation
Q. I am using documents from a Civil War Military Service Record, Pension file, and Bounty Land Warrant in several reports. I was able to obtain photocopies of these records from the National Archive. How do I footnote these primary sources and how should the bibliography information for them be given? Do I use the Public Documents format or the Unpublished Material format? For example, I was able to discover my subject’s first and second wives were fighting over his pension from a Department of Interior, Bureau of Pensions, record card and several affidavits. Would I give the year I obtained the records, as with an electronic source, since the date some of these records were created is unknown? Thank you. Answer »
Q. What is the correct way to list exhibition catalogues in a bibliography? I have seen them listed in so many different ways that I am confused. I don’t really want to draw particular attention to the editors, but some lists alphabetize exhibition catalogues according to the names of the editors. Other times, authors’ names are used, but that seems to mean that one of the authors is also an editor. I have even seen listings under the name of the sponsoring museum. What is the correct way to do this? Grazie. Answer »
Q. How would one document an interview? Answer »
Q. Hello. I have a question regarding reviews. In the 15th edition of CMOS , 17.202 addresses the citation of a review in a newspaper. I was wondering about the format of a review in a periodical. How do you treat a review with a title? Thank you so much. Answer »
Q. In our reference section, Web sites will not show dates (of access or site creation). Where would you then place a Web-site entry (without a date) within an alphabetized entry that has numerous em-dash entries by the same author? Thank you. Answer »
Q. How do you cite quotations in the paragraph and in the endnote or footnote? Answer »
Q. Why do you continue to support the nonpossessive apostrophe, as in CD’s, MBA’s? It serves no function whatsoever. Answer »
Q. We would like to know the difference between the reference lists in chapter 17 and bibliographies. Is the Chicago Manual of Style trying to move from one to the other? Why would one choose a reference list over a bibliography when citing? Thanks. Answer »
Q. Hi. I need to list resources in many documents, and sometimes URL listings are not enough. How can I find author information at websites? Answer »
Q. I was wondering how I would cite an educational movie. Thank you. Answer »
Q. I would like to quote a sentence from my textbook that was initially a quote from another source. Which source do I document? Do I document my textbook or the original source (or both)? Answer »
Q.How many lines of a published poem or song may be quoted in an article or book manuscript without having to obtain the author or lyric writer’s permission? And, what if the author or lyric writer is deceased? Answer »
Q.I am a writer and occasionally quote material from my own works, some that have been published and some that are not published but are available as working papers. Should I handle these quotations the same as I would those of other authors? What about paraphrased material—do I need to reference that? Does it make a difference if the material is published or unpublished, and if I hold the copyright or the publisher holds the copyright? Answer »
Q. I am confused about how to cite a video recording of a live performance (an opera). It was originally performed and recorded by a Metropolitan Opera Television production in 1991, but a 2000 version (a rerelease in DVD format) is being distributed by another organization. It also comes in the 1991 version in the VHS format. It is important to distinguish between the two for a variety of reasons, especially if someone were looking for the DVD. The 2000 DVD is in German, but can have subtitles in English, Chinese, and French. How would I cite the 2000 DVD? Answer »
Q. What is the proper way to reference an e-mail in a report? Answer »
Q. When writing an academic paper that is based on the analysis of one book, do you need to footnote each sentence that paraphrases an idea from the book or does the fact that it is known and stated that the entire paper is an analysis of the book’s themes sufficient? Answer »
Q. I have a number of federal government publications to cite in endnotes, and it seems I have more information about the publication than I know where to put. For example, is it better to cite the authors listed or the publishing government agency as the author? If I list the specific individuals, should I list the agency in the publication information, i.e., “(Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1985)”? And if the agency is best listed under publication information, which level of the agency is best to cite? For example, one document was published by the Department of HHS, Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, Division of Vital Statistics. (These are the hierarchy levels.) Finally, if publication numbers are available for these documents, should I include them? If so, where? After the title, and before publication information? Thanks in advance for your help. Answer »
Q. I need help on how it would be easier to make a bibliography easier. Answer »
Q. How would you treat Web page citations where access to the Web pages is restricted? Answer »
Q. How do you determine which publisher to cite if the book has had more than one publisher over time, and which publication date do you use: the latest edition/publication date, or when the book was first published? Answer »
Q. It is not uncommon in the literature of film studies today to have epigraphs that feature a choice bit of dialog from one of the characters in a film, and often the author of the screenplay is not given, but only the film title, character’s name, sometimes parenthetically the actor who played the part, and year of the film’s release. Similarly if one wants to quote a choice bit of dialog from fiction, say, one of Sherlock Holmes’ admonitions to Watson, does one credit Holmes and/or Conan Doyle? CMOS is mute on such attributions in the context of epigraphs. Answer »
Q. I am attempting to help someone out with their bibliography and I, of course, have received all the difficult entries. I have a three-page document that is an Executive Summary; it is not a published work, nor does it have any “publisher” information, but it does list authors. How would I cite this? Would I follow the rules for citing an unpublished, duplicated piece? Answer »
Q. I’m in the process of finalizing my Ph.D. dissertation, and I’m struggling with two minor stylistic issues: (1) How should I handle citations within a parenthesis when it begins with e.g.? Should the year be enclosed in parentheses or not? That is, “. . . (e.g., Porter (1987))” or “(e.g., Porter 1987).” (2) Is there an elegant way to refer to a page or section in the current document so that the cross-reference is not confused with an external reference. For example, the text may read: “According to Porter (1987), strategy can be defined as. . . . This definition is used in the current research (see also p. 49).” This reference could be interpreted as page 49 in Porter (1987) or as page 49 in the dissertation. Answer »
Q. Perhaps you can help me. How do I format a second footnote for an article in an edited anthology (more than two editors), when the anthology already has been cited fully in another footnote for a different article in the same anthology? Must I write the complete citation for the anthology for every article contained within it? Answer »
Q. My fifteenth edition of CMOS indicates that there should be quotation marks around journal article titles in bibliographies, but I noticed that in some of your answers here, you do not include the quotation marks in sample citations. Is it acceptable to leave out the quotation marks around journal article titles in bibliographies? Answer »
