Documentation
Q. Is there a proper way to cite a classic such as Tacitus when I am using a Web version without page or line numbers? Answer »
Q. I recently wrote an essay and used some information that my adult son gave me, and when I told him I was using it, he said I had to cite him. In my view, if you give birth to a source and he’s still living under your roof, you don’t have to cite him. What’s your view? Answer »
Q. Thank you for your helpful website! My question has to do with 17.141. You don’t mention that a bibliographic entry is required for illustrations, maps, and tables, but I assume they are. If so, would they be listed alphabetically by the author of the book that contains the plate? Answer »
Q. I am currently copyediting a business-advice book that has a very casual, conversational tone. The book includes a bibliography, but so far, none of the quoted works mentioned in the text are in the bibliography. There are many sound bites from famous actors and writers. These one-liners are not necessarily well-known quotes, but considering that the people quoted are public figures and the quotes themselves are (in most cases) only a short sentence, is a source really needed? And then a bibliographic entry? It seems a bit excessive, but I don’t know how else to do this. Unfortunately, this book does not have notes. Any ideas? Answer »
Q. In the citation of the following newspaper showing various issues and page numbers, would it be written like this? Southern Patriot, 20 January 1835, 3, 27 January 1835, 3, 30 January 1835, 3, 2 February 1835, 3, 3 February 1835, 3, 3 March 1835, 3, and 19 March 1835, 3. Answer »
Q. Should footnotes and bibliographic entries for foreign publications be written in the foreign language or in English? Answer »
Q. I am writing a qualitative thesis in which I quote several primary-source published documents that, if cited under the actual names of the authors, would destroy subject anonymity. How do I create a reference list citation for a document I quote or cite and protect the research subject’s rights to anonymity? Answer »
Q. In a book I’m working on, the author tells stories that go on for several paragraphs and include quotations. When those quotations are all from one source, my author has put a single note callout at the end of the last quotation as a blanket reference for all the quotations in the story. The copy editor is suggesting that he instead put the note callout after the first quotation. I looked in CMOS but haven’t been able to find anything on this subject. What do you recommend? Answer »
Q. Should “ibid.” in citations be italicized? Are block quotes always a smaller font size than the rest of the text? If a publisher specifies that only U.S. and not British spelling should be used in a manuscript, should quoted words be changed as well? Answer »
Q. I am writing a seminar paper of which the majority of references are interviews I have done. How do I reference these within the paper? Should I provide a note each time I reference an interview? What should the note look like if I’m also attaching a full bibliography? Answer »
Q. If I have several unpublished sources in the same endnote and they are all housed at the same location, should I list that location repeatedly throughout the endnote, or can I just place it at the end of the note? Answer »
Q. I don’t believe there is a standard Chicago/Turabian bibliographic citation format for video games yet. Is there? Answer »
Q. What is the correct way to cite Web sites in an appendix or bibliography? Do you include the name of the organization, and then the Web site? Answer »
Q. I’ve been asked to change the author-date style used in a list of works cited to the author-title humanities style. But some of the authors have multiple works, some with the same year of publication. In the author-date style, it was written 1949a, 1949b, and so on, and cited in the text as (author 1949b). When I move the date to follow the publisher’s name, how do I handle that? Can I write “City: Publisher, 1949(b)”? Some of those entries refer to journals, which would mean “Journal Name 2 (1949b): 3–7.” Which looks silly. Please help me out of this awkward spot! Answer »
Q. I have an author listed in the bibliography. Below that entry will be one with the same author plus a second author. Should I use a 3-em dash to represent the repeated name, or should I spell it out? Answer »
Q. We are using the author-date form of citation. One author cited appears in the reference list with four items for a single year (Author 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d). However, in the last entry, the person is the editor, rather than the author, of the work. Thus, the entry is Author, J. Q., ed. 2003d. But this entry currently occurs after entries dated to 2004, 2005, and 2006. This makes the entry difficult to find, though the author clearly is attempting to follow the rule that “edited entries follow those of which the person cited is the author.” What would CMOS do? Answer »
Q. I’m preparing a bibliography for an edited volume, which means merging the bibliographies from ten chapters. One of the authors seems to be a German speaker, and though his writing is in English, the titles in his bibliography are in German. Must I translate these? Is there a difference if he read them in German or English? And if I do not need to translate the titles of the works, should I still translate words like “editor” and “volume?” Answer »
Q. When I reference an author within the body of my text, do I then repeat the author’s name in the footnote? Answer »
Q. Sometimes a work will cite a series of annual publications: The Annual Report on Stuff for 1993–1997, 1999, and 2001–2004, say. Does the bibliography or reference list need a separate entry for each year’s volume, or is there an appropriate way to combine them into one entry? If they can be combined, how can breaks in the sequence be handled? Sometimes I feel silly putting eleven basically identical entries in a reference list, but if eleven volumes of the report were consulted . . . ? Answer »
Q. When using a pseudonym to hide the real name of an organization, how do you cite that organization’s Web site in the references? Answer »
Q. I am writing a paper on Chinese literature in English. I am having a lot of trouble in citing Chinese sources. Since I am familiar with both Chinese and English, I prefer to present pinyin as well as English translations. However, I am confused whether to use ( ) or [ ] and I am confused on the general rules. Answer »
Q. How should I cite a work I’ve already cited in a previous chapter: in full each time I cite it or with formal direction to the previous citation? Answer »
Q. Should I use footnotes to simply list the reference information or are they for adding additional information mainly? Answer »
Q. In a footnote I have a quote that, in the original, itself has a footnote. The latter footnote (i.e., the original author’s footnote) is salient to the discussion, and I’d like to include it in my footnote. What are the mechanics to handle such a situation? Currently I have this: Answer »
Q. I have been asked by my professor to cite in my reference list all newspaper articles that I have used. The articles do not have authors. They do include the date and all other information. What is the correct way to cite this? The manual does not go into detail on this area of citation. Answer »