Q. Hi, I copyedited a short volume in August, and my brief was British English for spelling and no serial commas, so I changed “color” to “colour” and removed the Oxford commas. In September, I was asked to proofread the PDF, and I noticed that someone else had, in the meantime, changed the spelling back to American, but left out the serial commas. So I did not add them back in. The volume was going to print in two hours and this was a last-minute, rush, unscheduled proofread. Now I’m being asked why I didn’t flag all the spots where a serial comma would go so that they could be put in. My answer was because it would have created unnecessary work for the typesetter at the eleventh hour and it appeared to have been an editorial choice to leave them out. I also told them that Chicago style (which was my choice; I was given carte blanche) permits this kind of flexibility. My interlocutor said that was impossible, I was making it up, and that the serial comma is obligatory, even in a case like this. Who is right?
A. Unless the document was part of a stylistically consistent series that always features Oxford commas, in which case we might side with your interlocutor (we’re guessing from the waffling over spelling depicted in your question that it was not), what you did seems defensible. After all, Oxford (or serial) commas are more of a preference than a necessity:
- Chicago has recommended the serial comma since the very first edition of the Manual, but its use reflects a centuries-old English-language convention that predates and doesn’t depend on Chicago style (see “Oxford, Chicago, and the Serial Comma” at CMOS Shop Talk for a brief history). Whether to write “a, b, and c” or “a, b and c” has nothing to do with how commas have been used elsewhere in the document (except in other series).
- Though many writers and editors value it as a mark of precision, the serial comma is more of an editorial refinement than something that determines meaning (except in rare cases where it removes ambiguity and would be required even in styles that normally omit it). Readers don’t usually question the lack of serial commas in news articles that follow AP style. Their routine absence in French, Spanish, and German—as in français, espagnol et allemand; francés, español y alemán; and Französisch, Spanisch und Deutsch (no comma before et, y, or und)—seems equally unproblematic.
So, as much as we love serial commas, your decision not to mark them for addition at the very last minute (when many publishers would allow only the correction of outright errors) seems reasonable to us. And yes, Chicago style does permit this kind of flexibility, as these words from the preface to the first edition of the Manual (now repeated as an epigraph to the preface in the eighteenth) remind us:
Rules and regulations such as these, in the nature of the case, cannot be endowed with the fixity of rock-ribbed law. They are meant for the average case, and must be applied with a certain degree of elasticity.
Q. Hello! My student wrote the following piece of dialogue in their essay: “1-2-3 Go!” Other than spelling out the numerals, what is the correct way to style this according to the Chicago guidelines? Should commas be used instead of hyphens, or should ellipses be used?
A. In Chicago style, the numbers zero through one hundred are usually spelled out (or, using an alternative system, zero through nine). Items in a series are usually separated with commas; in your example, the series itself acts like an introductory phrase, which would be set off from the rest of the sentence by another comma (before go):
“One, two, three, go!”
If you want to emphasize the verb, here are some variations to try:
“One, two, three, go!” (italics for go!)
“One, two, three—go!” (dash instead of comma)
“One, two, three . . . go!” (ellipsis instead of comma; italics for go!)
“One, two, three . . . Go!” (ellipsis; italics and initial capital for Go!)
If you want to draw out the count, add some more ellipses:
“One . . . two . . . three . . . Go!”
Note that numerals are sometimes appropriate in dialogue, but they are usually reserved for expressions that are always written with digits, like the room number in the following example (see CMOS 12.51):
“We were assigned to room 9, on the first floor.”
That’s not to say that “1-2-3 Go!” (your student’s version) doesn’t work. The hyphenated digits suggest counting in a way that’s similar to how words are spelled out in dialogue: “Cat is spelled c-a-t” (see CMOS 6.81). And the numerals help to distinguish the count from the verb without intervening punctuation. The capital G in “Go” is also effective (it’s clearly for emphasis).
In other words, your student has made some departures from the rules that could work just fine in a creative context. Even if you stick more closely to Chicago style, you have options.
Q. When “plus” is used to connect nouns, do the nouns require a plural verb or singular? I’m not sure whether “plus” functions as a preposition or a conjunction in this case. For example: “The last consonant plus the suffix form(s) a separate syllable.”
A. Well, the expression “one plus one equals two” is far more common in published works than “one plus one equal two,” which suggests that plus in such constructions is a preposition. Accordingly:
The last consonant plus the suffix forms a separate syllable.
That sounds fine to us; if it doesn’t sound right to you, try rephrasing:
The last consonant forms a separate syllable with the suffix.
Rephrasing might be especially helpful when the second noun is plural, in which case a singular verb is likely to sound a bit off:
The last consonant plus the three letters that follow it forms a separate syllable.
or, less awkwardly,
The last consonant forms a separate syllable with the three letters that follow it.
Or you could try using and instead of plus, in which case the verb would clearly need to be plural:
The last consonant and the three letters that follow it form a separate syllable.
See also CMOS 5.147 (on misleading connectives).
Q. I’m not sure where to place the spelled-out text for an acronym or initialism. In this first example, it seems to interrupt the flow of the sentence and creates an awkward ending with one word and then a period: “They embark on a true storytelling workshop run by the TMI (Too Much Information) Project.” However, placing the parenthetical phrase at the end of the sentence seems incorrect, since the initialism isn’t TMIP: “They embark on a true storytelling workshop run by the TMI Project (Too Much Information).” How would you advise proceeding?
A. If you’re bothered by the parenthetical interruption in your first version—though it’s the most efficient way to define the term—then try adding more than a simple gloss. For example:
They embark on a true storytelling workshop run by the TMI Project (TMI stands for “too much information”).
Or, if you think spelling out TMI would be TMI for your readers, you could do something like this:
They embark on a true storytelling workshop run by the TMI Project (a name that borrows the textspeak abbreviation for oversharing).
Note that initial caps for “too much information” seem appropriate in “TMI (Too Much Information) Project,” where the term spells out part of a proper name; in our first example above, where “TMI” is defined apart from the name, we used lowercase instead. See also CMOS 10.7.
Q. In my résumé, I note one of the areas of focus as being “post-Communist corruption.” Should the “C” in “Communist” be capitalized?
A. You can write “postcommunist” (lowercase c) if the word communist is referring to the economic system but “post-Communist” (capital C) if it refers to a political party with that word in its name (or to more than one such party). For example, if you’re referring to the period following the demise of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, then a capital C would be appropriate. See also CMOS 8.67.
Note that “postcommunist” (without a hyphen) and “post-Communist” (with a hyphen) follow Chicago style for words formed with the prefix post- (see our hyphenation guide, sec. 4); “postcommunist” also matches the entry for that term in Merriam-Webster. But “post-communist” (with a hyphen) is arguably easier to read and wouldn’t be wrong in a résumé if that’s what you prefer. (In longer documents, consistency with other prefixed terms becomes more of a factor.) See also “Prefixes: A Nonissue, or a Non-Issue?” at CMOS Shop Talk.
Q. I have an author who in the bibliography is rendering Juan de Dios Hernández García as Hernández García, J.d.D. I’ve never seen this before. Is it an accepted option for Spanish names?
A. It seems to be, though usage varies. First, it should be noted that in Chicago style, names aren’t normally abbreviated in bibliographies, so we’d write “Hernández García, Juan de Dios” (as the first-listed or only author; otherwise, the name would be given in normal order).
But if you’re required to use abbreviations, you can either use the one you’ve shown or further abbreviate in a way that ignores the particle de, as in “Hernández García, J. D.”
For an article that shows the latter usage, see Alejandro Quevedo et al., “Isla del Fraile: Reconstructing Coastal Dynamics in Southeastern Spain Through Underwater Archaeological Survey,” Archaeological Prospection 31, no. 2 (2024): 149–70, https://
For an article that shows a name styled like the one in your question, see G. Schmidt-Stohn et al., “The Big Brown Telamonia Unlocked: Four New Species in Cortinarius Section Bovini (Agaricales, Basidiomycota) and a Revised Taxonomy of Bovinoid Cortinarii,” Persoonia 55, no. 1 (2025): 1–58, https://
For yet another example, see Anja M. Deiser et al., “A Role for Nucleosome Remodellers During Resection of Deprotected Telomeres in Yeast,” PLOS One 21, no. 7 (2026): e0352656, https://
If in doubt about which styling to use, ask your publisher. For some additional considerations, see CMOS 15.92 (on indexing Spanish names, advice that also applies to names that are inverted in a bibliography or reference list).
October Q&A
Q. Is s’s’ the correct plural possessive form of s? It’d be used to show that a group of s’s owns something/multiple things. If not, could you explain why it wouldn’t work (same with if it does work)?
A. Well, yes, your example is technically correct (we applied italics to three instances of the letter s in your question). The plural of the letter s is formed with an apostrophe for the sake of clarity: s’s. The possessive form of a plural that ends in s takes an apostrophe alone: s’s’.
But for the sake of your readers, not all of whom will enjoy deciphering a four-character term that relies on a mix of italics and regular text plus two different kinds of apostrophes—the first of which, for the plural s’s, can also mark the singular possessive (which is identical: s’s)—consider spelling out the letter s, as in an ess’s curves (singular possessive) or a group of esses’ curves (plural possessive).
See also CMOS 7.15 (on the plurals of letters), 7.16 (on possessives), 7.67 (on letters as letters), 7.70 (on letters as shapes), and 7.71 (on the names of letters); for periods and commas next to apostrophes, see 6.126.
Q. Is there such a thing as a suspended en dash? What would you do in the case of “α and β particle–emitting isotopes,” for example? Does anything go after the alpha symbol, or should it have nothing, even though “particle” applies to that term?
A. There is such a thing as a suspended en dash, but it should be used only to omit a word or phrase that follows the first dash in the full phrase (i.e., before suspension):
pre–Civil War and post–Civil War [two en dashes]
becomes
pre– and post–Civil War [with a suspended en dash]
In your case, here’s what we’d do:
α particle–emitting and β particle–emitting isotopes [two en dashes]
becomes
α particle– and β particle–emitting isotopes [suspended en dash]
but not
α– and β particle–emitting isotopes [suspended en dash]
and not
α- and β-particle-emitting isotopes [suspended hyphen]
That second-to-last example (α– and β particle–emitting isotopes) asks readers to mentally supply the word particle between the alpha symbol and the en dash, which is too much to expect. And in both that example and the last one, the alpha may be misread as alpha minus.
All this assumes you’re referring to two sets of isotopes, those that emit alpha particles and those that emit beta particles. If that’s not the case—or if it is, but the text doesn’t make that clear—consider rewording (e.g., “isotopes that emit both α and β particles” or “isotopes that emit either α or β particles”).
For more on en dashes in compound adjectives, see CMOS 6.86.
Q. Does CMOS have a preference on the use of “America” as the country’s name versus the United States or US in formal writing? I know there is a distinction made for the abbreviation versus the spelled-out term, but I am curious if there is a preference on using “America” alone as the noun form of the country, not in reference to the people.
A. Though “America” is often used as shorthand for “the United States of America”—especially in speech—it’s usually better in formal writing to be more specific and use the first part of the name instead: “the United States” (or, to save space or avoid repetition, “the US”).
The adjective “American,” by contrast, is usually acceptable when referring to the United States (as in the phrase “American interests”), provided its meaning is clear from context. If “United-Statesian” weren’t so awkward (the link is to the entry in Merriam-Webster, which spells the adjective with a hyphen), then “American” might be less common than it is. If in doubt, use the adjective “US,” which is acceptable in even the most formal prose.
See also CMOS 10.37 (for “US” versus “United States”) and Garner’s Modern English Usage, 5th ed. (Oxford, 2022), under “American.”
Q. If you’re following Chicago’s rules for title case (at CMOS 8.160), do you capitalize short prepositions that aren’t immediately followed by their objects? A few examples that have come up in my work recently (anonymized a bit and left lowercase for you to resolve) are “paid for by grandma,” “what will grandma dress up like?,” and “whom has grandma turned to for advice?”
A. In your examples, up looks more like an adverb—one that modifies the verb dress—than like a preposition. So let’s call it an adverb.*
But for, by, and to are more clearly prepositions (as is like, though as the last word in a title it would always be capped). So:
Paid for by Grandma
What Will Grandma Dress Up Like?
Whom Has Grandma Turned to for Advice?
It doesn’t matter that the object of for in the first example is unstated or that the object of to in the third example comes first. A preposition is a preposition (except when it’s not).
__________
* The entry in the OED for “up (adv. 1),” sense II.18.c, cross-references several verbs that form phrasal verbs with up, including dress.
Q. Good morning! Are syndicated newspaper articles marked as such in footnotes? It seems somewhat misleading to refer simply to an article in, say, The Indianapolis Star, when it was published in papers around the country and I just happened to see it in the Star because that’s the database to which I have access. I have periodically searched for the answer to this question in the Q&A and haven’t seen one. Please let me know your thoughts, thanks!
A. Though Chicago doesn’t currently require you to include information about syndication, you can always provide additional context for a cited source beyond the bare citation. If the article that you’re citing has been distributed via syndication to other publications—and you think readers should know this—then feel free to say so, either in your text (where you could simply refer to “the syndicated article” when you introduce it) or as commentary following your citation in a note (as in CMOS 13.40).
If you do mention syndication, consider citing an additional source that would confirm this, unless that information appears with the article (in which case your Star citation will do double duty).
Q. Hello, I’m struggling with source links. Chicago allows stable links from databases like JSTOR, but on the other hand it sometimes recommends listing JSTOR instead of a link. It also allows Google Books and Archive.org links. But are all these links only recommended if they offer a full view of the source? And what about links to a book landing page from the publisher, such as Routledge or Chicago? Are those useful? Finally, if a link does not match the edition or format of the source cited, can it still be used? I typically delete links that don’t pass this test because I worry about copyright issues and inaccuracy. Am I being too strict? Thank you so much for your help!
A. Some answers, assuming you’re talking about source citations:
- Though we would allow listing “JSTOR” in place of a URL, it’s not a recommendation. The “stable” URLs offered for articles at JSTOR tend to be relatively short and easy to decipher (“https://www.jstor.org/stable/” plus a number), so there’s usually no reason not to include them in your citations. See CMOS 13.8, 13.9, and 13.10.
- You could cite a copyright-restricted book or other source that you consulted in a limited preview at Google Books or Archive.org. But it would be better to find a complete copy of the source elsewhere (in whatever format) and cite that instead; you may have missed something in your review of the partial source.
- A URL for a publisher’s book page isn’t normally all that useful in a citation; those pages are essentially advertisements for the book and places to buy it. Likewise, there’s no need to include a link to the Amazon page for a book purchased there or to list a URL that points to a book’s entry in an online library catalog.
- Including a URL that doesn’t lead to the edition or format of the cited source isn’t normally necessary. But you can include such a URL if you think it will help readers who might otherwise not find the source; in that case, preface it with “also available at” or the like. See also CMOS 13.14.
- Though you shouldn’t publish a URL that provides unauthorized access to a work under copyright, the scenarios you’ve mentioned all seem to involve citing legitimate copies (or partial copies) of a work. If you’re concerned, consider getting legal advice.
A URL is a convenience intended to lead readers directly to a source that you’ve consulted and that’s otherwise been cited in full (such that a URL wouldn’t be needed to locate it). URLs that don’t lead to the full source, or that aren’t reasonably short, can usually be omitted.