New Questions and Answers
Q. What position does Chicago take on numbered lists within sentences? I’m editing a document in which the author frequently sets apart elements of a series with (1), (2), and (3). The enumeration rarely indicates a progression, and it is used in short and long sentences, even when only two elements of a series are listed. I think this practice is burdensome to the reader in many cases and makes the document appear too technical, but haven’t found anything to support my claim.
A. If there are so many of these that they begin to look silly or distracting, I would edit them out. Gently point out to the writer that although such numbering is useful in complex enumerations, his or her writing is clear enough without the crutch.
Q. Hello—I’m wondering if you might provide a little guidance with respect to book indexing. A colleague of mine has been asked by the author to do indexing for a coffee-table physics book to be published by a major publisher. As she has never done this before, and graphic arts is actually her field, I’ve advised her to defer to a professional, as indexing is actually quite a complex art form. Do you agree? I’m hoping to provide her with some expert advice that can back up her stance.
A. You are so right—good indexing is much more than just listing the names of people and places. If your colleague has a knowledge of physics, she might be able to craft a useful index, but otherwise she will probably just end up listing selected words and page numbers. You might suggest that your colleague check out the FAQ of the American Society of Indexers ( http://www.asindexing.org/site/indfaq.shtml) for an idea of what she would be getting into. If she decides to go for it, I recommend chapter 18 of CMOS as a good “how-to” guide.
Q. Is it appropriate to add a semicolon before i.e. or e.g.? For example, is it correct to say “by focusing on prevention; i.e., identifying and intervening”?
A. Use a comma unless the material after the abbreviation starts a new independent clause.
She carried only the essentials, i.e., business cards, lipstick, pepper spray.
She saw to the last two details; i.e., flowers were waiting and the driver kept mum.
Please note that Chicago doesn’t use i.e. or e.g. in running text. We use that is or a similar phrase. In many sentences (such as mine), you don’t really need the abbreviation; a colon or dash would be better.
Q. I am wondering about the order of masculine and feminine nouns in a sentence. For example, is it correct to say, “Bring your daughters and sons to the event”? This seems awkward to me. It seems more appropriate to put the masculine first: “Bring your sons and daughters to the event.” Is this correct?
A. It may seem correct, because the masculine pronoun he is conventionally given precedence: He and she were each fined fifty dollars for spitting. But how fair is that? And in any case daughters and sons are not pronouns. In some contexts it might sound more natural to put the feminine first: “Next Tuesday the Girls in Science Club will host its annual exhibit. Bring your daughters and your sons to this inspiring event.”
Q. When you have an acronym, do you cap the first letter of each word of the acronym when completely spelled out?
A. In the spelled-out version, simply cap as you would if an acronym did not exist: standard operating procedures (SOPs). Cap a word if it's a proper noun, part of the name of an organization, or in the title of a document: Rhode Island (RI), Mothers against Preschoolers (MAP), Robert’s Rules of Order (RRO).
Q. I am in a writing/editing group, and everyone here uses then as a conjunction. For example: “I plan to work from home until he is finished then I will come to the office.” Sometimes they put a comma before then. Will you please explain how then is to be punctuated? They are editing their customers’ documents so that they now reflect incorrect usage.
A. Although then is not a conjunction in your sentence, it looks like one because the true conjunction (and or but) is omitted but implied: I plan to work from home [and] then I will come to the office. The comma is necessary because it indicates the implied conjunction and prevents a run-on sentence; a semicolon would be even better.
Q. I am a technical writer for a game corporation and we are working on training documents. Is there a rule that I can call attention to in order to discourage the overuse of parentheses? Right now I don’t have anything to show in order to prove my point. Perhaps I am the one who is incorrect; either way, I would like a rule to reference if there is one.
A. The rule is that if there are too many parentheses, take some out. Material that is comparatively less parenthetical in nature may be set off with commas or dashes instead. Of course, this calls for judgment on the part of the writer or copy editor, which means that individuals may disagree.
Q. I don’t believe there is a standard Chicago/Turabian bibliographic citation format for video games yet. Is there?
A. CMOS and Turabian both contain examples of citations of video recordings that you can easily adapt to cite a video game. Please see CMOS 17.273 and Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 17.8.5. Here’s an example:
Cleese, John, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. “Commentaries.” Disc 2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, special ed. DVD. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Culver City, CA: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2001.
Q. Is this a plural or a singular: John Smith et al. (1990) argues (or argue)? And should a comma be placed after the year?
A. The subject is plural (John Smith and others). A comma would be overkill—the parentheses do the work of setting off the date.
Q. “Any . . . is/are” again: If any of these records appears incomplete, report the patient’s name, date of birth. (My doctor asked me about that, from his medical dictation—my answer was “When you mean any one of then you can say is in dictating your notes.” I might have thought longer if I’d had my pants on. But that’s a common problem for copy editors, isn’t it?)
A. Maybe for freelancers who work at home; around my office, there are rules about that sort of thing. But your answer was correct.
April Q&A
Q. What’s the proper orientation of the apostrophe when using a contraction such as ’70s or a title such as ’Night Mother? Should it curve as the computer sets it?
A. Apostrophes come in only one shape—they curve like a backward c and happen to be identical to a closing single quotation mark. (The flipped version, curved like a c, is an opening single quotation mark.) Word-processing applications are not yet sophisticated enough to know the difference between an opening quotation mark and an apostrophe at the beginning of a word, so they automatically supply an opening quote mark at the beginning of a word. If you’re preparing text for typesetting, identify apostrophes with a typed code (like <ap>). If you’re preparing an HTML file, the apostrophe and closing single quotation are Unicode 0027; the opening single quotation mark is 2019.
Q. I am writing a thesis for my university and use the pronoun “we” instead of “I.” For example, “From this, we can conclude that . . .” I personally think this looks more scientific than using the “I” pronoun. However, a colleague of mine states that if I am the only one writing the thesis and doing the research, I should use “I,” because otherwise readers might wonder who else wrote the document. Do you know which one is better to use in my case?
A. “We” used to be more common in scholarly writing than it is now. The British use it more than Americans do. CMOS recommends using “I,” but if the literature in your field avoids this, you should follow suit. Either way, it’s fine to use “we” when referring to something that author and readers are implicitly doing together, as in your example.
Q. I think this is correct: “We may recognize whether any of our friendships is truly spiritual.” My boss thinks it should be are: “whether any of our friendships are truly spiritual.” I can’t find a reference to this in the CMOS except that indefinite pronouns typically are treated as singular when followed by a verb.
A. Any can serve as singular or plural. If more than one of your friendships could be spiritual, then any is plural and you need are. In a sentence where any must be singular, use is: If any of this Twinkie is gone when I get back, there’ll be hell to pay.
Q. Prepositional phrases beginning sentences. No longer followed by a comma?
A. For starters, it isn’t one-rule-fits-all. After a short phrase a comma usually isn’t necessary. After one that’s especially long or whose syntax involves more complex elements, it’s usually a good idea. But as you can see from these sentences, whenever a pause is intended, a comma does the trick. See CMOS 6.25 for more examples.
Q. Is the word two in the phrase “two codirectors” redundant?
A. It depends on the context. If it’s possible that there are more than two, the word two will clarify. If it’s already established that there are two, it’s redundant. (Sometimes co- is redundant and can be safely lopped off.)
Q. Is it proper to define an acronym within an acronym or an abbreviation within an abbreviation? I am working on a document that contains an abbreviation that is really two other abbreviations smushed together with additional words tacked onto either side. And to top it all off, the overall abbreviation doesn’t even contain the first letter of every word in the other two abbreviations. They’ve dropped letters to make it shorter. Finally, if it is acceptable to do this sort of thing, how would I define the abbreviation or acronym on first use within the document if the two incorporated abbreviations were not previously defined in the document? Whew!
A. Who wrote this document—Dr. Seuss? Yes, you may explain this funny animal parenthetically regardless of the lack of previous explanation. And maybe you should hire a cartoonist to illustrate.
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?
A. Yes, that’s right. Several sections in chapter 17 of CMOS 15 cover ways to cite electronic sources; see especially 17.237. You can also find some examples right here at our site: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html. Click on the box for the “Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide.”
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!
A. The request to put the list of works cited in humanities style while leaving the text citations as author-date is unreasoned and unworkable, as you’ve figured out for yourself. The styles should be the same. If you must change the list of works cited, then you must also change the text citations. I’m sorry not to be more helpful—unless perhaps this advice from Chicago will help you make a case for leaving things as they are.
Q. I have a question that involves multiple adjectives and compound adjectival phrases. How would you punctuate the phrase “hard-drinking, hard-drugging, womanizing cowboy-landed-gentry myth,” or should phrases this complex just be avoided?
A. Your punctuation looks fine. If you use them only very occasionally, you needn’t avoid such phrases, although you might want to avoid the cowboys.
