Q. I have a question about author-date citation style in a sentence that mentions both the author’s name and the title of the work in question: “As philosopher Helen Small argues in The Long Life, there is a general ‘hiddenness’ of aging and becoming older in the history of Western philosophy.” Is it necessary to include a narrative citation here—“As philosopher Helen Small (2007) argues . . .”—or is the sentence as it originally stands enough?
A. The parenthetical date signals to readers that they will find more bibliographic details in the reference list. But there is some flexibility in author-date style. If you wish to avoid the awkwardness of appearing to attach a date to a person rather than a source, it’s acceptable to move the date to follow the title: “As philosopher Helen Small argues in The Long Life (2007), . . .” Likewise, a date alone may follow a quotation if the author has been identified in the lead-in to the quoted text. See also CMOS 15.26.
Q. How would you cite marginalia in a published item in footnotes and bibliography? I want to reference a published nineteenth-century auction catalog that has handwritten purchase prices and buyers’ names. The catalog is now held in a public library so has a shelf number. With thanks.
A. Marginalia doesn’t count as a source in the conventional, citable sense any more than the ancient outline of the base of a mug on a page of vellum from a thirteenth-century transcription of a tenth-century Icelandic saga would count as one. You’d cite the saga, not the stain. Quote, discuss, and analyze the marginalia in your text, but cite the auction catalog as its source. If the catalog might be difficult for readers to find from the title and other bibliographical details alone, add information about its location to the end of the citation (e.g., “A copy of the catalog, with marginalia, is in the collection of . . .”).
Q. In reference lists, noun forms such as “editor” (ed.) and “translator” (trans.) are always abbreviated. The abbreviation of the plural “editors” is “eds.” But what is the abbreviation of plural “translators”? “Trans.” or “transs.”?
A. The plural of “trans.” would be “trans.” But because authors or editors rather than translators are generally listed first in citations of translated works, it would almost never come up in a source citation. In a numbered note you would use “trans.”—but standing for the verb form “translated by”:
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).
In bibliography format, these words are normally spelled out:
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Demons. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
But if you do happen to come across that rare bird known as an anonymous work in translation—think Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is usually translated from Middle English for modern audiences—and (rarer still) it lists more than one translator, then you would follow those names with “trans.” (translators):
Pevear, Richard, and Larissa Volokhonsky, trans. Title of Anonymous Work. . . .
Q. Try as I might, I cannot find anything in CMOS about whether to include first edition statements in a bibliography. There is a section on “editions other than the first,” which makes me think including statements of first editions is unnecessary. What say you?
A. Source citations don’t usually indicate that a particular edition is the first. The main reason for this is that first editions—out of respect for a future that none of us can predict—almost never call themselves that on the title page or anywhere else. If it’s relevant, this information can be mentioned in the text or in a note. But if you want to add it to a formal citation—as in the following bibliography entry—use square brackets to signal that the edition statement is not part of the source:
Fowler, H. W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. [1st ed.] Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1926.
Q. While developing a bibliography, I came across a book whose title was different for the first edition than for later editions. How should this be indicated in a bibliography?
A. First, cite the edition that you consulted. For example, a bibliography entry for the fourth edition of Garner’s Modern English Usage, published under different titles for the first three editions, would look like this:
Garner, Bryan A. Garner’s Modern English Usage. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Then, add the info about the other title(s) to the end of the entry:
Garner, Bryan A. Garner’s Modern English Usage. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Earlier editions published as A Dictionary of Modern American Usage (1st ed.) and Garner’s Modern American Usage (2nd and 3rd eds.).
Q. Hi! How would you cite an art exhibition in notes-bibliography style? I can’t find it in CMOS.
A. Because they’re events rather than published sources, there’s no standard citation format for exhibitions. Your only requirements in Chicago style are to italicize the name of the exhibition (see CMOS 8.201) and to include enough details about the event to allow readers to identify it.
For example, you might refer in your text to Grain of a Hand: Drawings with Graphite, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago that began on July 17, 2021, and is scheduled to run through April 3, 2022. Such a reference could be made entirely in the text (as here), or you could put it in a note—or a note might be used to supplement a mention in the text.
But there’s usually no point in trying to list the exhibition in a standard bibliography, where the expectation is that readers might be able to retrieve the sources for themselves. If you quote or refer to an exhibition catalog, however, you would add that source to the list (see CMOS 14.236).
Q. I am editing an online book for a legal nonprofit. The editors cite some of the material as being reprinted with the author’s permission. Because the book is online, is “republished” the correct term versus “reprinted”?
A. Either “reprinted” or “republished” will get the point across. But the word “reprinted” suggests paper, whereas “republished” is best applied to an entire work. If you want a more suitable term—one that’s both commonly understood and medium independent—try “reproduced.”
Q. How does one cite the place of publication of an older book issued in a city whose name or nation has since changed? For example, a book might describe itself on its title page as having been published in Pressburg (now Bratislava) or in Straßburg, Germany (now Strasbourg, France). Should I give the place as it existed when the book was published or as it exists now?
A. Record the place of publication as printed in the source itself. The cities you mention are still known in German as Pressburg and Straßburg, so the differences may depend not only on the date of publication but also on the language. If the name of the city as it is officially designated today is relevant in some way to your reason for citing it or might be helpful for your intended audience, you can add it (and any other relevant details) in square brackets: e.g., Pressburg [Bratislava]. But in most cases, the year of publication will supply sufficient context. See also CMOS 6.99 and 14.131.
Q. Dear Chicago editors: What should I do if my source appeared in a newspaper (which I cannot reach today), but is featured on a website? How can I give credit to both the paper and the website? The article is something I found on the website of Columbia journalism professor Samuel Freedman.
A. You would attribute the article to both. For example, here’s how you might cite the article “Don’t Reward Deceitful Writers” (as in a note):
1. Samuel G. Freedman, “Don’t Reward Deceitful Writers,” USA Today, March 24, 2004, on the author’s website, http://www.samuelfreedman.com/articles/ust03242004.html.
That should work for most purposes. But if your research depends on finding the original source—or if you’ve come across the article on some random site rather than, as in this case, a website hosted by the author—it’s best to track down the article itself. For example, if you have access to a library, you might find the article via one of the full-text databases from EBSCOhost:
1. Samuel G. Freedman, “Don’t Reward Deceitful Writers,” USA Today, March 24, 2004, EBSCOhost Newspaper Source.
Note that this citation differs from the automatically generated Chicago-style citation offered with the article by EBSCOhost, which renders it as follows:
Samuel G. Freedman. “Don’t Reward Deceitful Writers.” USA Today. Accessed December 3, 2021. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nfh&AN=J0E355433453204&site=eds-live&scope=site
That citation isn’t a total loss, but it has some problems: (1) The author’s name would be inverted in a bibliography entry (Freedman, Samuel G.). (2) It’s missing the date of publication. (3) Chicago doesn’t require access dates for sources that include a date of publication. (4) The URL is not only littered with ugly syntax, but it’s unhelpful for anyone who isn’t logged into a network with access to EBSCOhost. (5) Finally, a formal bibliography entry isn’t necessarily required for a newspaper article cited in the text or in a note. See also CMOS 14.11 and 14.198.
Q. CMOS 14.233 calls for URLs to be included in citations of online reference entries. But in the case of the OED (and probably other such premium sources), the URL will not work unless you have either a personal subscription or institutional access via a proxy server. So . . . what to do? Forgo the URL?
A. Include the URL, which will be helpful for some readers and may encourage others to find out if their library has a subscription to the resource that would give them access through their library membership. This isn’t much different from citing a printed book, which readers would usually be expected to find at a library or bookstore.