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?”
A. The books that are cited should be the ones the author consulted, no matter what language they are in. For guidelines and examples of full citations of books published in languages other than English (including how to deal with terms like “editor”), please see chapter 14 in CMOS (start with paragraphs 14.99 and 14.102). Unless you are fluent in German and have been hired for the purpose of translating, it’s a terrible idea to translate the titles.