Q. I’m editing company profiles for a business directory and often encounter statements like the following:
We were cited as Outstanding Exporter of the Year in 2008.
We are no. 6 in DQ’s “Best IT Employer Survey.”
Another editor placed quotation marks around “Outstanding Exporter of the Year.” How would CMOS place quotation marks in the list above?
A. In Chicago style, the titles of studies and articles are typically quoted; names of awards are not. There are gray areas, however. For instance, in your first sentence, “cited as” is very close to “quoted as,” which could justify the quotation marks. In any case, in some documents it might be preferable to treat similar items the same rather than distract with fine distinctions that give the appearance of inconsistency. This is yet another instance that calls for editing judgment.