Citation, Documentation of Sources

Q. Why is ibid. preferable to id.? The meaning is essentially the same and id. is more succinct, and it is used extensively in legal citation without any apparent confusion or misunderstanding.

Q. How would you cite a website home page in a bibliography? Would the page title be “Home Page” (in quotes) or just a descriptive “Home page” (no quotes)? Or the title of the website? Or something else entirely?

Q. How should one cite a published book that is in an archival (personal papers) collection? The most important element of the book is not the text but the annotations added by the person whose collection the book is in. Thanks!

Q. If an author insists on using a widely attributed quote whose source cannot be confirmed, how should I cite it? Should I cite it at all? Or should I simply note in the running text that the quote is “widely attributed to such and such”?

Q. If a sentence includes quotations from different pages which are out of order (say a quotation from page 11 and then a quotation from page 3), should the citation in the footnote list the pages chronologically or in the order in which the quoted material appeared in the sentence?

Q. Does CMOS have an opinion or suggestion on how citations should occur within PowerPoint slides and in similar presentation software? Many classes and research presentations now rely on these types of presentations, but it’s not clear what the expectations for citations are. Are references at the end sufficient, or should there be a version of footnotes throughout? Perhaps only for direct quotes and the like? Thanks!

Q. Editing an anthology of academic nonfiction, I find a source citation for a video on YouTube. When I paste the URL into my browser, I get the “This video isn’t available anymore” page. General searches on the associated subjects of the video don’t turn up anything, and the author can’t find it, either. What should I do? Can we cite a ghost source, with a note indicating that it has vanished? Or do we have to jettison the source citation and associated quotations?

Q. I am citing an author who has two last names. The first is her maiden name, and the second her married name. I am aware that, ordinarily, one should go by the second surname. However, I am citing articles by this author from both before and after she was married, meaning that some of her articles only have the first last name and some have both last names. In this circumstance, what is the best way to cite her in both footnotes and in the final bibliography?

Q. I am citing a specific tweet according to the guidelines in CMOS 14.209. But if the tweet was published before July 2023, should I list the website as Twitter or X? Thanks!

Q. After years of using Chicago citation form, I have begun to wonder: What about all the folks who get left out of the citations, who go unrecognized for their work? For example, in a magazine article accompanied by striking and thoughtful illustrations or graphs or pictures, shouldn’t those workers get credit as well as the people who wrote the text? Often it’s those images that stay with us; often they are the only part of an article that people even take in. I guess I can freestyle my citations, but I wondered what your policy on this is. Thanks.