Q. When listing “several citations in a single note,” the example given in CMOS 14.57 shows an “and” before the last citation. However, in a CMOS Shop Talk post with an example of two citations in one note, there is no “and” after the semicolon. Please clarify if Chicago style is to use “and” before the last citation (1) when there are two citations and (2) when there are several citations.
A. The “and” is optional in either case. Think of a footnote as a sentence. It’s punctuated like one, though typically it’s presented in the form of a fragment. In other words, this:
1. Author Name, Title of Book (Facts of Publication), 33.
is equivalent to this:
1. See Author Name, Title of Book (Facts of Publication), 33.
That “See” in the second example, which is understood in the first, makes explicit the fact that a note is an imperative sentence. When additional sources are added, “and” may be similarly understood:
1. [See] Author Name, Title of Book (Facts of Publication), 33; [and (or “and see”)] Another Author, Another Title (Different Facts of Publication), 121–22.
Though it can save space and reduce repetition to omit these words, there’s no reason they can’t be included if desired—or expanded on as needed:
1. See Author Name, Title of Book (Facts of Publication), 33. For a different perspective, see Another Author, Another Title (Different Facts of Publication), 121–22.
Back to “and.” If in doubt, add it; the conjunction can help readers identify the end of one source and the beginning of another. But try to be consistent in your approach across any single document.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In a footnote that starts with a superscript note number, is there a space between the number and the text of the note? Thanks!
A. There is if you let Microsoft Word or Google Docs do its thing. And if you’re smart enough to do that—in other words, if you already know to take advantage of the automated notes feature in your word processor—you might as well not interfere, particularly as there’s no apparent option to change this default behavior in either application. Consider also that such spaces may help readers identify footnotes more easily (which is why we use them at CMOS Shop Talk). But either choice, space or no space, is acceptable in a manuscript. Publishers who follow Chicago style will have no trouble adapting either one to a regular number (not a superscript) followed by a period and a space (see CMOS 14.24).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How does one cite a book with a bilingual title—e.g., a book where the full title is presented in both German and English? Thank you very much.
A. Use either an equals sign or a slash between the two forms of the title (with a space before and after the equals sign or slash); otherwise, such a source would be cited like any other work of its type. But if the source itself does not use a slash or other mark between the two titles, an equals sign should be preferred:
Appelbaum, Stanley, ed. and trans. Five Great German Short Stories = Fünf deutsche Meistererzählungen. A Dual-Language Book. New York: Dover, 1993.
Note that sentence-style capitalization is used for the German title, according to which German adjectives (like deutsche) are lowercase (see CMOS 11.6). Also note the series title in the example (“A Dual-Language Book”), which is optional (see CMOS 14.123).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. If you quote a sentence that includes an APA-style reference in parentheses, do you quote it with the reference, or would you cut it out?
A. Unlike a superscript note reference number in the text, which is meaningless without the text of the note, an APA-style text reference—for example, “(Smith, 2020)” in APA or “(Smith 2020)” in Chicago’s similar author-date style—includes at least some substantive information. So keep the parenthetical reference in your quoted text. Readers may not be able to decipher the reference without tracking down the original (with the help of your own source citation), but they’ll have an easier time locating the quoted text if you leave it intact. For more details, see CMOS 13.7, item 5.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Recently the New York Times published an opinion piece by Mary Mann, a librarian and writer. In it she wrote, “In the past I’ve had to remind student patrons that you can’t cite Wikipedia on research papers.” Is that still the case?
A. Wikipedia, like any encyclopedia, is a tertiary source. A tertiary source synthesizes information in secondary sources to provide a summary for general readers about a topic. Secondary sources would include something like an article in a literary journal that analyzes the parallels between James Joyce’s Ulysses and Homer’s Odyssey. Ulysses and the Odyssey, in turn, are primary sources. Secondary and tertiary sources also usually refer to other secondary and tertiary sources in support of their own arguments.
So whenever you cite Wikipedia, you are citing a summary of mostly secondary (and some tertiary) sources on a topic. And for many readers, this thirdhand evidence won’t be enough to prove your point.
Summaries are incredibly useful, as the popularity of Wikipedia attests. They save us the trouble of doing our own research. For example, when something happens to a celebrity, or you need a historical overview of the Macintosh computer or a sense of the emerging consensus over climate change, start with Wikipedia. You can even tell your cousin what Wikipedia said about So-and-So’s untimely passing. But don’t write a paper that cites Wikipedia citing the New York Times and five other sources quoting the late actor’s rep saying it was due to “natural causes.” Your responsibility as a researcher is the same as Wikipedia’s: you must discover the facts for yourself—and prove them by citing them.
The good news is that you don’t have to credit Wikipedia if you use it to get leads on a subject. Wikipedia’s own source citations (and source citations in general) are a gift that anyone can follow.
Not that you can never cite Wikipedia. You can—for example, in a research paper that tracks gender bias in Wikipedia articles. But if you’re turning to Wikipedia in search of the truth, pay attention to the sources cited in its articles. Those, and not Wikipedia itself, are where the information comes from. Meanwhile, if you find something wrong in Wikipedia’s page on Sichuan peppers? Follow Mary Mann’s example and fix it yourself. Don’t forget to cite your sources.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Always such a pleasure to see the Q&A again! I want to ask you about a journal format that is new to me: one that simply numbers its articles sequentially. This was my first go at citing it:
Amare, Mulubrhan, Jane Mariara, Remco Oostendorp, and Menno Pradhan. “The Impact of Smallholder Farmers’ Participation in Avocado Export Markets on the Labor Market, Farm Yields, Sales Prices, and Incomes in Kenya.” Land Use Policy 88, 104168 (November 2019): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104168.
Then I realized that I’d better put the word “article” in front of the article number to keep people from thinking it’s a typo for an issue number or even, in this case, for page numbers. Also on second thought, I question the need to add 1–13 (the page nos.) at the end because all the articles in this volume have page nos. of the form 1–n. It’s true that readers may be interested to know in advance how long the article runs, but Elsevier doesn’t display the page numbers on its site; you have to open up the article and jump to the end, whatta pain. Have you finalized a rule for this new animal? Many thanks as always.
A. You’re describing an article published according to a continuous publishing model (see CMOS 1.82). Your description is nicely accurate, and your citation very nearly matches our own. CMOS 14.174 shows how we would cite such an article. Yours would be cited in a bibliography entry as follows:
Amare, Mulubrhan, Jane Mariara, Remco Oostendorp, and Menno Pradhan. “The Impact of Smallholder Farmers’ Participation in Avocado Export Markets on the Labor Market, Farm Yields, Sales Prices, and Incomes in Kenya.” Land Use Policy 88 (2019): 104168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104168.
In a note, the format would be similar but may also include a citation to a specific page in the article:
. . . Land Use Policy 88 (2019): 5, 104168. . . .
You’re right, however, that adding the word “article” before the article ID and including a page range in the bibliography entry might be helpful, and there’s little harm in including those:
. . . Land Use Policy 88 (2019): 1–13, article 104168. . . .
Chicago doesn’t require these elements—nor does the exportable citation data from ScienceDirect include them—but they are helpful. Until we get a unified database for all the sources in the world, source citation will be as much art as science. Take our recommendations and adapt them to specific cases as needed.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In your view, is it permissible in notes/biblio to decide on either “Fall” or “Autumn” for periodical dates and make it consistent, or do we have to follow the individual periodical’s nomenclature?
A. When citing a source, it’s best to use words that reflect the source itself. If an issue of a journal says “Fall,” use “Fall.” If it says “May/June,” use that. When readers follow a citation where it leads and find that the cited facts of publication match those recorded with the source itself, their confidence in your work will grow.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do you cite a photograph of a piece of art that is in a book chapter with two authors and the book has several editors? Do you need all of the creators—photographer, artist, authors, and editors? Thank you!
A. We get a lot of questions like yours. They generally go something like this: “How do I cite a picture / drawing / marginal annotation / coffee mug stain / whatever that I found in a book?” The answer is generally the same: describe the object in your text; then cite the book accordingly.
So in your text you would describe the artwork as needed—for example, what it is and who created it and when; assuming you’ve done that, there’s usually no need to give additional details in a note. Nor would you need to name the photographer as credited in the book, a redundant move that would amount to citing another source’s cited sources.
Then you would simply cite the book as a whole and provide a page number where the image may be found. If the chapter itself is relevant to the artwork or to your discussion, you will want to cite the book in terms of the chapter. Here’s the format you would use:
1. Author One and Author Two, “Title of Chapter,” in Title of Book, ed. Editor One, Editor Two, and Editor Three (City: Publisher, 2020), 147.
If, however, the artwork is central to your discussion—or you’re a student and your instructor requires it—you may want to cite the artwork itself. In that case, it would be best to track down its location in a gallery or online and to confirm the relevant details there rather than relying on the secondary source information in the book (though the book should give you a head start on finding the artwork and the information about it that you will need). Examples may be found at CMOS 14.235.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Which comes first in a bibliography, edition number or editor? What would the sequence be if there is an author, an editor, an edition number, and a specific page range of the chapter one is citing?
A. List the edition followed by the editor, according to the following pattern:
Surname, First Name. “Chapter Title.” In Book Title, 3rd ed., edited by First Name Surname, 26–42. City: Publisher, 2020.
It’s important to list the edition immediately after the title of the book, because in some cases a subsequent edition will have been edited by someone other than the editor(s) of previous editions. Few books fit this pattern neatly, but you can adapt the entry as needed. For example, here’s how you would cite a chapter in the 2019 paperback version of a 2008 second edition of a collection of novels edited by B. P. Reardon and published by the University of California Press:
Xenophon of Ephesus. An Ephesian Tale. Translated by Graham Anderson. In Collected Ancient Greek Novels, 2nd ed., edited by B. P. Reardon, 145–97. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019.
The title of the chapter is in italics in this case because the chapter reproduces a novel—though a short one (see CMOS 8.178). For citing authors like Xenophon of Ephesus who are known primarily by a given name, see CMOS 14.83.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. If it becomes necessary to use two editions of the same title, do both editions need to be included in the bibliography?
A. If you cite both editions or rely on both editions for data, then yes, they should both be listed in your bibliography. If the two editions have different authors or different titles, or both, it’s best to list them separately:
Fowler, H. W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 2nd ed. Revised and edited by Sir Ernest Gowers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
———. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 4th ed. Edited by Jeremy Butterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
If the details are substantially the same for both editions, you may list them under a single entry:
University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 16th and 17th eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010 and 2017.
For a detailed discussion of the 3-em dash in the second example above, including some caveats, see CMOS 14.67–71.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]