Q. In the less-than-ideal situation of notes without a final bibliography, when citing a specific page reference in a journal article, should the full page range of the article be given in addition to the particular page, and if so, how? Thank you!
A. Good question! Usually you don’t have to include the page range for the article in addition to a specific page reference, even if the note is not supplemented by a fuller reference elsewhere. A page range in a bibliography entry helps readers locate the article absent any specific locator; a specific page reference in a note serves that purpose also (in that way doing double duty). But if you had to list both for some reason, the following format should work:
1. Susan Satterfield, “Livy and the Pax Deum,” Classical Philology 111, no. 2 (April 2016): 165–76, 170.
Readers consulting the source will figure out soon enough that the page range applies to the article as a whole. But for good measure you could add a comment at the end of the first such note: “References to journal articles cite the page range for the article followed by a specific page reference, if any.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hello. I am writing an essay for history in Chicago style, and when I state a fact I have been putting the number of the citation in parentheses after I have stated it. Is this correct? Example: Abe Lincoln became president in 1861. (5) Or do I need to put it as an exponent following the text?
A. Some citation systems do use parentheses like that to refer to a numbered list of sources, but Chicago style is to use a superscript number that refers to an endnote or footnote containing a citation. Here’s the Turabian Tip Sheet that shows how it looks with footnotes. Please see the “For Students” page at CMOS Shop Talk for answers to many questions on writing a paper and citing sources (scroll to “Chicago Style Basics”).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I write and edit reports for an environmental firm, and we frequently cite publications that are published by government organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency. These publications almost always include the authors’ names. We use the author-date system for citations. When referring to EPA publications in the text of a report, I typically word the text such that both EPA and the correct author-date text citation are mentioned (e.g., “As recommended by EPA guidance [Puls and Barcelona 1996], sampling . . .”). The project manager for one of the reports I’m working on has requested that we use the publishing organization name (or acronym) instead of the authors’ names in the in-text citations (e.g., use “EPA 1996” instead of “Puls and Barcelona 1996”) and then use a cross-reference in the references section to point to the correct citation based on the authors’ names. Is this appropriate? Her reasoning is that “EPA 1996” will be more recognizable to the reader than the authors’ names. I could not find a similar question in the Q&A, but if I missed one, please let me know!
A. Your manager’s system is a bit cruel, sending readers on a two-hop trip to the correct reference, in service of a spurious goal, since readers don’t normally need the names in author-date citations to be “recognizable.” Although CMOS allows an organization to serve as author when there is no author (see 15.37), when there are actual authors, it’s right to cite them.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I was wondering: in an academic book is there a reason to put something in a bibliography and not in an endnote? If there is a reason, what is it? What references go in the endnotes then? Is a bibliography needed?
A. A bibliography is optional if the endnotes contain full citations. But some writers use a bibliography to include materials used in researching the document whether they are cited in the notes or not. It can also include suggested readings. You can find answers to related questions at the CMOS Shop Talk blog; scroll down to “Chicago Style Basics.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am trying to document a long-standing journal which has undergone numerous title changes and publication sites. What title should I use for the multiple journal entries in the bibliography: the current title for all the entries or the title that was in use at the time of the issue publication? I have verified with the publisher that all the title variations (and differing places of publication) do indeed belong to the same journal. The changes are not extreme: no subtitle to a rather generic title or various subtitles attached to the generic main title.
A. List the journal titles as they were at the time of publication, and explain the variation in a headnote or footnote or annotation to the entries. The city of publication is not normally part of a journal citation, so you needn’t worry about that.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do you cite a speech that is out of copyright?
A. Cite it as you would any other speech. (Copyright information is not normally included in citations.) You can find examples of citations of speeches at CMOS 14.217 and 14.267.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Dear CMOS, I’m confused by the online encyclopedia entry examples in 14.234. Why does the Masolo example include an open date (1997–) while the Middleton does not? Many thanks for your help!
A. The Masolo citation is of an online publication that began in 1997 and continues to be updated, whereas the Middleton citation is from a printed book that came out in 2004 (thus no updating). As a courtesy, the Middleton citation provides a link to the online version as well:
Masolo, Dismas. “African Sage Philosophy.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, 1997–. Article published February 14, 2006; last modified February 22, 2016. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/african-sage/.
Middleton, Richard. “Lennon, John Ono (1940–1980).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., 2011. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31351.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’ve noticed that print and e-book versions of the same title sometimes have different dates of publication; how should this be dealt with in bibliographic entries? If I were quoting from such a work, I would provide the publication date of whichever version, print or digital, I had consulted, but what about a reference that’s intended only to point the reader toward a certain resource (“for more on this topic, see Smith 2018”)? In that case, should preference be given to the earlier date over the later? To the print version over the digital?
A. Cite the year of whichever edition you choose to recommend. For e-books, include the format (Kindle, iBooks, etc.). You can see examples in our Citation Quick Guide, under “E-book > Reference-List Entries.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am working on a research paper for an upper-level anthropology class and could not find the correct method for citing a quote that contains several in-text citations. How do I address the in-text citations?
A. Include them in your quotation. Please see CMOS 13.7: “Parenthetical text references in the original should be retained.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When referencing government reports with no author, is the author the country or the department? I have always used the department; however, our university style guide based on CMOS says to use the country. For example, Australia, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry . . .
A. It’s not a good idea to make a hard-and-fast rule, because your decision should fit your document. If your work is purely about Australia and no other country, it would be more useful to readers to begin with the department than to have dozens of entries beginning with Australia. If your work is more global in nature, however, readers might appreciate being able to locate the Australia references in a batch.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]