Q. I am writing a research paper and would like to use parenthetical in-text citations using author-date style. However instead of including a reference list, I would like to include a bibliography, using notes-bibliography style. I thought this might be appropriate since I am writing a research paper for a course in the humanities but didn’t want to include footnotes. My professor is allowing us to use MLA or Chicago/Turabian citation style and hasn’t given us a lot of specifics.
A. A reference list (unlike a bibliography) is set up to match the parenthetical citations in the text. The in-text citations show author and year (Jones 1995), and the reference list entries begin with author and year:
Jones, Denise. 1995. Title. etc.
A bibliography entry, on the other hand, buries the year at the end of the entry. If you want to devise your own system instead of using one that is time-tested and globally employed, be prepared to defend it. And get permission from your instructor.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What is the order of dates in an in-text citation when more than one author is cited? Is it ascending by date? For example: (Martin 1986; Halliday 2000; Butt et al. 2003)? Or doesn’t the order matter?
A. The order in which author-date citations are given may depend on the order they were quoted or referred to in the text, or it may reflect the relative importance of the items cited. If neither criterion applies, alphabetical or chronological order may be appropriate. Unless citation order is prescribed by a particular journal style, the decision is the author’s and must not be edited without the author’s permission. Please see CMOS 15.30.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. The author of a scholarly book in media studies cites Alexa more than once as a source in the bibliography as a website (As in “Alexa, what are the top . . . ?”). Does Alexa belong in a scholarly bibliography, and if so, is it in fact a website?
A. There is no aspect of social media that is outside the scope of scholarly research. If someone is writing a dissertation on an aspect of Alexa, they’re going to be quoting Alexa. Bibliographies normally contain websites, so Alexa.com is a qualified candidate. A single Alexa announcement may be quoted in the text or in a note along with relevant information (access date, device, software version number, browser, operating system, etc.), rather than in a formal citation. A bibliography entry for individual announcements is unnecessary.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am editing a manuscript for an international journal that uses Chicago style. An author has cited a monograph. I cannot find an entry for Chicago’s guidelines on monograph formatting in the index or in chapter 14. Can you tell me where I should look?
A. Monograph is another word for book, usually on a specialized subject and written by a single author. Cite a monograph as you would a book. Details and examples begin at CMOS 14.100.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do I cite a page or folio number if that number was incorrectly printed on the page—something that happens occasionally in early books? Page numbers might run 14, 15, 26, 17, 18. For the one after 15, should I use “26 [16]”?
A. Square brackets are indeed used in this way for editorial interpolations, but “26 [16]” might not be crystal clear to many readers. Instead, write something like “[16] (original page misnumbered as 26).”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have a prepublication edition (“Uncorrected Proof for Feedback Purposes”) of Mishkan Tefillah, a Reform Jewish prayer book. It is, of course, different in many aspects from the final published version. How do I cite this uncorrected proof? (I use full note and bibliography style.)
A. First, make sure your proofs don’t prohibit citing or (more commonly) quoting. Much can change between the proof stage and final publication, so it’s important to respect the publisher’s directions. Assuming it’s fine to cite the work, cite it as you would any book, with the use of forthcoming rather than a year of publication. Please see examples at CMOS 14.146, 14.172, and 15.45.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m editing an online wildlife correspondence course. Subject-matter specialists who have written the lessons sometimes cite web links that are now dead. How do I style a bibliography citation with a dead link? Often I can find a live link containing the article or information. Thank you!
A. There are two main ways to approach this task, so consult with the author or publisher to decide which approach to use. (1) You can update each link silently (adding the date you accessed it), or (2) you can leave the dead links but add the dates they were accessed. The second plan requires the author to supply the access dates. A caveat: You should update a link only if the web page still contains the information referenced in the lesson. If the information has been removed or changed, then the only accurate way to cite is to use the dead link with the date it was accessed.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I work for a climate research group at a university. We are building a series of online tools for folks interested in using science to adapt to climate change. I need guidance on how our users should cite the unique forecasts and projections they produce using our tools. In a sense, the products (graphs, maps, etc.) are unique to them and their usage, meaning we could ask them to cite the access date, but that wouldn’t be that descriptive of what they were doing.
A. Although supplying a ready-made format might encourage users to acknowledge your products, so far it isn’t conventional to add such information to citations. Acknowledgment of software used to create or modify an image or data is more likely to appear in a caption or in-text explanation than in a formal citation, where the specific wording depends on how much information (version numbers, etc.) is likely to interest the intended reader.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In cases where a single short quotation stands completely on its own (such as in the front matter of a book or in a social media post), I generally see it attributed using a dash and the person’s name (“—Albert Einstein,” for example). Is this format accepted by Chicago, or is it strictly informal? Also, is it an em dash, en dash, or hyphen?
A. The use of an em dash with the source of an epigraph indeed fits with Chicago style. Please see CMOS 13.36 for an example.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. If a book is not published yet but is under contract, with the manuscript in the copyediting process, and has a publication date and ISBN assigned by the publisher on their website, how is this referenced? Putting “forthcoming” in place of the year ignores the fact that a publication date has been set, and it also applies to books that are less far along, and “in press” seems premature. Is there some terminology between these two?
A. Knowing how often the pitfalls of publishing can delay a book project, Chicago prefers to recommend forthcoming. It’s safer to be vague than to publish a citation that turns out to be wrong. If the stage of publication is important to the topic under discussion, you can always explain in the text or a note rather than try to indicate it in the citation.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]