Q. How do I cite in text two works in the same year by authors with the same surname? I have (MacDonald 1999) for both K. A. MacDonald and R. H. MacDonald, each of whom wrote an article that year. It seems awkward to refer to them as (e.g.) “R. MacDonald” when I’ve given none of the other authors a first initial.
Q. How do I cite a website page that is not available anymore? I must cite a YouTube video that is an essential part of my research, but the link is now extinct. Thank you!
Q. Can it be considered acceptable to use endnotes for some of the chapters of an edited volume (conference proceedings) and footnotes for others? After selecting a great design for layout where notes are placed in a narrow side column, we laid out about a quarter of the text and then discovered that some chapters have such extensive notes that they need to be made into chapter endnotes. We don’t want to change the overall design for a number of reasons. What we’d like to do is retain the side notes in the chapters for which they work, and use chapter endnotes in the chapters where side notes don’t work. Is it more important to maintain consistency in this situation than to preserve our design?
Q. How would you recommend citing a note which occurs in the front matter of a book on a page numbered with roman numerals? Following the advice in CMOS, my troublesome page reference in the footnote would be xviiin1. Looks odd, no? And a bit hard to interpret for any but the editorial in-crowd?
Q. I have quotations that I have heard and known forever it seems. I have found the sources of a few, but I do not know how to cite them in my manuscript. Some I found online. Would I cite them as a footnote? What format would I use?
Q. I’m editing notes for a book with chapters by a variety of authors. A few of the authors want to cite specific page numbers and exclude some pages between the first and last page they’re referencing. I’ve seen it done two different ways, and I’m not sure which is correct. Example 1:
John Smith, “Canada and the Commonwealth,” Foreign Policy Journal 16, no. 2 (2009): 61–63, 67–68.
Example 2:
John Smith, “Canada and the Commonwealth,” Foreign Policy Journal 16, no. 2 (2009): 61–63 and 67–68.
Are either of these correct, or should I make it 61–68?
Q. In referring to a publication, I know the title should be in italics. But if a longer title such as Looking Back: A Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society is shortened to Looking Back, should quotation marks be added to the italics?
Q. Dear Chicago, Many transgender authors have a “dead name”—the name the author had before undergoing the process of transitioning genders. This dead name may come with unhappy emotional associations and moreover is in any case no longer the real or current name of the author concerned. However, they may have previously published using that dead name. Citing the author with that dead name may therefore be an ethically compromised act, be hurtful, or simply be factually incorrect. However, it may also be the only name connected with the work being cited. What then, would you advise as the best practice when citing transgender authors?
Q. I am editing a document in notes/bibliography style where the author has wordy footnotes rather than straight-up citations. For example: “There are a number of excellent biographies of Jane Austen and the outlines of her life story are nearly always rehearsed in articles on her work. Jane Doe, her friend, wrote the first authoritative biography. Joe Blogg’s Her Life Story is perhaps now the definitive. And John Doe’s short biography for the Penguin Lives Series has circulated widest.” And it goes on with several more. Since these sources are all in the bibliography, do I need to include all of the publishing info in the footnotes? We’re trying to keep them short.
Q. When a citation falls near the bottom of the page, and there is no room for the associated footnote, should that note be placed on the following page? Thanks!