Q. I am a writer and occasionally quote material from my own works, some that have been published and some that are not published
but are available as working papers. Should I handle these quotations the same as I would those of other authors? What about
paraphrased material—do I need to reference that? Does it make a difference if the material is published
or unpublished, and if I hold the copyright or the publisher holds the copyright?
A. Many scholars use their own material, but instead of quoting themselves, they put a note somewhere that portions of the work
were previously published, and they give full references to the original publications. If the amount of recycled material
is significant, rather than what amounts to fair use, you may indeed need permission, regardless of who owns the copyright,
and you should let the permissions office of your publisher see a draft so they can tell you whether this is the case.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am confused about how to cite a video recording of a live performance (an opera). It was originally performed and recorded by a Metropolitan Opera Television production in 1991, but a 2000 version (a rerelease in DVD format) is being distributed by another organization. It also comes in the 1991 version in the VHS format. It is important to distinguish between the two for a variety of reasons, especially if someone were looking for the DVD. The 2000 DVD is in German, but can have subtitles in English, Chinese, and French. How would I cite the 2000 DVD?
A. CMOS gives several examples of how to cite musical recordings in paragraph 14.263. Probably the closest to your example would be the following:
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Don Giovanni. Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Sir Colin Davis. With Ingvar Wixell, Luigi Roni, Martina Arroyo, Stuart Burrows, Kiri Te Kanawa, et al. Recorded May 1973. Philips 422 541-2, 1991, 3 compact discs.
In styling your citation, you’d put the facts about the DVD in place of the information about the compact discs. If you needed to, you could add “Also available in VHS from . . .” When you have extra bits of information that don’t appear in one of our examples, include everything you think your readers will want or need. State the facts clearly without worrying too much about how to style them. For instance, to your DVD citation you could add “In German. Includes subtitles in English, Chinese, and French.” Try to style all similar citations in the same way.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What is the proper way to reference an email in a report?
A. To cite any form of personal correspondence, give the person’s name, the medium of the correspondence (letter, fax, email), and the date. For the sake of privacy, do not cite the sender’s address (home or email). See CMOS 14.214 and 15.53.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When writing an academic paper that is based on the analysis of one book, do you need to footnote each sentence that paraphrases an idea from the book or does the fact that it is known and stated that the entire paper is an analysis of the book’s themes sufficient?
A. You should be very careful to cite the page references to every idea you use from another source. You don’t have to create a whole new footnote for each one. In the first footnote, where you give a complete citation, you can add “Hereafter cited in the text.” Then you can cite further page references in parentheses in the text (Jones, Methods, 312). See CMOS 13.67 for more ideas on how to treat frequent references to a single source.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How would you treat web page citations where access to the web pages is restricted?
A. So much internet content—after connection costs and the price of hardware and software—still seems to be free. But before this age of “free” access to thousands of newspapers and scores of ancient, out-of-copyright works, you could still cite, for example, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a subscription to which has probably never been free. And just as we don’t recommend including costs and availability in citations to books or journals, we don’t require or recommend any statement related to accessibility when citing an internet source. For one thing, the status and location of online material is so often subject to change that any such information is likely to become obsolete and possibly misleading. And, as has long been the case, libraries can provide access to many materials that may not be available to individuals.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do you determine which publisher to cite if the book has had more than one publisher over time, and which publication
date do you use: the latest edition/publication date, or when the book was first published?
A. Generally, cite the source you’ve consulted. Pagination and content may vary across different editions
(or printings or postings) of the same work; citing an edition you did not consult could render your citation inaccurate.
In any case, a full source citation to one edition of a work will generally be enough to lead readers to any other editions
of a work. In some cases, especially for older or classic works, an original publication date is useful; it may be included,
preferably in square brackets, before the date of the edition cited.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. It is not uncommon in the literature of film studies today to have epigraphs that feature a choice bit of dialog from one
of the characters in a film, and often the author of the screenplay is not given, but only the film title, character’s
name, sometimes parenthetically the actor who played the part, and year of the film’s release. Similarly
if one wants to quote a choice bit of dialog from fiction, say, one of Sherlock Holmes’ admonitions
to Watson, does one credit Holmes and/or Conan Doyle? CMOS is mute on such attributions in the context of epigraphs.
A. You have a lot of leeway with epigraphs; for example:
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth.
—Cordelia to her father, King Lear 1.1.91–92
King Lear can stand on its own (unless you are one of those who like to insist on an author other than Shakespeare). You might just
cite King Lear 1.1.91–92 as the source; those who don’t know the play will have to read it and
figure out that it’s Cordelia who speaks those lines, then ponder what it all means. The point is that
you are not obligated to cite more than the barest minimum of a source in an epigraph.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am using the Chicago style to cite a magazine article. If there is a “?” at the end of the article title, do I still need to use a period before the quotation marks?
Q. I have searched for the answer to this question but have not found it discussed in your text. I am writing a dissertation
in the social sciences. I cite to references in parentheses in the text in the format (Smith 1999) with full citations contained
in a bibliography. I sometimes cite to the same reference a few sentences later. I am wondering if I can use the abbreviation
(ibid.) instead of repeating the exact same citation (Smith 1999)?
A. Chicago considers an in-text parenthetical author-date citation to already be in a short form and therefore discourages “ibid.”
as a substitute. If you must use “ibid.,” just be careful that no intervening
sources creep into the text. It does mean “in the same place [as the last item cited],”
but it requires that the reader see or recall the last source, an inconvenience we feel outweighs the minor space gain.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Perhaps you can help me. How do I format a second footnote for an article in an edited anthology (more than two editors), when the anthology already has been cited fully in another footnote for a different article in the same anthology? Must I write the complete citation for the anthology for every article contained within it?
A. Once the full facts of publication for the anthology have been presented, you may use the short form (N.B.: my example is partly made up; I don’t have the anthology handy):
17. Emily Dickinson, “After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes,” in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, ed. Nina Baym (New York: Norton, 1998), 1:33–38.
24. James Russell Lowell, “To the Dandelion,” in Baym, Norton Anthology, 1:77.
For a discussion of short forms of titles, see CMOS 14.33.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]