TCMOS – Citations – Chapter 14

Sunday, February 16, 2020
Blog #15 – learnings from #TheChicagoManualOfStyle.

So much has happened since I started this journey of studying The Chicago Manual of Style. The year has changed. We have lost a basketball legend. The primaries of US elections have started. As my blogging time is drawing to a close, it’s making me nostalgic. Memories attach to slowly cooked habits, and once I am through with this book, a void will enlarge where it once filled.

All right, enough of me.

The purpose of a citation (besides the copyright law, courtesy) is to locate the source easily. While I will detail the technical structure of various citations, how much to cite depends on what’s needed to locate the source.

There are two ways, we cite. In notes: where we superscript and note appears either in the footnote or endnote (in the back matter). Or in a bibliography.

What is a bibliography, and how is it different from a note?

Like stated above, there are two ways or systems of citing. Upon further research, bibliography is a list of all research that helped with the book, whether cited directly or not.

Citing Online Sources

1. Include the URL of the source at the end of the note to lead the reader to it.
2. CMOS recommends using stable sources. That is, if the source keeps changing, it gets harder to track it. Remedy by:
   1. Keeping copies of the sources
   2. Using DOI URL instead of regular (or both). DOI URLs tend to be more stable.
   3. Ensuring the source is credible before using it
3. Some cites will provide permalinks that are used for sharing. E.g., YouTube video links.
4. Real estate is critical. CMOS advises toward shorter URLs. E.g., don’t use long URL when searching for links on google. Click on the page and retrieve the smaller version.

Notes and Bibliography Format Overview

Firstly, sections of notes are comma separated while a bibliography are separated by a period. That is why entries in the latter start with capital letters.

A simple citation consists of: Author name, title, facts of publication in that order.

1. Titles of larger works (books, journals, etc.) are italicized, while smaller ones (chapters, articles) or unpublished ones aren’t.
2. Author name in a note follows first name last name format while in a bibliography it’s last name, first name (inverted).
3. In notes, the facts of publication are set in parenthesis, not in bibliography.
4. Notes contain ed abbreviated while bibliography its spelled out. E.g., edited by. translated by.
5. Notes use specific page numbers referred instead of bibliography on a whole book.
6. The first time a source is cited in a note (which are numbered), long form is used (to be discussed) followed by a shortened version from there on then. Use words such as see in italics to refer to other notes.
7. Multiple authors are separated by and. In a bibliography, only first author name is inverted, the ones following are not.

Notes

Note superscripts are placed at the end of the sentence cited, that are renumbered to one at the start of each chapter. That is, the numbers don’t continue between chapters. So, a note that applies to an entire chapter should be unnumbered.

As stated in overview, subsequent citations of the same source are shortened as follows:

1. Only last name of the author is used (unless multiple authors have the same last name).
2. The title of the book is shortened if more than four words.
3. Use n while referring to other notes.
4. CMOS discourages the use of ibid, idem, Op. cit., loc. cit

If a footnote exceeds a page, break the last sentence midsentence to alert the users the note hasn’t ended.

Footnotes work well in printing work for cross-reference ease. Lengthy footnotes can pose page markup challenge which is solved by endnotes where back matter can be appended without altering page numbers of the book. Cross-reference is more difficult with endnotes.

If you have unnumbered footnotes (applied to the whole chapter), they precede the numbered notes.

Best Practices with Notes

1. Avoid overlong notes, especially footnotes. Avoid these by integrating citations in the text.
2. Avoid multiple citations in the same sentence by grouping them together.
3. Use abbreviations (especially for repeated terms).

Bibliography

These provide a window into breadth of author’s research, presented in alphabetical order in the back matter before the index page. You can divide these into sections as recommended by CMOS to enhance readability.

Here are other rules to cite these:

1. Single author entry precedes multiple author entries.
2. For repeated names use 3 em dashes.
3. 3 em dashes may also be used for institution and organization names
4. If author name in not known, start with the book title. Avoid using “anonymous.”
5. When an organization acts as an author (e.g., CMOS) and carries no personal author’s name, the organization is listed as the author name.
   University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
   If this were a note, the last part would be in parenthesis.

Reminder on Work Titles

1. Published book and journal (large works) are in italics.
2. Newspaper, movie, video game, blog, and painting titles are also set in italics.
3. Use quotation marks (with font in roman) for subsections of large books like chapters, articles, parts, titles of poems in collections, etc.
4. Numbers in titles should be spelled out.
5. Subtitles and titles are separated by a colon. Same rule applies to multiple subtitle.
6. Titles within a title are enclosed on quotation marks.
7. Reverse Italics: When foreign language names or names of ships, etc. that are normally in italics appear inside an italicized title, set them in roman without the italics.
8. Older longer titles are truncated and denoted by the use of [. . .].
9. Translated non-English titles are capitalized sentence style.

Citing Books

The intended outcome of a citation in enough information to lead to the source. So, elements besides the author name, title, facts of publication are included to support the above outcome. We’ve already discussed author name and titles at length. Other elements include, editor, compiler, translator, edition, volume, series title, facts of publication (to be discussed), page numbers, and URL or DOIs for online sources.

Author and other names

When no author name appears on the book, the name of the editor may be used in the first element of citation, follow it by ed. If all names are known, the order follows: author name, book title, editor, compiler, translator. with abbreviates ed., comp., trans. in a note, and edited by, compiled by, translated by phrases in a bibliography. Rarely, editor is more important in which case the citation starts with their name instead. Use keyword with for ghostwriters, etc.

Elements of Book in Citation

When chapters is cited, the following syntax is used: author name, “in quotes the chapter name,” in book title, . . .

If the citation is to specific element of the book such as forword, introduction, preface, etc., that term is added to the title.

Letters

Name of the sender then the recipient starts these citations, followed by a date, sometimes place. Rest of the structure follows the other standard formats discussed.

Specify volume using Arabic numbers: vol 2, unless it follows page number where a colon is sufficient to separate the two numbers.

Series

Series title (especially if it helps clarify the citation) are added after the title of the work, set in headline-style capitalization, and not italicized, or set in quote or parenthesis. Occasionally, if the series if quoted a whole, it can be used as the only title.

Facts of Publication

All citations contain facts of publication (set in parenthesis in a note, not bibliography) that consist of:

1. Place: For older publications, this can be omitted when unknown. Locate this information always on the copyright page which will state where the publisher offices are location. If more than one place is listed, pick the first one. Add city, state, etc. only if it clarifies the location. If not known, use n.p.
   
2. Publisher: CMOS prefers shorter form of publisher names at the time of publication instead of current name (names change). The word press is usually omitted from the name. Be consistent with the use of and or & in the name. Do not translate foreign names.
   
   For self published, use self-pub in a note or “printed by the author.” Name of distributor and platform is acceptable.
   
3. Date: The year of the most recent publication found in the title and/or the copyright page. If date is unknown, use n.d. If book is going to be published, use the term forthcoming.

CMOS gets into the details of other elements such page numbers, line numbers on pages 821 through 824.

Finally, eBook references have EPUB at the end.

Periodicals

Periodicals are professional, scholarly journals, magazine, and newspapers

These citations will include the title of periodical as well as the column or issue along with page reference and URLs or databases.

While a journal is periodical available through subscription (New England Journal of Medicine) and are cited by volume and date, magazine are printed at a cadence and available to in retail stores, online, etc., and cited by date alone.

The rules are applicable here with details described from pages 830 through 837.

Some highlights I want to state for Magazines is to drop the “The” from the title in citation. Rules for Newspaper too follow the general rules.

Reviews

While citing reviews, follow the following format: Name of reviewer, title, “review of” <name of the work reviewed>, location and date, listing of the periodical where review appeared.

Website, Blogs, and Social Media

Pages accessible online are on websites. A blog are web pages organized by date or topic and usually accompanied by reader comments. Versus Social Media refer to online forums of communication on a platform such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Title of website are set in roman, not in italics or quotation marks. But title of a web page within will be in quotation, treated same as article. E.g., “Privacy Policy,” Privacy & Terms, Google, last modified March 25, 2016, http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

If a site ceases to exist or deleted, mention in a note in parenthesis (site disconnected). Reminder: Keep a copy of all your references for such events.

Blog posts are cited like an online newspaper, same syntax. The word blog may be added to the title. To cite a comment on a blog, list the name of the commentator, date, followed by information for the related post without a URL.

Similarly, social media content is quoted as follows: author of post, title, type of post (photo, video, private communication), date, and a URL. So, not much different from other citations covered here.

CMOS gets into further details of citing interviews, personal communications, paper, contracts, reports, including unpublished manuscripts and manuscript collections from pages 849 through 859.

Artwork, Illustrations, Scriptures, Poems and Plays

CMOS prefers you cite paintings, photographs, sculptures, and maps in the text rather than a note or bibliography. If needed, cite as follows: artist name, title in italics, date or creation or completion, medium and location of work. For maps, list the cartographer, title, description, followed by scale and size and publication details.

For Scriptures, use SBL Handbook of Style. Include, book, chapter, and verse in note, with a colon between the chapter and verse.

Skipping over Latin and Greek references, brings me to poems and plays which are cited by book, canto, and stanza or stanza, line, act, scene and line, etc. Publication facts can be omitted.

Musical scores are treated in much the same way as books.

Scientific Databases, Patents and Standards, Audiovisual Recordings, and Live Performances

For databases, list its name, descriptive phrase or record locator, nature of reference, access date, and a URL.

For patents, list creators’ names, and date by year of filing.

For standards, list name of organization, title, edition, and publication information.

Citations Taken from Secondary Sources

This is discouraged. But if you must, list both secondary and original source.

For audiovisual and other multimedia, list name of composer, writer, performer, or the person primarily responsible for the content, title, additional contributors and other information, publisher, medium, and URL.

Live performances can’t be consulted like a recording, so should be referred in the text, seldom in notes, never in bibliography.

The last thirty pages of this chapter go into legal citations, court sentence citations, constitution and laws of Canada and UK.

My Takeaway

The chapter is 150 pages long because the wealth of information that supports writers if huge, in disparate places, and the biggest takeaway besides following a standard structure was that if a citation leads the source consulted easily, the objective is met.

Only two more weeks. Two more chapters. And what filled my past for fifteen weeks will become a giant, gaping hole.

University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.

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