Individual Article:
The Chicago Manual of Style goes electronic
The Chicago Manual of Style, long the “Bible” for writers, publishers, and editors, is now available online to the Northwestern community. Since the publication of the first edition in 1906, the Chicago Manual has been consulted for its advice on such matters as footnoting styles, punctuation, usage, capitalization rules in a host of languages, copyright and permissions, and proofreading. Now the 15th edition, originally published in print format in 2003, can be consulted though the Library’s web site. The online manual allows the user either to browse the book systematically by chapter and section, or to search across the text to quickly locate advice on block quotations, or short titles, or guillemets. It is also possible, if desired, to search across the questions and answers posted on the Chicago Manual’s web site, where anyone can submit a question on matters of style and have the answer posted. The questions-and-answers site can be particularly useful for finding advice on dealing with the fast-changing world of electronic resources. For example, the advice to place “blog titles in roman type without quotation marks” will only be found in the questions and answers section, and not in the 15th edition itself.
William A. McHugh
Reference Collection Management Librarian