Garblog's Pages

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

New Questions and Answers, July 2013 | Chicago Style Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style has published its July Q&A--questions about writing from readers and answers to the questions by Chicago staff. I get a monthly email message from Chicago whenever they appear.

Here are the excerpts from the latest questions and some answers:

Q. The title page identifies the authors as Lyotard and Thébaud, but the Library of Congress CIP data lists only Lyotard. How should I cite this work in my text and bibliography and why?
Q. I've noticed that many newspapers and magazines still avoid splitting verb phrases. Does CMOS have a position on this issue? A. CMOS does: please see sections 5.102 and 5.168. The idea that verb phrases cannot be split in this way is quite mistaken, and there is no reason to arbitrarily avoid it.
Q. Is “The clothes need washed” an incorrect or incomplete sentence?
Q. All of this plus installation, at no cost to you. Is the comma necessary here?
Q. For proofreading on paper, how does Chicago recommend indicating that there should be one space between two words rather than two?
Q. Which punctuation is correct for the following title: “Transitioning to More-Rigorous Assessments” or “Transitioning to More Rigorous Assessments”?
Q. In a recent New York Times online article, I noticed several instances where that was dropped in cases of indirect address. It seems to be common practice, but is it correct? A. Newspaper writers make a habit of dropping an optional that to conserve space, and if the sentence is readable, there’s nothing wrong with omitting it. Sometimes it is needed, however, to keep the reader from stumbling: She maintained the haircut on a strict budget was optional. He allowed children in his swimming pool were a nuisance.
Q. In formal writing, I have been shown by my coworkers that U.S. is the way to write United States. However, I was always told that very few abbreviation are to be used in formal writing, and the abbreviation U.S. should never be used in replacement of United States when writing federal documents.
Q. What is Chicago’s style for cyber plus noun (cyber attack, cyber security, cyber crime, cyber defenses, cyber warfare, etc.)?
Q. What is the CMOS position on how to reference the titles of posters (such as those presented at professional conferences) in the body of a document? Should the title be in quotation marks, italicized, or something else?
Q. If you are referring to a specific war, like World War II, do you capitalize the word war even when you’re not attaching the full title, or leave it uncapitalized? A. If you type war into the Search box or look under war in the index, you'll find examples at CMOS 8.112: World War I, Vietnam War, the war, the two world wars, etc.
Q. Why is it so hard to find things in CMOSA. It must be just one of those things. If only there were a search box, or an index . . .

1 comment:

Please comment on my blog post--or ask me a question about writing!.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...