The Chicago Manual of Style

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The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed.
Style guides

The Chicago Manual of Style (abbreviated in writing as CMS or CMOS, or verbally as Chicago) is a style guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press. Its 15 editions have prescribed writing and citation styles widely used in publishing. The CMS deals with aspects of editorial practice, from American English grammar and usage to document preparation.

Contents

[edit] History

What is now known as The Chicago Manual of Style was first published in 1906 under the title Manual of Style: Being a compilation of the typographical rules in force at the University of Chicago Press, to which are appended specimens of type in use. From its earliest, 200-page edition, the CMS evolved into a reference style guide of 984 pages in its 15th edition. It was one of the first editorial style guides published in the United States, and is largely responsible for research methodology standardization, most specifically about citation style. With the appearance of the 12th edition in 1969, the CMS was the leading style guide in publishing, selling some 150,000 copies. In 1982, with the publication of the 13th edition, it was officially retitled The Chicago Manual of Style, that name being the informal one already in widespread use.

More recently the publishers have released a new edition every decade or so; the most recent is the 15th edition, published in 2003. The 15th edition was revised to reflect the emergence of computer technology and the Internet in publishing, offering guidance for citing electronic works. Other changes included a chapter by Bryan A. Garner on American English grammar and usage, and a revised treatment of mathematical copy.[1]

[edit] Overview

The CMS is published in hardcover and online. The online edition includes the searchable text of the 15th edition with features such as tools for editors, a citation guide summary, and searchable access to Q&A, where University of Chicago Press editors answer readers' style questions. An annual subscription is required for access to the content of the Manual.

The Chicago Manual of Style is used in some social science publications and most historical journals. It remains the basis for the Style Guide of the American Anthropological Association and the Style Sheet for the Organization of American Historians.

The Chicago Manual of Style includes chapters relevant to publishers of books and journals. It is used widely by academic and some trade publishers, and editors and authors who are required by those publishers to follow it.

Chicago style is flexible in that it offers writers a choice of several different formats. It even invites the mixing of formats, provided that the result is clear and consistent. For instance, the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style permits the use of both in-text citation systems and/or footnotes or endnotes, including use of "content notes"; it gives information about in-text citation by page number (like MLA style) or by year of publication (like APA style); it even provides for variations in styles of footnotes and endnotes, depending on whether or not the paper includes a full bibliography at the end.[2]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ University of Chicago (2007).
  2. ^ Yale University (2008).

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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