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The Chicago Manual of Style

University of Chicago Press

4.28 · Rating details · 5,781 ratings · 243 reviews

Technologies may change, but the need for clear and accurate communication never goes out of style. That is why for more than one hundred years The Chicago Manual of Style has remained the definitive guide for anyone who works with words.

In the seven years since the previous edition debuted, we have seen an extraordinary evolution in the way we create and share know Technologies may change, but the need for clear and accurate communication never goes out of style. That is why for more than one hundred years The Chicago Manual of Style has remained the definitive guide for anyone who works with words.

In the seven years since the previous edition debuted, we have seen an extraordinary evolution in the way we create and share knowledge. This seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style has been prepared with an eye toward how we find, create, and cite information that readers are as likely to access from their pockets as from a bookshelf. It offers updated guidelines on electronic workflows and publication formats, tools for PDF annotation and citation management, web accessibility standards, and effective use of metadata, abstracts, and keywords. It recognizes the needs of those who are self-publishing or following open access or Creative Commons publishing models. The citation chapters reflect the ever-expanding universe of electronic sources—including social media posts and comments, private messages, and app content—and also offer updated guidelines on such issues as DOIs, time stamps, and e-book locators.

Other improvements are independent of technological change. The chapter on grammar and usage includes an expanded glossary of problematic words and phrases and a new section on syntax as well as updated guidance on gender-neutral pronouns and bias-free language. Key sections on punctuation and basic citation style have been reorganized and clarified. To facilitate navigation, headings and paragraph titles have been revised and clarified throughout. And the bibliography has been updated and expanded to include the latest and best resources available.

This edition continues to reflect expert insights gathered from Chicago’s own staff and from an advisory board of publishing experts from across the profession. It also includes suggestions inspired by emails, calls, and even tweets from readers. No matter how much the means of communication change, The Chicago Manual of Style remains the ultimate resource for those who care about getting the details right. ...more

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Hardcover, 17th Edition, 1146 pages

Published September 12th 2017 by University of Chicago Press (first published 1906)

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· 5,781 ratings · 243 reviews

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Apr 15, 2008 Mark rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It doesn't matter if you're a fan of MLA, AP, or even (dare I say it) Franklin Covey, the Chicago Manual of Style will never let real-world writers and editors* down. Sure, at first you'll stagger through its appendix and feel overwhelmed by the layout, but rest assured, with time, you'll come to rely on it like your trusty blankey that has always been there for you through all these years.

*By real-world writers and editors, I mean that elitist class of people who poo poo on people w ...more

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Oct 23, 2007 Katherine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: editors, authors who work with editors, snarky people

My Bible.

Why did they have to change the rule about a bold or italic punctuation mark being set bold or italic according to the preceding typeface?

Why don't they include better samples of how to abbreviate journal titles for Documentation II style?

Why is the index still horrendous?

I use this book every single day, even if I'm just threatening my dog with it to get her off the furniture.

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Feb 23, 2012 Will is currently reading it · review of another edition

Memo to Goodreads admin people: the 15th edition is old hat. Nowadays it is the 16th edition that is authoritative. The once-proud 15th edition has had its pedestal tugged out from under it. Only losers refer to the old-fashioned, outmoded, antiquated 15th edition anymore, or even hold on to their copy. Screw the 15th edition.

Please create a listing for the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition. I'd like to post a review complaining that I see few differences between it and the 15th edition (wh ...more

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Jun 22, 2008 Mir rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: writers, especially of non-fiction

Recommended to Mir by: my dissertation advisor (and it was more an order than a recomme

Shelves: reference, non-fiction

Too heavy, too expensive, and too orange. Other than that, it is great! Very thorough and well-organized. This is the only style guide I've had where I could both locate the information I needed quickly and get a sufficiently clear and complete explanation to be sure how it applied to my own writing.

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Dec 16, 2009 Erik Graff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: editors/students/authors

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: reference

Having been laid off from my happy position at Loyola University Chicago, having no luck at finding a similar position there or elsewhere and being semi-employed by a small academic publishing house, I decided to get serious about another career. So, I started publishing lots reviews and one scholarly article and began trying to drum up editorial work. Being already familiar with the MLA style, I picked up a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style and read through the whole thing. It wasn't so bad. ...more

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Jul 24, 2015 Carlston Floyd rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Torture

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Mar 21, 2007 Lavina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, reference, now_and_then

The serial comma is a beautiful, perfect thing. This book is nowhere near perfect, but there's nothing else like it.

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May 13, 2016 Steven rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: writing, academic

I was working on an essay for which I had to cite a particularly bibliographically complex book; it was a commentary by Averroës, translated by one person, introduced by another, and edited by yet another poor soul. I hadn't a clue how to formulate all the relevant information in my bibliography. Throughout my psychology master’s program, it was easy: it was all APA, everything was always APA. But now I realized that, for my philosophical essays, I hadn't been conforming to any particular system ...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Mariana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reference, goddess, classics, all-time-favorites, graphic, owned, nonfiction, design, information, masturbation

This is the book that should be in every drawer in every hotel room. I'll get right on the phone with the Gideons.

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Mar 09, 2015 Sin Claire rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a book to be revered. If more of the aspiring writers who upload their works to Kindle and Nook spent a month or two getting acquainted with its contents, they could avoid the kinds of mistakes that anger readers. Almost every reader has some grammar pet peeve. The thing that drives them up the wall may not even register with you.

There are various works online and in print that claim to be the "Bible" of self publishing. This is the only book that is Bible of the industry. Wh ...more

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Mar 19, 2016 Will Mego rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: already-own, read-in-2016, mr-hendricks

Can you read a style guide?
Yes. The middle parts of them are essentially books on grammar.
This is the best of them.

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Feb 04, 2018 Serena W. Sorrell rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, books-i-own, gift-inscribed, guide, resource, copyediting, 2018tbr, research, writing

Review for 17th edition:
This is--by far--a better edition than the last. In addition to making some much needed revisions, gender identity pronouns and updated practices have been added. Overall, the style is smoother and more user friendly than the last edition, which was overly dry most of the time and made for a difficult once through read. As this is my primary textbook and resource for the copyediting program I'm currently enrolled in (not to mention the field once I graduate) I find ...more

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Feb 28, 2019 Searcy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: z-uncategorized, _own-read, z-misc-other

The ultimate style ref :)

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Mar 18, 2018 Jeff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Both useful and delightful for anyone interested in writing or the making of books.

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Jul 19, 2014 Clare rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

At my fancy new freelance gig there is often some downtime between jobs, which, after having examined all of the house style guides multiple times I decided to use to review the CMoS, since I haven’t actually had to use it in a while. And that, dear reader, is how I ended up reading the entire Chicago Manual of Style, Fifteenth Edition, by the University of Chicago Press, cover to cover. (Yes, I know that’s not how style guides are mean to be read.) (And yes, I know there are sixteen editions, but the offic At my fancy new freelance gig there is often some downtime between jobs, which, after having examined all of the house style guides multiple times I decided to use to review the CMoS, since I haven’t actually had to use it in a while. And that, dear reader, is how I ended up reading the entire Chicago Manual of Style, Fifteenth Edition, by the University of Chicago Press, cover to cover. (Yes, I know that’s not how style guides are mean to be read.) (And yes, I know there are sixteen editions, but the office doesn’t have the sixteenth.)

Some of it, it must be confessed, was rather dull, although I suppose this is to be expected, as style manuals are not really intended to be light adventure reading. Other bits were surprisingly entertaining, as Chicago’s editors occasionally have snarky opinions about certain misuses, particularly hypercorrections. But neither of these is all that important. What is important, and what I am pleased to report, is that the CMoS 15 is extremely well organized and eminently easy to read, discussing style issues in clear, plain language, in detail, and with plenty of illustrative examples. It also defines all the language and publishing jargon that it uses.

As someone who has been in editorial services for a few years now, I read this to “refresh my memory”—and refresh it I did, not just about Chicago’s particular style conventions but also about a lot of writing and publishing stuff that I had once known but grown a bit fuzzy on, like the difference between a “font” and a “typeface” (I blame Microsoft Word for continually confusing me on that one). I am, however, somewhat embarrassed at the amount of stuff I straight-up learned, some of which was dorky etymology/history stuff (like about the use of Fraktur typefaces in German typesetting), but some of which was actual editorial things that I really ought to have known already (it seems “till” really is its own preposition that means the same things as “until,” not a shortened form with an extraneous L).

In multiple cases, particularly for things involving punctuation and capitalization, there are multiple “systems” of doing it correctly. In these cases, the CMoS quite usefully gives its preferred rules first, but also gives rundowns of the less preferred systems along with explanations of why they are less preferred but not wrong (dated, regional, etc.). This has already come in helpful when trying to disentangle copy that seems to have been written my multiple people using different styles, and when project managers have come to ask me about my edits, which has already happened twice.

The organization of the CMoS is beautifully sensible and easy to navigate. It starts off with some basic discussion of What Are Things That Need Editing, such as books vs. journals and some notes of manuscripts, different stages of proofs, etc. Then it gets into the nitty-gritty grammar and usage stuff, starting with basics like parts of speech and punctuation and progressively addressing more specialized topics, such as how to treat foreign publications and math. I was particularly interested in the chapters on names and foreign languages; it had me thinking about the panel I attended at Readercon lat weekend. The later parts of the book deal with special documentation and with indexes and appendixes (sadly, CMoS does not use the old-fashioned “indices” and “appendices,” which are my favorites). The two appendixes roughly delineate the common production processes in book and journal publishing, just to give the editor a better idea of their place in the system (and, presumably, so that one does not have to ask stupid questions at work).

One of these days I should acquire my own copy of the 16th edition, to see how they compare, and because as an editor I should really have a better collection of stylebooks than just the writing guides I have from Pearson, which are mostly MLA, anyway. If any mysterious wealthy benefactors are reading this, I have an Amazon wishlist. (I am also afraid of ponies, FYI.)

But for now, the real question is, do I spend my next bout of downtime reading the Associated Press 2009 Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, or do I just start reading fiction at my desk?

Originally posted at http://bloodygranuaile.livejournal.co....
...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Betsy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reference

Anyone who aspires to be an editor of any sort -- developmental, line, but especially copy -- must buy this book and learn how to find what's in it quickly and easily. It seems every other person I meet these days describes herself as an editor, but I rather doubt that they really know what that means. Being literate and knowing about the serial comma do not make you an editor. The U of C Manual of Style is indispensable, a must-have. And when each new, thick, and expensive edition is published, ...more

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Dec 28, 2015 Ioana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Chicago >>>> (by orders of magnitude) MLA or APA*. And this is the best reference ever: what to do if an author translates her/his own work into another language? how to alphabetize that writer with 3 last names? what about that quote gathered from the annals of a local community committee council that seems to have no publisher? No need to fret, the Chicago Manual of Style's got your back.

* Still embittered that I couldn't convince my advisor to allow me to use Chicago (ugh, AP ...more

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Oct 15, 2015 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Ok, so I didn't actually read every single word, but I did go through this thoroughly as part of a class on editing.

The Bible. Accept no substitutes.

(And if you don't use Oxford commas, there is just no hope for you.)

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Feb 27, 2010 Amanda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I guess I can't really say that I've read this book, but I've definitely used it. Few books have kept me up later into the night. When you find a really great exposition on dashes and hyphens, who needs sleep???

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Aug 09, 2009 Jeanne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

One of my students gave me a Barnes and Noble gift certificate at the end of school term. It was enough to cover the hefty price of this manual. I have been wanting to buy this for a long time and I will be using it for years, so the price is really not as great as the value.

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Oct 30, 2017 Nicole Sampson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is very well organized and easy to use. The online version is even easier because of the search option.

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Feb 16, 2012 Silke rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Ok, I'll admit I have not read it cover to cover...

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Mar 21, 2013 Kristina Leonard rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shockingly readable. It was work-related anyway!

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Dec 11, 2016 RexcatReader rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There is never a question left unanswered. In a world of uncertainty, this is our foundation.

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Nov 12, 2014 Katherine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reference

Don't edit copy without it.

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Aug 03, 2014 Craig Pearson rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed

Very dry subject matter. Bad memories of all the writing needed for my master's program. I understand the need for conformity but my simple mind could not get past the complex rules of writing.

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Jan 21, 2019 Adam Tripodi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Either a person likes the MLA or APA format, The Chicago Manual Style can never let a writer down. It might be heavy on the pocket, but it is one of the most thorough and well-organised books I have ever read. The book is straightforward to understand. An individual can effortlessly locate the desired information, and it will be elaborated in detail for the writer to apply to their work. After a thorough read of the book, I could differentiate between British and American concords better than be ...more

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Mar 30, 2019 B.C. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Anyone who wants to be a professional writer needs to have a copy of this book.
Can't exactly be a writer if you don't understand the mechanics of American English. All the standards followed by most publishing houses is from the CMS. Even if one doesn't use it to study diligently, it's good to have within reach to know how to reference something or when certain words should by hyphenated, and so on.

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Sep 22, 2018 Drew rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Chicago Manual of Style leaves AP, APA, MLA, and every other chump-ass style book in the dust. The main difference? It's not just about capitalization, citation, and annotation. Grammar. It has the best and most concise explanation of grammar minefields such as "effect" vs. "affect". A must-have for any shelf.

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Mar 04, 2018 Yaaresse rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: first-read-2010-or-before, reference-and-how-to, language-writing, non-fiction

I think the version I had was so old as to be the 5th or 6th edition. Who knows for sure? I can't find it here on GR. Still, I'm counting this sucker as read. It and I spent far too much time chained to each other in college. I remember the index was useless. The examples sometimes conflicted. Still, our newsroom managed to wear out a dozen or more copies each semester.

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