The Chicago Manual of Style

I love this book. First, I just browsed a bit, and as a language lover, I found every page interesting. Then, I put it to the test. Does it tell you not to split an infinitive? NO! Of course not. English isn't Latin, and furthermore, it gives great examples of when you must split an infinitive for your sentence to make sense. The same holds for the ridiculous rule of not putting a preposition at the end of a sentence. Great advice there as well. I now feel confident turning to this book for tricky questions of grammar and punctuation, or just to pass away a few minutes reading it for enjoyment. So far, the lengthy index has made what I was looking for easy to find.

One of my professors once told me that this was the "bible for historians," and for anyone in the humanities in general, it is indispensable. It is at once a style guide, a sort of thesaurus, and a manual for writing term papers, theses, dissertations, and books. Sure, Turabian distills this book (and the sin of the latest Turabian is that in a misguided attempt to appeal to more people, they've added a parenthetical reference system to the footnote system she popularized), but sometimes you must turn to the Chicago for more information.

As a historian who works on maps, I am still angry that Chicago does not treat them as a source, just illustrations. (Which means Turabian denigrates them, but at least mentions them, and says to put show more them in quotes, like an article, instead of italics, like a book.) But, I digress. After a few hours of browsing through this book I think it is a good update, more examples, more citations from internet sources, etc. show less

Oh Chicago Manual, I love the robust narratological power of your footnote-based citation method, but I hate the way you try to be a copyeditor's handbook and publishing guide too, because it makes it way worse to find what I need. Also, too many clickthroughs. And title pages blow on papers. And, paid content? Seriously? Still, you are as far as I know the only one of your kind, and certainly your absence would be missed more than that of either of MLA or APA (but not both).

An indispensable, enjoyable reference that is never far from my desk. It's authoritative and even rather funny in spots. Can you really be a good editor without it? I doubt it!

I left India in August of 1987, having lived there for four years. It was two weeks from the end of my Embassy assignment, and the only task left was to create an index for a celebratory coffee-table book on Indo-US relations. The manuscript was finally complete and I had convinced my colleagues that it needed an index. That meant I was “selected” to index the 120 page book. I had never indexed anything in my life, but as a librarian, I felt it would not be that hard, and besides, the computer people promised me they would give me a print-out of all the key terms in the book. My family had departed for the States, my former house now occupied by my replacement, and I had a room in a hotel. All I had to do was complete an index, and show more then join my family. It took me several hours of mucking about with the print-out to realize it was not useful in indexing. The USIS library there had a Chicago Manual of Style and I have never been so thankful in my life for its step-by-step advice on how to index a book. In those days, it was all done with handwritten terms on cards. The indexing chapter was spectacularly didactic, with illustrations and step-by-step commands. From dawn to late at night, I worked my way through the manuscript, and 60-some hours later, presented my boss with my first index. The book was printed, my boss gave the book to his boss, the Ambassador (who had dreamed up the idea) and the Ambassador gave the book to his friends in the Indian government. I flew home. show less

The Chicago Manual of Style: Seventeenth Edition presents the current formatting and citation style used in history writing. While much of the material has appeared elsewhere online, specifically the citation guidelines, the book itself is a necessary resource for all who study and write history as it includes, perhaps most importantly, William S. Strong’s guide to rights, permissions, and copyright administration – an invaluable resource in a time when an increasing amount of scholarship occurs online in formats of nebulous official copyright. Other guides include those focusing on grammar, which helps to answer questions about the usage of “a” and “an,” particularly as they relate to new shorthands and terms of the digital show more age. Overall, this is a must-read for all who seek to write history. show less

Painfully expensive at $55, but the authoritative text on punctuation, type, and about a thousand other nit picky details. It’s an indispensible reference volume for OCD novice authors like me.