One of my not-so-secret enjoyments is editing footnotes using the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). I love witnessing the author’s engagement with the scholarly literature—a layer in the knowledge-production process, running parallel to the argument they’re advancing in the body of the manuscript. I also appreciate the precision of this part of the editing process, how I can help elevate a draft by flagging inconsistencies or smoothing out language.
For those of you who may find this aspect of writing or editing to be onerous, here are some of my go-to CMOS rules on which I often draw. All references are to the CMOS 18th edition.
Of course, keep in mind that the CMOS recommendations and rules can always be supplanted by your publisher’s in-house style guide.
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Are you quoting something that contains italicized words? Make sure to specify if the original quote contained those italics or if you added them. At the end of the footnote, you’ll add an additional sentence that says either “Emphasis in original” or “Emphasis added” (CMOS 12.73)
Reference 1: “The use of terms such as natal woman or adult human female,” advances Sara Ahmed, “is meant to exclude trans women from feminism, from the shelters and centers we created to survive sexual violence, domestic violence, gender-based violence.”[1]
[1] Sara Ahmed, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook: The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way (Seal Press, 2023), 64. Emphasis in original.
Are you still including place of publication in your book citations? No need to! The most-recent CMOS (18th ed.) indicates that this is no longer necessary (CMOS 14.30).
[2] Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 21.
Unsure where in the sentence to place your footnote? Per the CMOS, “A note number should generally be placed at the end of a sentence or at the end of a clause” (13.29). Do you have more than one citation for the sentence? You may place them all together in one footnote (CMOS 13.31).
Reference 3: In her article on the adjudication of U.S. asylum cases based on sexual orientation, Cheryl Llewellyn mobilizes the term homonationalism, coined by Jasbir Puar to explain how so-called Western nation states now rely on the discourse of gay liberation to support imperial projects.[3]
[3] Cheryl Llewellyn, “Homonationalism and Sexual Orientation-Based Asylum Cases in the United States,” Sexualities 20, no. 5–6 (2017): 282–298; Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Duke University Press, 2007).
Want to include the original publication date of a reprint or new edition? Sometimes it’s beneficial to indicate the original date of publication in your citation. You may be outlining a discussion in the scholarly literature and need to indicate the date a book was first released. Or you may have a primary source reprinted elsewhere. In these cases, the CMOS specifies that the original date of publication should be listed first (14.16). They provide the below example.
[4] Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Random House, 1952; repr., Vintage Books, 1995), 242–243. Citations refer to the Vintage Books edition.
If you want to be bold and do a simplified riff on this CMOS instruction, you might follow the below model, which some authors employ. Simply include the original publication date in brackets in front of the more recent date of publication. But to be clear, this is not a CMOS-approved structure unless you’re working in the author-date system.
[5] Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 2nd ed. (Beacon Press, [1995] 2015), 66–67.
Happy footnoting!