The 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is almost here, incorporating many changes and updates. We spoke with Carol Saller, editor of The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A and of the CMOS Shop Talk blog, about the new edition.

WLN Blog: What is the progenitor of the CMOS changes? How did they come about?
Carol: A new edition of the Manual appears only every five to ten years, so by the time drafting begins, we have a big folder of reader queries, news clippings, feedback from experts, notes from our own daily use of the book and website, and so forth. This time, the revision focused much more on updates and additions than on changes to Chicago style.

WLN Blog: What are the major changes to the CMOS?
Carol: That depends who you ask. Of course, in a thousand pages, you’re going to find thousands of changes.

The general user might think the removal of the hyphen from email and the lowercasing of internet are major changes. Those are certainly the ones getting the most tweets!

A scholar might think the most significant change is that after centuries—actually millennia—of usefulness, the Latin term ibid. has become problematic in electronic publications. So Chicago now prefers the use of a shortened citation.

An English teacher might find the expansion of the grammar chapter to be the most significant: there are more than thirty new sections on sentence syntax, for instance, and a revision of the Chicago stance on the use of they with a singular antecedent.

WLN Blog: As a history major in under grad, ibid. was a word I typed quite often. What happens to poor ibid.?
Carol: Don’t worry—Chicago still supports the use of ibid.! The sections explaining its use are still there. It’s just not first choice now. The problem is that in digital publications, when readers click on a note number, often it opens a screen where only that citation appears. If the citation says only “Ibid., 43,” it tells them nothing, because the previous note isn’t visible. Better for the citation to say “Calhoun, Fortress, 43.” Writers who are concerned about publishing in digital formats should know of the potential problem and write their notes with that in mind.

WLN Blog: How has electronic media shaped other changes?
Carol: Hugely. These days, publishing technology is what drives the need for a new edition. For instance, the increasing use of PDF by writers and editors inspired a new section on how to use PDF editing tools. And social media: the word Twitter doesn’t even appear in the previous edition, which came out in 2010, but now even the most scholarly journals need a citation style for it. Creative Commons, accessibility standards, DOIs, library metadata—I could go on and on. In seven years, a lot has changed!

WLN Blog: I was chatting with an English professor and a Medievalist about the changes to CMOS. They were quite intrigued as to how these changes would affect citation and style in their disciplines. Could you comment on how you think that the CMOS changes will affect MLA or APA? How did they affect CMOS change decisions?
Carol: While we’re always interested to see what others are doing—such as the radical overhaul MLA made last year—that’s not a big factor in updating our own guidelines. I’d be surprised if MLA or APA made changes in response to Chicago’s. Style manuals serve different constituencies.

WLN Blog: So many people in writing centres “geeked out” at CMOS’s announcement. It’s so exciting! For those on the edge of the desk chairs, what advice do you have?
Carol: First, relax and enjoy it! This revision of the Manual is the best yet, from the viewpoint of users, and the transition will not be difficult. There’s a ton of new information and new examples; we haven’t taken away anything that we know users love; there are no radical changes to citation styles; and the chapter numbers remain the same (people hate it when we reorganize the chapters). What’s more, CMOS Online has a snazzy new design that responds to many user requests for easier navigation and increased readability.

Second, I’d suggest following us online, especially at the CMOS Shop Talk blog, where we’ve been highlighting what’s new.

Twitter @ChicagoManual
Facebook @ChicagoManual
CMOSshoptalk.com