Books
Summary:
This section contains information on The Chicago Manual of Style method of document formatting and citation. These resources follow the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, which was issued in 2017.
Contributors: Jessica Clements, Elizabeth Angeli, Karen Schiller, S. C. Gooch, Laurie Pinkert, Allen Brizee, Ryan Murphy, Vanessa Iacocca, Ryan Schnurr
Last Edited: 2018-01-31 01:23:00
General Model for Citing Books in the Chicago Notes and Bibliography System
Footnote or endnote (N):
Corresponding bibliographical entry (B):
Last name, First name. Title of Book. Place of publication: Publisher, Year of publication.
Book by one author
N:
B:
Book by multiple authors
Two or more authors should be listed in the order they appear as authors, and not necessarily alphabetically.
N:
B:
Lash, Scott, and John Urry. Economies of Signs & Space. London: Sage Publications, 1994.
Translated work with one author
N:
B:
Cortázar, Julio. Hopscotch. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Pantheon Books, 1966.
Book with author and editor
In notes, CMOS prefers the abbreviation of “editor(s)” as “ed.” or “eds.,” and translator(s) as “trans.” In bibliographic entries, these abbreviations are not used. Instead, titles are spelled out in full. This information appears in the MLA Handbook, section 14.103.
N:
B:
Tylor, Edward B. Researches into the Early Development of Mankind and the Development of Civilization, Edited by Paul Bohannan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964.
Chapter from a single-authored book
CMOS supplies two correct forms for bibliographic entries. Both are noted here.
N:
B:
Anzaldua, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” In Borderlands: The New Mestiza – La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company, 1987.
Or
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands: The New Mestiza – La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Book Company, 1987. See esp. chap. 5, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.”
Contributions from an edited collection with various authored chapters
When citing work by a single author that appears in a book with multiple authors, the contributing author’s name is cited first, followed by the title of their contribution, the word 'in' and the title of the book, along with the name(s) of the editors, and other standard information.
N:
B:
Appleman, Phillip. “O Karma, Dharma, Pudding and Pie.” In Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor, 12. New York: Penguin, 2002.
Introduction, Preface, or Afterwords in a Book
Unlike other citations for books, bibliographic entries of this kind include the page number range for the part cited.
N:
B:
Pinker, Steven. Introduction to What is Your Dangerous Idea?, xxiii-xxxiii. Edited by John Brockman. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007.
Anonymous works--Unknown authorship
Sources that have no known author or editor should be cited by title. Follow the basic format for "Footnote or Endnote" and "Corresponding Bibliographical Entry" that are exemplified above omitting author and/or editor names and beginning respective entries with the title of the source.
Citing indirect sources
Because authors are generally expected to be intimately familiar with the sources they are citing, Chicago discourages the use of a source that was cited within another (secondary) source. In the case that an original source is utterly unavailable, however, Chicago requires the use of "quoted in" for the note:
N:
Self-published or Privately Published Books
Books published by the author should be cited according to information available on the title page or copyright page. In place of publisher, include language such as “self-published” (abbreviated as “self-pub” in notes, but not a bibliography) or “printed by the author” is usually appropriate. For self-published e-books, add the name of the application or device required to read the book or the name of the file format, or both.
N:
B: