The Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style The Chicago Manual of Style is the venerable, time-tested guide to style, usage, and grammar. Other improvements are independent of technological change.

Indispensable for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the editorial canon with sound, definitive advice. 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. 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.

If “a.m.” means before noon and “p.m.” means after, then what do “12 a.m.” and “12 p.m.” mean? Noon and midnight (or mid...
05/19/2026

If “a.m.” means before noon and “p.m.” means after, then what do “12 a.m.” and “12 p.m.” mean? Noon and midnight (or midnight and noon) are the subjects of this latest update from CMOS Shop Talk.

Many of us write or say “12 p.m.” (or “12:00 p.m.”) when we mean noon and “12 a.m.” when we mean midnight. This seems reasonable enough, at least intuitively.

The commenting tools in Adobe Acrobat have helped to make on-screen proofreading the norm. But how exactly do they work?...
05/12/2026

The commenting tools in Adobe Acrobat have helped to make on-screen proofreading the norm. But how exactly do they work? PDF markup is once again in the spotlight, in a newly updated post from CMOS Shop Talk.

Copyeditors typically work in Microsoft Word or Google Docs or the like, making and suggesting changes directly in the document, which at that stage is still referred to as a manuscript. Proofreaders come in at a later stage, after the manuscript has been converted and formatted for publication in a...

Q. Is “The more the merrier” a complete sentence?Q. Is “kindly” used correctly in “We kindly ask …”?Q. “It’s not only th...
05/05/2026

Q. Is “The more the merrier” a complete sentence?
Q. Is “kindly” used correctly in “We kindly ask …”?
Q. “It’s not only this, it’s that.” Is that a comma splice?

We answer these and other questions about Chicago style in the May Q&A at CMOS Online. https://cmos.style/QandA

Hyphens can help make words with prefixes easier to read, but when do you draw the line? This latest update from CMOS Sh...
04/21/2026

Hyphens can help make words with prefixes easier to read, but when do you draw the line? This latest update from CMOS Shop Talk will help you decide.

A prefix is a partial word that joins to the front of another word (and sometimes a phrase) to create a new word with a different meaning. The pre- in prefix is a prefix, for example.

Q. Should “ill” plus a verb be hyphenated?Q. How are titles of books treated in Spanish text?Q. What is the rule on hyph...
04/07/2026

Q. Should “ill” plus a verb be hyphenated?
Q. How are titles of books treated in Spanish text?
Q. What is the rule on hyphenating multiple colors?

We answer these and other questions about Chicago style in the April Q&A at CMOS Online. https://cmos.style/QandA

Find it. Write it. Cite it. The Chicago Manual of Style Online is the venerable, time-tested guide to style, usage, and grammar in an accessible online format. ¶ It is the indispensable reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the edi...

Are tabular figures proportional or monospaced? What is a serif? Is letterspacing the same thing as kerning? What does t...
03/24/2026

Are tabular figures proportional or monospaced? What is a serif? Is letterspacing the same thing as kerning? What does the “S” in “HTTPS” mean? Explore these and other editing-adjacent terms in the latest update from CMOS Shop Talk.

In editing as in life, things tend to come in pairs. Life has its ups and downs, left and right, sea and land, victory and defeat. In editing you have capitals and lowercase, justified and ragged right, insert and delete.

Q. Should asterisk note references be superscripts?Q. Is it OK to use “where” for something other than a place? Q. I’m t...
03/03/2026

Q. Should asterisk note references be superscripts?
Q. Is it OK to use “where” for something other than a place?
Q. I’m trying to cite info about The Simpsons. It’s complicated. Can you help?

We answer these and other questions about Chicago style in the March Q&A at CMOS Online. https://cmos.style/QandA

Find it. Write it. Cite it. The Chicago Manual of Style Online is the venerable, time-tested guide to style, usage, and grammar in an accessible online format. ¶ It is the indispensable reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the edi...

Footnotes or endnotes? Many of us prefer footnotes, but endnotes can be less distracting, especially when there are no n...
02/18/2026

Footnotes or endnotes? Many of us prefer footnotes, but endnotes can be less distracting, especially when there are no numbers in the text. Find out how these “invisible” endnotes work, this week at CMOS Shop Talk.

This post discusses the pros and cons of so-called invisible endnotes in books and how to prepare a manuscript that has them.

02/13/2026

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Q. Is it “password protect” or “password-protect”?Q. Why aren’t “heaven” and “hell” always capitalized?Q. How would I ci...
02/03/2026

Q. Is it “password protect” or “password-protect”?
Q. Why aren’t “heaven” and “hell” always capitalized?
Q. How would I cite an unpublished diary entry?

We answer these and other questions about Chicago style in the February Q&A at CMOS Online. https://cmos.style/QandA

Find it. Write it. Cite it. The Chicago Manual of Style Online is the venerable, time-tested guide to style, usage, and grammar in an accessible online format. ¶ It is the indispensable reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the edi...

Until about a century ago, most publishers did “this.” But many publishers now do ‘this’, or “this”. Find out what happe...
01/20/2026

Until about a century ago, most publishers did “this.” But many publishers now do ‘this’, or “this”. Find out what happened, and why, in this newly updated post at CMOS Shop Talk.

In publications that follow Chicago style, commas and periods are placed before a closing quotation mark, “like this,” rather than after, “like this”. This convention has persisted even though it’s no longer universally followed outside the United States and isn’t entirely logical.

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