Review by Choice Review
The respected style manual returns--updated seven years after the 16th edition (CH, Jan'11, 48-2398)--with more than 150 entries changed or added throughout the volume's three major divisions: "The Publishing Process," "Style and Usage," and "Source Citations and Indexes." The section on the publishing process now better addresses issues of electronic publishing such as metadata, DOIs, and format types, and legal issues of copyright and open access. Notable in the section on style and usage is a new 15-page section on syntax that expands the earlier sections on grammar and parts of speech. Changes in language use are reflected in the flexing of some older rules, such as use of the singular "they" and other gender-neutral singular pronouns. While the Chicago Manual of Style still discourages its broad use in formal writing, "in general, a person's stated preference for a specific pronoun should be respected." The section on citing sources is retitled from the earlier edition's "Documentation," a revision that exemplifies editorial changes to headings and text for improved keyword searching online. Updates in this section include discouraging the use of ibid. in favor of shortened citations, and expanding citation examples for electronic and social media, including apps. Content in the online version (portions of which are freely accessible at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html) mirrors the print; both recent editions appear on the Chicago website in their entirety, along with Style Q&A and Forum sections (the latter discussions open only to subscribers). The website has a clean and intuitive interface with ample hyperlinking within the volumes. The new edition online offers licensed individuals (but not institutional users) the added functionality to bookmark, make a note, save, or email a particular page as well as to create style sheets. Keyword search retrieves user notes and user style sheets and results from the discussion portions of the website, as well as entries in the manual itself. Along with the Modern Language Association's eighth edition of their MLA Handbook (CH, Dec'16, 54-1508), the American Psychological Association's APA Style Central (CH, Apr'17, 54-3532), and The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law (CH, Jan'03, 40-2502), there is also Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers (CH, Dec'13, 51-1807) to provide guidance suited to the needs of most undergraduates. The Chicago Manual of Style is the essential tool--significantly larger and much more broadly based compared to particular discipline-centric styles--that has (since 1906) guided editors, publishers, copy editors, and proofreaders, and continues to support the scholarship and writing of serious researchers in all fields of study. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-level undergraduates and above; professionals/practitioners. --Marie F. Jones, Brevard College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Faithful to its mission to help authors and editors present their ideas with consistency and clarity, the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) incorporates technology-driven change in scholarly communication, giving new attention to metadata and keywords, software and devices, and the day-to-day opportunities the latter offers authors as online publishing increases. Nonjudgmental explanations of Creative Commons licenses' options replace the sixteenth edition's skepticism. A notable side effect of technological change is that Chicago now discourages the use of ibid. in favor of shortened citations. Yet the fundamentals abide; for example, section 6.19 affirms Chicago's well-founded recommendation of the Oxford comma, a stalwart protection against ambiguity in written communication. As it incorporates contemporary examples (e.g., NOOK, Lady Gaga), CMS, as expected, offers sensible, clear advice on matters great and small for authors' guidance such as the treatment of names of ships and spaceships, use of the en dash, how to edit electronic manuscripts, and the ins and outs of documenting and citing works of many kinds. Just as the seventeenth edition reflects publishing changes since the 2010 sixteenth edition, the online counterpart, an inherently continuously evolving work, will be the version of choice for those whose libraries license it.--Rettig, James Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The cerulean-jacketed 17th edition of the venerable style guide responds to 2017's pressing concerns. In addition to the buzzed-about lowercasing of internet and dehyphenation of email, it contains new guidelines for citing tweets and video games, retracting discredited journal articles, and managing notes appropriately for simultaneous print and electronic editions. Speaking of which, the manual itself has had its chapter and section titles restyled for keyword-based searchability. In a pair of nods to respect for transgender and nonbinary people, the new edition codifies the use of a singular they/themself as a personal pronoun and adds cis- to the prefixes discussed in the hyphenation table. (The manual has not, however, changed its position that using the gender-neutral pronoun as a replacement for "he or she" should be avoided in formal writing.) The most significant addition to the text comes in the chapter on grammar and usage, with a new 15-page section on syntax that nicely complements older sections discussing the parts of speech and the correct usage of particular words; it will be especially useful for those whose grasp of English syntax is primarily by ear, rather than formally taught. As ever, this manual stands as an indispensable and thoughtfully constructed English language and style resource for those compelled, by enthusiasm or responsibility, to attend to the minutiae of written expression. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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