ALON STYLE GUIDE NOTES

Based on information and examples from CMOS, 17th edition (Sources: Chicago Manual of Style 17th Ed. & Purdue U. Owl website)

Editing Checklist:

1. Wordcount (no more than 11,000 words)

2.  All text should be flush to the left margin, not justified.

3. First page includes title of essay, author name, and abstract.

4. Pages numbered on top right corner.

5. 12 pt. font (both text and notes)

6. Text should be double spaced.

7. 1-inch margins all around (8 ½ x 11 in. doc)

8.  Paragraph format: indented style paragraphs

9. Footnotes only—no reference list, no parenthetical citations

10.  All images are captioned and credited.

11. Acknowledgments go on the final page.

________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgments may be grouped in the special Acknowledgments section at the back of the work.

CAPITALIZATION: NAMES, TITLES, ERAS, MOVEMENTS

Abbreviations: PhD, MA, MBA: “Chicago recommends omitting periods in abbreviations of academic degrees” (CMOS 10.21)

Acronyms: Words in a spelled-out version of an acronym or initialism are capitalized only if they are proper nouns (as in the official name of an organization or a trademark); otherwise, they should generally be lowercased, even when they appear alongside the abbreviated form:

OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). transmission-control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP)

Cultural periods/eras: Capitalize “Early Modern” period.

Political Groups: The Left-wing; right-wing groups

Adherents of unofficial political groups and movements: [Capitalize] “the Left” but members of the left wing; left-winger(s); on the left, the Right; members of the right wing... (CMOS 8.66)

Movements and Slogans:

the Boxer Rebellion

the civil rights movement

the black rights movement

the war on terror

Black Lives Matter [capitalized because this is a widely used slogan]

Black Power movement [see above]

Note: “black” and “white” (black rights) are usually lower cased in CMOS, but more recently some have advocated for using upper case: https://cssp.org/2020/03/recognizing-race-in-language-why-we-capitalize-black-and-white/

FOOTNOTES

Check all notes against Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition.

Use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 12) rather than Roman numerals (i, ii, xii) for footnotes.

Placement of punctuation with footnote numbers in main text: with period, comma, semicolon or colon, and quote marks: …control.”2 Semicolon & colon: humanity”;4

Footnote Examples

Book:

3. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 12.

Subsequent notes, same author:

4. Harvey, Condition of Postmodernity, 12.

5. Harvey, 13.

Article in Book:

6. Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, trans. Ted Humphrey (1784; repr., Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), 41.

7. Kant, “What is Enlightenment,” 44.

Article in Journal:

32. Nicholas Thomas, “Pedagogy and the Work of Michel Foucault,” JAC 28, no. 1-2(2008): 153.

33. Philip Kitcher, “Essence and Perfection,” Ethics 110, no. 1 (1999): 60.

Volume number follows the journal title without intervening punctuation and is not in italics. Arabic numerals are used if the journal itself uses roman numerals.

34. Christopher S. Mackay, “Lactantius and the Succession to Diocletian,” Classical Philology 94, no. 2 (1999): 205.

Multiple authors listed for one note: separate each source with a semicolon.

Article in newspaper:

If title begins with an article (The or A), omit it.

2. Mike Royko, “Next Time, Dan, Take Aim at Arnold,” Chicago Tribune, September 23, 1992.

3. Editorial, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 30, 1990.

Article or section in website:

1. First name Last name [if available], “Title of Web Page,” Name of Website, Publishing Organization, publication or revision date if available, access date if no other date is available, URL.

2. “Privacy Policy,” Privacy & Terms, Google, last modified

Note in the above that titled sections or pages of a website are usually placed in quotation marks. The “publishing organization” is listed after the page or section title.

Blogposts & blogs:

Cite it like an online newspaper article (CMOS 14.191-200).

1. Deb Amlen, “One Who Gives a Hoot,” Wordplay (blog), New York Times, January 26, 2015, http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/one-who-gives-a-hoot/.

Lecture:

1. Robin Kelley, “Over the Rainbow: Second Wave Ethnic Studies Against the Neoliberal Turn” (lecture, University of California San Diego’s Department of Ethnic Studies, San Diego, CA, May 18, 2016).

Short form for repeated titles of works (but different page nos.):

Use shortened titles, vs. ibid.

1. Morrison, Beloved, 3.

3. Morrison, 433.

FORMAT (spacing, indents, lists, etc.)

Spacing: insert one space after periods, and one space after footnote numbers.

Paragraphs: Use indented paragraphs; do not insert a blank line space between paragraphs in the main body text.

Block quotes (long quotes) should be indented five spaces (no quote marks unless they are quotes within the text). Double-space long quotes.

IMAGES

Captions are placed under the image, after the Figure number and period. The caption is followed by the image credit (e.g., name of photographer, date of photograph).

Citing tables, figures, and images in CMOS: https://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/cite-write/citation-style-guides/chicago/chicago-citing-images

NUMBERS

Spell out whole numbers from one through one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence. For other numbers, numerals are used. Thirty-two children. Eleven families. One thousand years. There are 103 stories.

In footnotes: Use Arabic numerals (1, 2, 12) rather than Roman numerals (i, ii, xii).

Ordinals: Eighth inning. forty-fifth floor. 122nd and 123rd days. Thousandth child.

PUNCTUATION

Time: 7:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. (instead of 1 a.m. or 1:00 am, or one a.m.)

Quote marks: use American style double quotes “ ”

Use en dashes (not hyphens) to show range in main text, e.g., 10–20 years

Use em dashes for emphasis, e.g., “Unemployment remained at an all-time low—for both the working-class and middle-class neighborhoods.”

Use hyphens primarily to split syllables and adjectives, e.g., mid-term exams; exception: hyphens OK to show page range in footnotes.

Ellipses: “spaced” periods: “The conservatives . . . are” With a period, comma, quote with question mark: , . . . . . . . . . .”?

REVIEWS, BOOK & MEDIA (heading format):

Check for the following information:

Title of book/article/film, author’s name, editor, location, publisher, date of publication, front matter + number of pages; price and ISBN # if available. Example:

Moorings & Metaphors: Figures of Culture and Gender in Black Women’s Literature. Karla F.C. Holloway. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992. x + 218 pages.

The Filipino Primitive: Accumulation and Resistance in the American Museum. Sarita Echavez See. New York: New York University Press, 2017. viii + 237 pp. $30.00 paper. ISBN 978-1-4798-2505-9.

The Hawk is Hungry and Other Stories. D’Arcy McNickle. Edited by Birgit Hans. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992. xx + 180 pages. $29.95 cloth, $14.95 paper.

Ex Machina, directed by Alex Garland (2000).

TITLES & SUBTITLES (levels)

Abstracts are placed on the first page (under the main title and above the main text), with the title “Abstract” in bold and flush left at the beginning of the first line of text.

Chicago Headings

Level Format

1 Centered, Boldface or Italic Type, Headline-style Capitalization

2 Centered, Regular Type, Headline-style Capitalization

3 Flush Left, Boldface or Italic Type, Headline-style Capitalization

4 Flush left, roman type, sentence-style capitalization

5 Run in at beginning of paragraph (no blank line after), boldface or italic type, sentence-style capitalization, terminal period.