The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition, some highlights
In August 2024, I posted on LinkedIn about the many updates in the new edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) by looking at the new edition through a different lens in each post. The following combines my related posts under these headings: accessibility, global examples, geography and maps, artificial intelligence (AI), and still more… (a final catchall) based on my own recent or current work.
Note that these are only some of the many sections of CMOS and its updates from the 17th edition to the 18th edition. The CMOS update team has summarized all significant changes in a list. Kudos to the CMOS team for this huge update!
Accessibility
“2.143: Checking for accessibility
Works published in electronic formats should be checked to make sure they meet applicable accessibility requirements, including…”
“3.28: Alternative text and descriptions
To ensure accessibility in electronic publication formats for readers with print disabilities, publishers should include alternative text (‘alt text’) for any image that needs it….”
5.255: Making conscious choices
5.258: Common areas of biased language
5.261: Person-first versus identity-first
5.262: Ableism
11.135: Signed languages
11.138: Glosses in ASL
11.143: Transcriptions of signed sentences
“Bibliography of Additional Resources
1: Writing and Editing
Dreyer, Benjamin. Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. Random House, 2019.” and many other references.
Global examples
CMOS is used in the US publishing industry and in many other countries and industries. As an editor working in Canada for clients around the world, I use it as one source while localizing works for American, UK, or Canadian audiences. And I use it as one source while editing global subjects for global, American, UK, or Canadian audiences, and in translated works.
I was glad to see examples about US and British English, and to see many more examples from around the world. Here are some highlights:
5.17: Plural-form proper nouns
5.18 Anomalies of the plural
5.35: Pronoun number and antecedent
6.9: Periods and commas in relation to closing quotation marks
6.89: En dash as em dash
7.1: Recommended dictionaries
8.34: Honorifics
8.63: Legislative and deliberative bodies
8.68: Adherents of unofficial political groups and movements
8.113: Armies, battalions, and such
9.23: Non-US currencies using the dollar symbol
9.24: British currency
9.25: Other currencies
9.57: The decimal marker
9.59: Telephone numbers
10.17: Abbreviations for military titles
10.75: US abbreviations for weight and capacity
11: Languages other than English
11.49: Additional resources for Indigenous languages
11.50: Indigenous writing systems
11.52: Indigenous language authorities
14.137: Citing Indigenous sources of knowledge directly
14.195: Canadian legal cases
14.196: Canadian statutes
Geography and maps
8.46: Continents, countries, cities, oceans, and such
8.201: Maps
14.135: Citing maps
Artificial intelligence (AI)
4.5: Original Expression
”Copyright protects the original expression contained in a work.… The requirement that a human author has created the expression has become significant as the use of generative AI (artificial intelligence) has become significant. If an AI creates expression in response to human prompts, that is not enough to support a copyright. The human in charge must contribute something that by itself will support a copyright, and the copyright will be limited to what that human author contributes.”
3: Illustrations and Tables, 3.38: Crediting Adapted Material
“… If the illustration was created by or with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), that fact should be noted in the credit.”
14.112: Citing AI-Generated Content
“Authors who have relied on content generated by a chatbot or similar AI tool must make it clear how the tool has been used …. Any specific content, whether quoted or paraphrased, should be cited where it occurs, either in the text or in a note.”
And still more…
5.43: Identification of personal pronouns
5.51: Generic singular “they”
5.263: Gender-neutral nouns
5.265: Options for gender neutrality in pronoun use
5.266: Uses of singular “they”
6.119: Slashes for pronunciations
11.24: International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
9.18: Numbers with abbreviations and symbols
9.22: Words versus monetary symbols and numerals
9.27: Currency with dates
10.46: Abbreviations for times of day
10.55: Miscellaneous technical abbreviations