Q. Dear “My New Best Friend” (copyeditor): Is there a “Cliff Notes” version of the Chicago Manual of Style or any quick reference type of document with the general rules?? (I have the fourteenth edition.) I do appreciate your assistance. Long life to you as a copyeditor. P.S. I am doing a doctoral dissertation and would like to get the style correct in the beginning.
A. Yes—we hear that Cliffs is going to work on CMOS as soon as they finish with their version of the Chicago Yellow Pages. In the meantime, you might check out Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, a much smaller style guide than CMOS, especially tailored for student research projects. (Turabian will tell you how to cite all the Cliffs Notes you used for your dissertation.)