The person I hate with the blinding passion of a thousand exploding suns is the creator of the Chicago Manual of Style.
This is the most ridiculous, counter-intuitive system of citation ever that creates nothing but dumb busywork. There is no logic behind entering the exact same information into two different places of a paper in a slightly different format.
MLA forever!
Clarissa's Blog 
The AMS method is the absolute best method of citing references. I really don’t know why any journal in any field does not require it. It is standard worldwide in mathematics journals, as far as I know.
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I’m not in mathematics, as you know. I’m in modern languages. We have our own standard of citing sources that was adopted by our Modern Languages Association. It is better than Chicago Manual because it does not require the same information to be entered twice in a slightly different format.
Can anybody explain the purpose of entering the same bibliographical information in the endnotes and then in the bibliography in a slightly different way? I mean, it’s insane to have to put the words “ed. by” in the endnotes but “Edited by” in the bibliography FOR THE SAME DAMN SOURCE!
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Are you positive that your press and/or journal wants both Endnotes and a bibliography? Every time I have published in Chicago, the publishers have only wanted Endnotes and instructed authors to forgo the bibliography.
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Yes, they want both. Woe be onto me.
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I don’t know AMS but as far as Chicago goes, I agree completely. It’s a terrible citation style. MLA is so much better. I don’t know why journal or press would require Chicago and so many of them do!
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They just want to stand out and be pretentious. I believe.
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As it appears to be snowing on your blog Clarissa, all notes and bibliographies
will soon be covered in a drift….
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I can only hope. . . 🙂
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When I was in publishing, I used the Chicago Manual with a song in my heart. We didn’t publish scholarly books or articles, so I did not have to face the citation blues. My students have to use the APA and to a person they loathe it.
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What did you like about it out of curiosity?
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I found it very orderly, rational, and complete. It answered basically all the questions I had when editing articles and books. I regarded the Manual with real affection.
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You know what I hate? Endnotes. Footnotes rules!
I obviously agree with you about the Chicago style. The MLA is better.
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This is slightly off-topic, but when it comes to publishing style, have you seen that the NEW YORK TIMES has started using the title “Mx.” (as in “Mx. Jones”) for individuals who don’t consider themselves to be either male (“Mr. Jones”) or female (“Ms. Jones”). 🙂
I give that a smiley face — but it’s not really amusing, just a pathetic sign of the times.
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No, seriously?
At my department, we’ve started getting queries as to how we accommodate “non gender confirming students” given that the Spanish language has gender assigned to all nouns (a table is feminine, a fork is masculine, etc.) We have no idea what to respond.
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Surely, nobody is recommending rewriting the Spanish (or other Romance) languages. German is the same way, although it also has neutral nouns: a fork is feminine, a spoon is masculine, a knife is neutral — go figure!!
English is one of the least “sexist” languages in the world.
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Dreidel, I don’t think “Mx.” is a “pathetic sign of the times,” at all. My brother’s first child, J., formerly my “niece,” came out several months ago as “nonbinary” (as well as “aromantic” and “pansexual”). My nibling – a nifty neologism – is an amazing person, wise and warm, and a true genius and gifted student (McGill, “hard” sciences, straight A’s). J. is very patient with people still adapting to the new nomenclature. J. and other nonbinary individuals are worthy of our support, respect, and affection. Coming up with new names is not an onerous task.
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