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SBLHS2 and Ibid.

With the release of the Chicago Manual of Style‘s 17th edition, the SBL handbook began deferring to this edition (rather than the 16th) for matters not explicitly addressed in the SBL Handbook‘s 2nd edition or on the SBLHS blog.

One of the changes with CMS17 is eliminating the use of “ibid.” In keeping with CMS17, SBLHS also now eliminates “ibid.” But, SBLHS does have a slightly different convention for how to format notes where “ibid.” would have appeared (i.e., a short tile is always included).

For further discussion, see the SBLHS blog and The Chicago and SBL Manuals.

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The Chicago and SBL Manuals

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) has been updated to its 17th edition (2017). According to the second edition of the SBL Handbook of Style (SBLHS),

Currently in its 16th edition, The Chicago Manual of Style remains the most comprehensive general authority on editorial style and publishing practices. Answers to questions not addressed in this handbook may be found there. (§3.3)

The reference to CMS’s “current” edition raises the possibility that a new CMS edition may occasion a change in the CMS edition best followed by users of SBLHS2. In addition, on noting the release of CMS17, SBL Press commented that

based on the Chicago Manual of Style, this new edition will no doubt prompt changes to our own style. We will announce relevant changes on this blog in the coming months.

This comment made it sound like changes might be affected in SBL style before the release of SBLHS3 simply based on the release of CMS17. On reaching out to the ever-helpful folks at SBL Press, they’ve confirmed that

Our deference to CMS in matters not explicitly covered in SBLHS2 or on the SBLHS2 blog automatically upgrades to the most current version of CMS. Thus, as of September 1, 2017, we now defer to CMS 17th ed.

For the balance of the SBL Press’s note about CMS17, see the SBL Press blog. For more information about CMS17 or to order a copy, see the University of Chicago Press, Amazon, or other booksellers.

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Zotero forum thread on commas, periods, and closing quotation marks

I’ve recently had a discussion over at the Zotero forums that brought to light a couple interesting points that I hadn’t been aware of:

  1. There’s currently in beta a major update to Zotero 5.0, which includes several important feature changes. The beta isn’t quite ready for prime time yet but should be “very soon.” Included in this update is the new Citation Style Language (CSL) processor that should remedy the comma and period placement issue in the forum thread.
  2. Frank Bennett has provided an updated CSL processor that can be installed in a current Zotero 4 version via the Propachi Vanilla plugin.

For additional discussion of Zotero here, see this tag.