Editorial Comment Policy

punctum style follows the Chicago Manual of Style v. 17. The policy outlined here includes specific aspects of reference organization as well as exception to CMoS

Bibliography

Titles

• For bibliography and footnotes regarding English-language sources, punctum style requires title capitalization, regardless of the original source. For example, it is appropriate to change sentence capitalization of a Guardian article to US English title capitalization.
• All caps (including prepositions as part of an idiom, e.g., Pulled Off). Lowercase conjunctions, prepositions, and articles (when not the first word). For hyphenated terms, if both words on either side of the hyphen are their own word (e.g., One-Way Street), then both words are capitalized. If the first word is a prefix or cannot otherwise stand on its own (e.g., Anti-) then the first letter of the first word is capitalized, and the second word after the hyphen is lowercase (e.g., Anti-woke). For titles, only lowercase conjunctions (and, or, yet – not "yet" when used as an adverb, e.g., "not yet" ), articles (a, an, the), and prepositions (in, on, at, by for, and so forth – keep prepositions capitalized if part of an idiom, e.g., Growing Up in Appalachia). Note: capitalize subordinating conjunctions (although, because, so – but not "so" when used as an adverb, e.g., "not so much" – and so forth). 
• A majuscule letter will always follow a colon in titles in English and languages other than English.
• French language use in titles. Capitalize first word in the title and nothing else with the exception of proper nouns. Note: the article is capitalized and not the following text.
  • e.g., L'amour puni; Les fleurs du mal; Ubu roi
• punctum style requires urls on online articles that are paywalled and have limited free monthly views; e.g., The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, so forth. Paywalled sites, e.g., The Economist, do not allow any free monthly views, so the url is not included. I'll amend the language in the style guide to reflect this more clearly.
• If a The appears in the masthead of a magazine or newspaper site, then the "The" is included.
  • e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post

Editors and Translators

• When there is an editor or series of editors and a translator or a series of translators, the editors are named first (e.g., Author, "Chapter." In Title of Book, edited by Editor. Translated by Firstname Lastname. ...).

Publishers

• punctum books should always be referenced fully as punctum books.

Publication Dates

• Only the publication date for the sourced referenced should be included in the bibliography and the footnotes. If the author includes, in brackets (e.g., [1978] 2012), then the copyeditor should remove the original publication date. Authors are never consistent in including both dates, and there is no easy way to ensure they are.

Collation Order

• Titles: ignore quotation marks; numbers go before letters; in alphabetization, white spaces don't count (e.g., "At Times" comes before "A War").
• Author names: collated by last name, but respect the following language exceptions:
  • German: Ewald von Dingen
    • Collated as [D]ingen, Ewald von
    • In-text reference as Dingen
  • Dutch: Ewald van Dingen; Iris van der Tuin
    • Collated as van [D]ingen, Ewald; van der [T]uin, Iris
    • In-text reference as Van Dingen; Van der Tuin
  • French: Charles de Chambéry; but exception for well-known names in English like Charles de la Fontaine
    • Collated as [C]hambéry, Charles de; [d]e la Fontaine, Charles
    • In-text reference as Chambéry; De la Fontaine

URLs

• Always include DOI in the bibliography, not the footnotes. If the DOI is not offered by the author, then search for the article or, if you cannot find the article, then ask the author to supply it. This is to ensure that the article is easily found by readers, even if the author originally read this in hardcopy form, which is doubtful anyway.
• Use DOI, JSTOR, Project MUSE, or other website URLs, but do not cite proprietary links hidden behind paywalls (e.g., the Wall Street Journal, New York Times).
• The DOI can be cited as a webpage (e.g., http://doi.org/10.1215...) or as a DOI: number (e.g., DOI: 10.1215...). Ensure that the author is internally consistent and uses only one form.
• Archived sources, especially WebArchive:
  • E.g., Bolton, Olivia. "Meet the 'Real-Life Superheroes', Phoenix Jones and Purple Reign." The Telegraph, July 10, 2013. Archived at https://web.archive.org/ [...]. 
    

Volumes

• Dustan, Guillaume. Novels. Vol. 1 of The Works of Guillaume Dustan. Translated by Daniel Maroun. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2021.
• Foucault, Michel. “Sex, Power, and the Politics of Identity.” In Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, edited by Paul Rabinow. Translated by Robert J. Hurley, 163–73. Vol. 1 of Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984. New York: The New Press, 1997.

Editions

• Do not include editions (e.g., first edition, revised edition), unless this is relevant for the argument, e.g. the distinction between the two editions of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

Comic book citations

• The CMoS does not offer a citation style of comic books. The number of the comic should be included in italics following the title, with the publishing information following, as it would in a book. However, if the author has offered a consistent style, that would be appropriate also.
  • e.g., Fake, Edie. Gaylord Phoenix #7. Chicago: Perfectly Acceptable Press, 2017.

Poetry collection exemptions

• Unlike essays, when in a footnote a poem from a poetry anthology is cited, in the bibliography only list the poetry collection, not the individual poem.
• For poems republished on the Poetry Foundation or other site, when the republication date is not offered, include the original publication date in parentheses following the title.
  • e..g, Emily Dickinson, "Some Title" (1951), The Poetry Foundation, URL.

Movies, tv shows, and podcasts

• CMoS offers many to cite movies, tv shows, and podcasts. punctum style tends toward the format leaning most toward books. The pieces of information that are needed are the director, "dir.," the title, the location of the studio, the name of the studio, and the year of release.
  • E.g., Barnett, Mike, dir. Superheroes. Home Box Office, 2011.
    
  • E.g., Danforth, Mike, and Ian Chilla. “F-Bombs, Chicken, and Exclamation Points,” April 21, 2015, in How to Do Everything, produced by Gillian Donovan, podcast, http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510303/how-to-do-everything. 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Notes-Bibliography: LastName, FirstName, and FirstName Lastname. "Entry Title (publication year)." In In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. [url].

• Bibliography: Oppy, Graham, and David Dowe. "The Turing Test (2021)." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. [url].
• Footnote: Graham Oppy and David Dowe, "The Turing Test (2021)," in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. [url].
• Shortened footnote: Oppy and Dowe, "The Turing Test."

Author-Date 

• Bibliography/Works Cited: Oppy, Graham, and David Dowe. 2021. "The Turing Test." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. [url].
• (Oppy and Dowe 2021)

punctum style amendments to the CMoS

• You do not need to specify the state or country where the book was published. This allows for more equitable treatment between publishers and their locations throughout the world. (E.g., Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2017; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017; Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2019; Ljubljana, Slovenia: Založba ZRC SAZU, 2015). This too goes for the footnotes.
• “Accessed on,” “Last modified,” etc. date and time information is not necessary.
• YouTube and Vimeo: Here, you are citing the digital, posted video in both the footnotes and bibliography. Because these are not the most stable or reliable sources, you will want to include as much information as possible. Therefore, you include the posting author, the title of the video, the name of the website in italics, the posting date and the url. In order to keep the url manageable, some of it can be deleted. Look closely, the bolded, underlined text is deletable:

• • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vmMxJrt3F4&feature=youtu.be
  • E.g., engineeringhistory. “IEEE-REACH Promotional Video.” YouTube, January 19, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vmMxJrt3F4.
• Facebook and Twitter: Here, as above, you are citing the actual, digital post. Because these are not the most stable or reliable sources, again, you will want to include as much information as possible. Therefore, you include the twitter handle preceded by the @, the website in italics, the posted date and time, and the url. Note that this is still a problematic citation style as the time and date are not universal due to timezone considerations, so supplementing as much information as possible is best practice.
  • E.g., @punctum_books. Twitter. January 19, 2016, 8:45AM. URL.
• Wikipedia and other online encyclopedias and dictionaries: Authors should not typically cite Wikipedia, but there are a few exceptions, one of these being that if the author is writing about, for example, digital memory, citing Wikipedia might be demonstrative of that flux. In other words, citing Wikipedia might be appropriate. When citing, the author should include the name of the website in italics, s.v. [(sub verbo, "under the word") the keyword, and the url. Note that date and time information is not included because user-generated content is not stable, which is something authors should keep in mind when citing anyway.
  • E.g., Wikipedia, s.v. "keyword." [URL].
• In instances where two or more authors are included in the citation, the first author should have a comma after their name: Surname, Firstname, and Firstname Surname […].
  • E.g., Dath, Dietmar, and Barbara Kirchner. Der Implex: Sozialer Fortschritt: Geschichte und Idee. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012.
• Treat all bibliographic entries as equals, which means that a blog post is treated as equal to a Guardian article. The language we use is to structurally maintain equitability between sources. For example, blog posts should not be cited "(Blog post).", while the Guardian is treated as a more reputable source. Therefore, blogs are treated as magazine/newspaper format. Supply as much information as possible. This goes too with footnotes.
• Related, proprietary (and predatory) sources such as academia.edu, ProQuest, and others should not be cited if at all possible. Recommend to the author in a comment if there is a more stable or non-proprietary version available.
• When double checking urls, titles, and so on, if the editor finds that the author has not supplied all the available information, the editor may supply it. Furthermore, if, for example, a blog post is not dated, but we can assume through context clues that the date is 2017, then supply that information with your best judgment.
  • E.g., “2017 International Air & Space Induction Celebration set for Nov. 9.” San Diego Air & Space Museum, September 14, 2017. http://sandiegoairandspace.org/blog/article/2017-international-air-space-induction-celebration-set-for-nov.-9.
• We do not accept Kindle locations instead of page numbers. Recommend the author supply a page number.

Footnotes

Citations in Footnotes

• At the text or material’s first occurrence, use the full citation style as outlined by the CMoS.
  
• Use “Ibid.” or “Ibid., pp.” if the same text or material immediately follows in the next footnote.
• For both shortened and full footnotes: titles of articles and books that end with a question mark, a comma precedes the page number or Author, "Title?," 75. In bibliography, this is irrelevant.
• For lists of sources: two or fewer sources are separated by comma; three or more are separated by a semicolon.
  • E.g., Source One, and Source Two.
  • E.g., Source One; Source Two; and Source Three.
• When there is an editor or series of editors and a translator or a series of translators, the editors are named first.
• Use a shortened citation as outlined by the CMoS in the second and on occurrence if the same text is not immediately following the preceding citation.
• If the footnote contains a citation as well as commentary:
• The full or shortened citation appears first, as it cites the material directly in the main body text.
• Copyedit the commentary as usual.
• If “For more information on X” or “See X” is included, the secondary citation that leads to another text or material goes after the commentary. N.B.: Ensure it is clear that cited material goes with the proper citation. “See also” citations should be full citations that point clearly to another text.
  • E.g.: In the original French of Michel Houellebecq, La possibilité d’une île (Paris: J’ai Lu, 2005), “third age” is “celui de la vieillesse veritable, où l’anticipation de la perte du bonheur empêche même de la vivre” (“that of true old age, or the anticipation of the loss of happiness that prevents its being lived“) (161, my translation).
  • E.g.: Tertullian writes of carne not corps. See in particular Chapters 4, 5, and 9. Tertullian, Tertullian's Treatise on the Incarnation, ed. Ernest Evans (S.P.C.K., 1956), writes: “it was precisely the non-marvelous character of his terrestrial flesh [carnis] which made the rest of his activities things to marvel at” (37). In the same section 9, Tertullian writes that His flesh was not, as claimed by Gnostics Appelles and Marcion, miraculously “obtained from the stars” (90). The flesh of Christ was as actual as the flesh of Lazarus, whom Jesus resurrected from the dead, as our own (or, I suppose, as the flesh of the donkey which he rode into Bethlehem on Palm Sunday). Tertullian's treatise can be consulted online at “Tertullian on the Flesh of Christ,” The Tertullian Project, n.d., http://www.tertullian.org/articles/evans_carn/evans_carn_04eng.htm.

Narratives in Footnotes

• Avoid references, narrative, "see mores" that appear in parentheses in order to avoid these double ( [ ] ) brackets.
• Two references are separated by a comma: [REF 1], and [REF 2]; Three or more references by semicolon: [REF 1]; [REF 2]; and [REF 3]. 

Document Control

Document ID	POL-002
Document Owner	Vincent
Version	1.0
Last Date of Change	November 10, 2025
Next Review Due Date
Version & Change Tracking