Jan. 22, 2011 – The Chicago Manual of Style Online , 15th and 16th editions, are now available online in addition to the print copies available in each branch library. The style guide provides a description of the publishing process; grammar, punctuation, spelling, and other usage guidance for writing many kinds of papers and publications; and examples of citations to different kinds of source documents in both the notes and bibliography as well as the author-date formats.

Users can view the Quick Guide to see clear examples of how to use Chicago-style citation. The site also provides convenient Tools, such as sample correspondence, proofreaders’ marks, and a quick guide to citation. The Chicago Manual of Style Online incorporates the popular Chicago Style Q&A, a resource that thousands have found as entertaining as it is informative. The Q&A content is fully searchable along with the content of The Chicago Manual of Style. Your queries will return results—clearly distinguishable—from both the Manual and the Chicago Style Q&A.

What’s new in the 16th edition

• Comprehensive updates reflecting the latest style and usage, technology, and professional practice
• Expanded coverage of electronic publications, including procedures for proofreading web-based and other electronic documents
• Electronic-editing checklist for editors and writers
• Expanded section on bias-free language
• Expanded coverage of fair use and electronic rights, including an overview of the NIH Public Access Policy
• New section on parallel structure
• New and improved hyphenation guide, presented in an easy-to-use tabular format
• An introduction to Unicode, the international computing standard for letters and symbols required by the world’s languages, including tables with Unicode numbers
• More references to organizations that publish their own guidelines and standards online
• Newly uniform stylistic treatment of elements in the two major systems of documentation
• Updated advice on DOIs versus URLs, including more examples
• More tips for citing blogs, podcasts, and other electronic sources
• Streamlined advice on citing legal and public documents
• Thoroughly revised coverage of production processes, including an overview of electronic markup and XML
• An updated glossary that includes more terms related to electronic publishing
• Expanded headings on numbered paragraphs and more cross-references for ease of navigation, especially online
• A logical and intuitive reorganization by chapter and paragraph that brings together closely related concepts wherever possible, to help readers find what they’re looking for
• Firmer rules and clearer recommendations, to help authors and editors make the right choices