Citation & Style (ci-citation-and-style)
CI's scholarly apparatus is footnotes, not author-date. Footnote style roughly follows The
Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition; notes are numbered consecutively through the manuscript;
there is no separate list of works cited — full bibliographical information lives in the notes.
And because the word limit counts all of that, the apparatus is part of the writing problem, not
an afterthought. Verify the current edition and wording on the official page.
When to trigger
- Setting up or cleaning citations before submission
- Converting an author-date draft to Chicago notes style
- Preparing the figure list, captions, and credit lines
- Checking that notes are not silently blowing the word budget
Citation rules (Chicago notes, CI conventions)
-
Footnotes, numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript.
-
No works-cited / bibliography list — give full bibliographical information in the note at first
citation, short form thereafter, following the CI submissions page's CMOS 17th ed. wording.
- Keep discursive notes lean: the cap includes notes and all bibliographical information
(see
ci-writing-style).
- Use a reference manager with a Chicago notes style (Zotero / EndNote / BibLaTeX) and keep it
consistent.
Figures & images
- Supply images as separate files, 300 ppi, JPEG or TIFF — not embedded in the Word
document.
- Provide a numbered figure list with captions and full credit lines.
-
Secure permissions for all published images yourself, before publication; keep a permissions
log with rights holder, scope, and cost (see
ci-evidence-and-objects, ci-submission).
Micro-example — first note, short form, and the trim
-
First citation:
1. Author Name, *Title of the Book* (City: Publisher, Year), 45–47.
-
Short form thereafter:
14. Name, *Title*, 52. — the same short title every time.
The trim. Before: "It is worth noting that the debate over this term has a long history that
cannot be rehearsed here, though see [six sources], which complicate the picture in ways deserving
fuller treatment." After: "The term's history is contested; the positions that matter here are
[source] and [source], who divide over X." A note must argue something the body cannot pause for,
or shrink to its citations.
Note-budget audit (run before ci-submission)
- Flag every note over ~60 words: trim as above, or promote it into the body.
- Confirm short forms consistent and numbering consecutive with no gaps after late cuts.
- Reconcile the figure list with the notes: each image needs caption, credit line, permissions entry.
Manuscript format
-
Microsoft Word file for the manuscript text (the required submission format).
- Consistent, readable formatting; quotations exact; foreign-language and translated material handled
consistently.
- Keep the manuscript and any image credits in sync with what you can actually clear.
Anti-patterns
- Author-date or a works-cited list (CI uses consecutive footnotes, no bibliography)
- Footnote essays that quietly consume the word budget
- Embedding low-resolution images in the Word file
- Assuming permissions are the publisher's job — they are the author's
- Mixing citation styles or leaving short/long forms inconsistent
Citation pass for Critical Inquiry
Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the object, theoretical stakes, interpretive turn, and permission/citation discipline; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: humanities reviewers who expect a strong interpretive intervention rather than an empirical-results narrative.
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Do the pass: Audit notes, references, permissions, and house style as evidence discipline: every citation should either position, document, or delimit a claim.
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Return a ledger: give
claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
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Sibling guard: compare against PMLA for literary-field reach, New Literary History for theory/history, Representations for historically grounded cultural analysis; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
-
Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's
resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.
Output format
【Notes】Chicago (17th ed.) footnotes, numbered consecutively? [Y/N]
【No works-cited list】full info in notes? [Y/N]
【Notes in budget】counted toward word limit, kept lean? [Y/N]
【Figures】separate 300 ppi JPEG/TIFF + caption + credit line? [Y/N]
【Permissions】secured / logged by author? [Y/N]
【Next】ci-review-process
Supplementary resources
