CMoS 18 (notes and bibliography) with accessed date for all web sources

maarten1012
[Split from Implementation of the Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition]

Hey everyone, I would like to use CMoS 18 (notes and bibliography) in UK English, but my professor urges me to include the accessed date for all web sources, even if they have a publication date. How should I modify the code? (I am an absolute noob when it comes to coding and the visual editor keeps crashing)
  • dunning
    edited 23 days ago
    Your professor might be thinking of MHRA style, which is more common than Chicago in the UK and always displays the access date for URLs. The easiest option might be to use that style guide.

    CMOS 13.15 makes it an option to record access dates for all URLs, but this doesn't currently appear as a variant in the Zotero styles repository because the manual frames the practice as not technically incorrect but inadvisable. It would be possible to add this as a variant in the repository if there is a demonstrated need for it.

    Modifying the style to show access dates regardless of whether the source has a date is only a matter of removing the line <else-if match="any" variable="available-date event-date issued status"/> found twice in the code. (This is assuming that you still want to omit the access date for DOIs, as MHRA does.)
  • maarten1012
    Thank you! Also for the suggestion to switch to MHRA. I'm studying in Italy and my professor says the choice of citation style is free, but she keeps adding requirements. The latest is page numbers of the entire article also in the footnotes. MHRA seems to include them so that would probably be the best option to go for.
  • dunning
    I'm very glad to hear that MHRA works for you. In response to your request, I've proposed variants for Chicago that always display access dates, but I have no idea how long it will take before they are published in the styles repository:

    https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/pull/7811

    (Unlike MHRA, these will display access dates for DOIs as well as URLs.)
  • maarten1012
    I made it! I deleted the lines you mentioned from the variant with ibid. and the citation style now works! Thanks for your help. We'll see what my professor prefers, because I think MHRA treats books with no authors and only editors a bit weird. I would prefer the footnotes to start with the editors rather then the book title.
    Thank you againt!
  • dunning
    Great! MHRA does take a slightly different approach here; it’s designed around the needs of modern languages and literature research.
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