If you’re an editor, you know the importance of the new 1192-page 18^th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. Since the University of Chicago Press published the first edition in 1906, other book publishers, many periodicals, and now electronic publications have accepted Chicago as the primary guide.

Even publishers who write their own style manuals, or settle for a pamphlet on which Chicago guidelines they don’t accept, study the latest edition to adjust editorial styles.

Without style manuals, we would rely on writers’ personal preferences and editors’ memories to be consistent on thousands of disputed questions. The two most common may be which  numbers to write out and whether to use the serial comma. Most newspaper style manuals, for example, digress from Chicago in writing out numbers up to 10 (versus through one hundred) and in omitting the comma before and in a series (e.g., apples, oranges and bananas) unless it’s required for clarity.

IMHO, whatever the style manual, clarity should supersede consistency.

 Chicago’s editors do extensive research and consultation on trends. The 18^th, for example, reaffirms some old wavering choices (e.g., capitalizing the first word in a complete sentence following a colon) and identifies spelling preferences for new terms (e.g., omitting the hyphens in ebooks and esports).

Hyphenation is a major headache, and the manual devotes more than a dozen pages to multiple examples of pesky hyphens. Through several editions, I’ve referred to that advice more than any other.

Some changes reflect social attitudes, including preferred ways to refer to individuals or groups. In an earlier edition, editors recommended accepting they as a singular (standard centuries ago then abandoned in formal writing) but withdrew it because of protests. The 18^th edition cautiously gives they as an option for referring to a person whose gender is unknown. Stay tuned.

Another change is capitalizing Indigenous, considered a parallel to Black and White. (Some style manuals favor lower case for all three.) In recent decades I‘ve seen editors move from Indian to Native American or the name of a particular tribe (e.g., Navajo) to American Indian.

 The 18^th also updates production sections, including advice for self-publishers on such basics as choosing fonts and margins and such new problems as preparing notes for an audio book. AI receives attention (e.g., citing AI-generated images).

To read more information on changes in all sections, go to https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/help-tools/what-s-new.html. If you want to buy the 18th, shop around for the best price. The list price is $75, but you may find a better deal from the publisher or an online bookseller. If you plan to use the manual in an editorial office or don’t lift weights, consider the online edition.

—Carolyn Mulford