Pro Tip Tuesday #11: ed. / eds. / edited by

In Chicago-style footnotes and bibliographies, I often see authors mixing up the different ways of indicating that someone is the editor of a book. Here are two rules to help sort this out.

When ed. or eds. comes after one or more names, it’s short for “editor” or “editors,” so there is a singular/plural distinction. The abbreviation is used in both footnote and bibliography formats.

Footnote, one editor: Timothy J. Cooley, ed., Cultural Sustainabilities: Music, Media, Language, Advocacy (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019).

Bibliography, one editor: Cooley, Timothy J., ed. Cultural Sustainabilities: Music, Media, Language, Advocacy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019.

Footnote, multiple editors: Stephen C. Meyer and Kirsten Yri, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

Bibliography, multiple editors: Meyer, Stephen C., and Kirsten Yri, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

When ed. comes before one or more names, it’s short for “edited by,” so there is no singular/plural distinction. The abbreviation is only used in footnotes; “edited by” is written out in bibliographies. In the examples below, note also that the formatting of “edited by” differs depending on whether the source is a book with an author and an editor or a chapter in an edited volume.

Footnote, book with an author and an editor: Michael Tippett, Tippett on Music, ed. Meirion Bowen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Bibliography, book with an author and an editor: Tippett, Michael. Tippett on Music. Edited by Meirion Bowen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Footnote, chapter in an edited volume: Eric Richards, “The Limits of the Australian Emigrant Letter,” in Letters across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants, ed. Bruce S. Elliott, David A. Berber, and Suzanne M. Sinke (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 56–74.

Bibliography, chapter in an edited volume: Richards, Eric. “The Limits of the Australian Emigrant Letter.” In Letters across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants, edited by Bruce S. Elliott, David A. Berber, and Suzanne M. Sinke, 56–74. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

For more of these kinds of details, check out my free PDF on switching between footnote and bibliography formats in Chicago style.