[2] The guide specifically focuses on American English and deals with aspects of editorial practice, including grammar and usage, as well as document preparation and formatting.

It is available in print as a hardcover book, and by subscription as a searchable website as The Chicago Manual of Style Online.

Kate L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations also reflects Chicago style.

In both cases, two parts are needed: first, notation in the text, which indicates that the information immediately preceding was from another source; and second, the full citation, which is placed at another location.

[12] In both instances, the citation is also placed in a bibliography entry at the end of the material, listed in alphabetical order of the author's last name.

[23] In 1982, with the publication of the 13th edition, it was officially retitled The Chicago Manual of Style, adopting the informal name already in widespread use.

The 15th edition (2003) was revised to reflect the emergence of computer technology and the internet in publishing, offering guidance for citing electronic works.

An updated appendix on production and digital technology demystified the process of electronic workflow and offered a primer on the use of XML markup.

In addition, updated and expanded examples address the many questions that arise when documenting online and digital sources, from the use of DOIs to citing social networking sites.

In the 17th edition, email lost its hyphen, internet became lowercase, the singular "they" and "their" are now acceptable in certain circumstances, a major new section on syntax has been added, and the long-standing recommendation to use "ibid" has changed due to electronic publishing.

[27] It removed the chapter on mathematics in type (citing low usage) but increased its coverage of citations of Indigenous languages (now with capital "I") and of Korean.