Proper way of referencing ranges of chapters When I need to cite a range of pages in a source, I (well, LaTeX) write:


  See Smith (2010:30–34)


Similarly, when I need to reference a range of sections, I write:


  See Smith (2010:§§3.1–3.4)


For a reference of a single chapter:


  See Smith (2010:ch. 3)


But today, for the first time ever, I need to reference a range of chapters. What is the proper way of doing this? My first instinct was to go with


  See Smith (2010:chs. 3–6)


But then I realized that I had never seen chs. as an abbreviation of chapters, so I tried


  See Smith (2010:ch. 3-6)


Which is weird because it looks like I’m talking about just one chapter. And then


  See chapters 3 through 6 of Smith (2010)


Just looks unwieldy. So the questions are:


Is there a convention for this particular type of citation?
If not, what looks best to you, personally?
According to Wiktionary and a number of other sites, "chs." seems to be the appropriate pluralization of the "ch." abbreviation for chapters.  Note, however, that either is likely to be quite intelligible to a reader, and if the typesetters disagree with your choice, they'll surely fix it to their preferred style.  In short: just use "chs." and don't worry about it.