Chicago Style Workout 34: Editing and Proofreading Quiz No. 2

Stretch Yourself

It’s time for another editing and proofreading quiz!

This is the second in a series of workouts that will apply your editing knowledge and proofreading skills to Chicago style.

Your goal is to find anything that would be considered an error according to The Chicago Manual of Style. Some of the examples are wrong by just about any standard. Others are contrary to Chicago style but may be correct according to other styles (see the disclaimer below).

Hint: Each numbered example includes no more than one error, and only one of these errors (we hope) is an error of fact.

Note: Style guides and dictionaries sometimes disagree. This quiz is designed to test your knowledge of The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition.

Chicago Style Workout 34: Editing and Proofreading Quiz No. 2

1. Cleopatra VII, who lived from 69–30 BCE, was the last of the Ptolemaic pharaohs.

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

2. The original is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum.

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

3. The phone’s 4,500-mAh battery provides power for a 16-megapixel camera with an ultra-wide-angle lens. [Hint: We’ll allow the numeral for sixteen in this context.]

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

4. The front page of the Detroit Free Press from Sunday, July 23, 1967, featured a photo of Princess Grace.

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

5. The study compared the use of federal food stamps in three urban-based farmers’ markets.

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

6. W. E. B. DuBois’s study of Philadelphia in the 1890s was shaped by the DuBoises’ own brief stay in the Seventh Ward. [Hint: We’re following Merriam-Webster here and spelling “DuBois” without a space, though the name often appears with one.]

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

7. The financial crash of the late 2000s soon eclipsed international relations as the primary concern for American voters.

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

8. The research included “case studies… that take into account [community] perspectives.”

Chicago style

Not Chicago style

9. Our scholarly-minded children took to semantics like so many ducks to water.