CMOS18 CSL has no way to distinguish between an article that is genuinely “ahead of print” (temporarily online while awaiting issue assignment) and an article from a journal that publishes exclusively online and will never have a volume or issue number. For the latter case, the “ahead of print” label is not just cosmetically wrong - it’s semantically incorrect, as the article is fully and permanently published.
“Ahead of print” behavior (new to CMOS18): Using the Chicago 18th edition CSL, a journal article that has a publication date and a DOI but not volume/issue number automatically has “ahead of print” in the citation. This makes sense for print publications that publish online ahead of print, per Chicago’s new rules (14.75, 14.76). These articles are publishing online, not in an issue or volume, before also being published in print.
Problem: However, this is incorrect for journals that publish on a rolling basis (i.e., no issues/volumes) and do not print their publications. For these, the citations automatically say “ahead of print,” but the articles are already in the final, published form online and will not be printed.
In these cases, the behavior is incorrect due to the “ahead of print” language.
Using status (does not work): I know I can set status to something like Published online, but that doesn’t follow CMOS18’s rules either. Is there built-in support for somehow only removing “ahead of print” in these cases that I am overlooking? Based on my reading of CMOS18’s preference for concise citations, it seems ideal to simply remove “ahead of print” vs. add something a status like “published online.”
Question: Is there a reason why “ahead of print” is the default behavior for these publications, instead of using status to selectively identify publications that are ahead of print ? It seems ideal to me to selectively apply this label, rather than have it be the default for all journal articles published with a DOI but without an issue.
Do you have an example of a journal that publishes without volume info? I’ve not seen this in any of the established online journals–PLOS, Save Open, Science Advances et al. all have volume numbers.
We do indeed use the absence of both as an indication of ahead of print. I think @Andrew_Dunning would recommend filing things that aren’t categorized using volumes as magazine articles, not journal articles (that is how CMoS makes the distinction).
There are many variables that will block ‘ahead of print’ from displaying: available-date, collection-title, issue, number (i.e. an article number), page, status, supplement-number, volume, and volume-title. Displaying the label cannot simply rely on status because of the different punctuation required.
Chicago 14.71 suggests that one would normally expect to see an article number cited for an electronic journal if there is no volume, issue, or page number. In the case of Findings, I would suggest using the article number that they include in the DOI; you can see an example at https://www.zotero.org/groups/2205533/items/ZD5CZHEH. Another approach might be to add the section variable (taking ‘Urban Findings’ etc.) to the list blocking the ahead of print label.
Thanks for the feedback! I tried all of these and, while they do indeed suppress “ahead of print,” they also add additional text that doesn’t quite work for my purposes. Since the journal doesn’t use issues, pages, number, volumes, or volume-title I haven’t listed them below (though I tried them, and they do suppress the “ahead of print” label as you said).
available-date: Doe, Jane. “Title of Article.” Findings, accepted January 1, 2026, January 13, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1824.139022. (Note: should this display as “accepted”?)
collection-title: Doe, Jane. “Title of Article.” Findings, Collection title, January 13, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1824.139022.
status(I tried “Published online”): Doe, Jane. “Title of Article.” Findings, Published online January 13, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1824.139022.
section: Doe, Jane. “Title of Article.” Urban Findings. Findings, ahead of print, January 13, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1824.139022.
I suppose of all of the above, using something like “Published online” for status is most accurate–but I don’t think that follows CMOS18’s preference for concise citations either.
Is there any way to simply suppress the “ahead of print” label without also adding additional text to replace it?
A number refers to an article number or unique ID, as discussed in CMOS 14.71, which the journal includes in its DOIs. You could cite this sensibly for this journal, for example:
Condeço-Melhorado, Ana, Juan Carlos García-Palomares, and Javier Gutiérrez. ‘Urban Segregation Even on Holiday: Income Differences in the Choice of Destinations’. Findings, 17 July 2025, 141932. https://doi.org/10.32866/001c.141932.
Alternatively you can simply enter it as a magazine rather than a journal article.
It would obviously be better if there were a toggle for the ‘ahead of print’ text, but that isn’t currently possible.
