Is there a symbol out there capable of denoting a chapter in a citation?

When citing like [Source, ch.number], is there a particular symbol that could or should replace the "ch." abbreviation?

Solution 1:

No. The standard abbreviations are Ch. and Chap.

…or at least, if there is such a symbol, Unicode doesn’t know about it yet — and Unicode is pretty comprehensive, including characters as diverse as the inverted interrobang ⸘, biohazard sign ☣, and snowman ☃, not to mention the Shavian alphabet and much, much, much more.

Solution 2:

I have seen lawyers use the section symbol, §, to denote sections of a document that would be chapters in book form, but I'm not sure if it's entirely applicable to your situation.

Solution 3:

The section symbol § when handwritten is sometimes drawn as an S with a circle around the middle. One of my mathematics professors similarly denoted a chapter as a C but with the circle on the middle of the C on the left side. I like it and use it myself in notes. I found this SE thread by searching to see if this is a standard symbol or if he just invented it.

Though I think it looks good it doesn't make as much sense to use it on a C, since the original symbol is a digraph of two S characters. Perhaps one could make a sufficient digraph of stacked C characters that would work nicely. I don't think it would flow as well as the section symbol though.