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CITING SOURCES. Based on Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students by Patrick Rael http://academic.bowdoin.edu/WritingGuides/. WHY USE CITATIONS?. A citation is the part of your paper that tells your reader where your source information came from.
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CITING SOURCES Based on Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students by Patrick Rael http://academic.bowdoin.edu/WritingGuides/
WHY USE CITATIONS? • A citation is the part of your paper that tells your reader where your source information came from. • This is one of the most important elements to your paper. • In order to evaluate your argument, your reader must be able to consult the same sources you used. • Proper citing is crucial to making a credible and persuasive argument, and to conforming to professional standards of proof.
USE OF THE NOTE FORMAT • Citations in history papers can take the form of either footnotes or endnotes. • History papers should not use the parenthetic citation style common to literature and social science papers. • History footnotes do not perform the following other functions of footnotes and endnotes: • They do not provide space to clarify your use of complex data or arguments. • They do not expand on points you believe do not merit lengthy consideration in the body of your text. • They do not directly address the arguments of other historians.
HOW FOOTNOTES WORK • Each time you quote a work by another author, or use the ideas of another author, indicate the source with a footnote. • A footnote is indicated in the text of your paper by a small arabic numeral written in superscript. • Each new footnote gets a new number (increment by one); do not repeat a footnote number you've already used, even if the earlier reference is to the same work. • The number refers to a note number at the bottom of the page (or following the text of the paper, if you are using endnotes). • The note contains the citation information for the materials you are referencing.
WHAT MUST BE CITED • Acknowledge the sources of quotations, paraphrases, arguments, and specific references. • Do not cite sources for common facts or knowledge, e.g. the colonists declared independence in 1776. • Arcane or debated historical facts need to be cited. • Cite the source for any claim that appears to contradict common knowledge, e.g. most colonists were loyalists (a very controversial claim). • Cite matters of interpretation, such as another author's ideas as to why the colonists declared independence. • If you are in doubt about citing "common knowledge" information, err on the side of citing; even unintended failure to cite sources constitutes technical plagiarism.
SHOULD YOU USE FOOTNOTES OR ENDNOTES? • Either of these is fine. • Most history books are now produced using endnotes, which are commonly thought to provide cleaner looking pages. • Again, do not use parenthetical citations!
BASIC FOOTNOTE/ENDNOTE FORMS Historians follow the Chicago Manual of Style
BASIC FORMAT FOR A PRINT BOOK • Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (New York: Penguin, 2001), 204. • Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 43. • Gary Nash, The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness and the Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), 123.
WORK IN AN ANTHOLOGY • Ira Berlin, “The Revolution in Black Life” in Beyond the American Revolution: Further Explorations in the History of American Radicalism, ed. Alfred F. Young(Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1993), 367. • Bernard Bailyn, “The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation,” in Essays on the American Revolution, ed. Stephen G. Kurtz and James H. Hutson (1973), 3-31.
ARTICLES IN JOURNALS • T. H. Breen, “Ideology and Nationalism on the Eve of the American Revolution: Revisions Once More in Need of Revising,” Journal of American History 84 (June 1997): 13-39. • Alfred F. Young, “George Robert Twelves Hewes (1742-1840): A Boston Shoemaker and the Memory of the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 38 (Oct. 1981): 608-23. • William W. Freehling, “The Founding Fathers and Slavery,” American Historical Review 77 (Feb. 1972): 81-93.
ARTICLE IN A MAGAZINE • Sean Wilentz, “The Power of the Powerless,” The New Republic, December 23-30, 1991, 32-40. • Edmund S. Morgan, “The Second American Revolution,”New York Review of Books, June 25, 1992, 23-25. • Pauline Maier, “It Was Never the Same after Them,”New York Times Book Review, March 1, 1992, 1, 33-34.
ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER For newspaper articles, page numbers are not necessary. A section letter or number, if available, is sufficient.
ARTICLE IN A NEWSPAPER • Lynne V. Cheney, “The End of History,”Wall Street Journal, October 20, 1994, sec. A, Eastern edition. • Douglas Martin, “Lawrence W. Levine,73, Historian and Multiculturalist, Dies”New York Times, October 28, 2006, sec. B.
SOURCE QUOTED IN ANOTHER SOURCE • Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (New York: Random House,1965), 11, quoted in Mark Skousen, The Making of Modern Economics:The Lives and the Ideas of the Great Thinkers (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001), 15.
SHORTENED FORMS IN SUBSEQUENT REFERENCES The first time you cite a work, you must provide complete bibliographic information. In subsequent references, use a shortened form. There are two acceptable methods of shortening a reference. • Breen, 25. • Bailyn, Ideological Origins, 163. • Berlin, 367.