Collect bibliographical data as you research and draft - Citations - Citing sources

Student's guide to writing college papers, Fourth edition - Kate L. Turabian 2010

Collect bibliographical data as you research and draft
Citations
Citing sources

As you go through the early stages of your project, you may be tempted to ignore the picky details of citations until you can't put them off any longer. Resist. Not only will you make double work for yourself (you'll have to find each source twice—once to read it and again to get data for a citation), but you won't always be able to find the source again. And if you are like the two of us, you'll have more time for citations at the beginning than at the end, when your deadline is looming. So record all of the bibliographical data the first time you locate a source. You'll be glad you did.

17.5.1 What Bibliographical Data You Should Save

You don't need to memorize the details of citation formats, but you do need to know what information to save. If you can't remember it, copy this check-list or put it on your computer desktop.

For books, record

____author(s)

____title (including subtitle)

____title of series (if any)

____edition or volume number (if any)

____city and publisher

____year published

____title and pages for chapter (if relevant)

For articles, record

____author(s)

____title (including subtitle)

____title of journal, magazine, etc.

____volume and issue number

____database (if any)

____date published

____pages for article

For some online sources, the information you need is less predictable. Record as much of the above as applies, along with anything else that might help readers locate the source. You will also need at least these:

✵ URL

✵ date posted or last modified

✵ date of access

✵ sponsoring organization

A CAUTIONARY TALE

The Scholar Who Misplaced His Source

Many years ago, a young Professor Williams made an important discovery about the history of the English language because he found some old church records that no one had thought to connect to how people spoke in Shakespeare's time. But when it came time to publish his discovery, he came to an awful realization: he had not recorded all of the bibliographical data on the source, and he could not remember exactly where he had found it. For more than a year, he could not publish his paper, while he searched for that source. Then it came to him one night in his sleep: he had been looking in the wrong library!

Professor Williams was happy to report that he never made that mistake again.

17.5.2 How to Find the Data You Need

For the most part, you will find all of the bibliographic data you need at the beginning of books and journals and on the title page of articles. For websites, you may have to look around. Here are some examples of where to find data for the most common kinds of sources.

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17.5.3 How to Record Bibliographical Data as You Go

Your best method for recording bibliographical data depends on where and how you do your research. But no matter your circumstances, always record everything you might need the first time you encounter a source.

If you are searching online:

1. Set up your computer:

✵ Be sure that the history setting on your browser is set with no limit, so that it will record all the sites you visit and you can get back to each one.

✵ Be sure that you have access to permanent storage. If you are using a public computer, bring blank, recordable CDs so that you can burn a record of everything you have found.

2. Save every web page or online document that has material you may use, including the pages that have bibliographical data.

3. Before you finish with a source, enter its data into a computer record. If your word processor has a citation database or if you are using citation software, enter the data there. Otherwise, enter the data in a file, one page per work (create a template for this).

If you are reading in a library with a laptop:

1. Before you finish with a source, enter its data into a computer record. If your word processor has a citation database or if you are using citation software, enter the data there. Otherwise, enter the data in a file, one page per work (create a template for this).

2. A good researcher checks twice so that she only has to find a source once. After you have entered all the data, go back and check each one against the text in front of you.

3. You might also consider photocopying title pages, copyright pages, and others with the bibliographical information you need. (This is also good advice for long quotations.)

If you are reading in a library without a laptop:

1. Before you head for the library, create a word-processing file with a template for the information you will record. Print more copies than you expect to need.

2. Before you finish with a source, write down its data on a template page. Check twice so that you only have to find the source once. Consider photo-copying pages with the information you need.

3. Back at your computer, enter the information from your template pages either into a citation database or in the template file.

17.5.4 What to Do When You Can't Find the Data You Need

You can expect little trouble in finding the bibliographical data you need for most sources. But if your source lacks the usual information, you can almost always find information that will substitute. Be flexible and think about why readers might need each kind of information. For example, if you cite a TV show or a film, you won't have an author, but readers will be happy if you use the director instead. For a song, the songwriter is most like an author and the record company is most like the publisher. If you record the information that is most like the standards, you will be able to create adequate citations.

Experienced researchers know that proper citations require too many arbitrary details for anybody to keep them all in mind. So the secret to success here is to set up a system that will work and follow it without fail. Do that, and you'll find citations easy, perhaps even fun.