Citation, citation, citation!

bsjezz

Hello everyone!

I'm currently putting together a research project and soon enough (Er sometime before 5pm Monday) I know I'm going to have to get down to the nitty-gritty of a bibliography and citations. This is all good, I'm generally okay at putting together a standard-format reference (MLA style I think I'm following this case), but I did have a couple of specific questions that I was wondering about:

- If there's a quote from a source outside of an article I'm reading directly - IE a paper which quotes somebody else - and all I need to use is the direct quote, should I cite the text that I'm reading or skip it entirely and cite the text it's taken from? I don't think I'd have any problems citing it directly but if I had to put a reference in for "both layers" so to speak it might get a bit tricky. Any advice?

- I have to cite a beer label. Yeah, a beer label. I do have copies of the labels (they were included in one of the other texts I read, sans any citations), however I'm not sure how to go about correctly acknowledging them. My first thought is to label them "Figures 1-6 (from Shep, 108-109)" and then include the full citation in the bibliography as usual. Is this going to work, or not? If it makes any difference I'm sure I'm able to pop out and get my own copies of the labels. I could go for a few beers anyway.

- I also have a copy of a last will and testament which would be handy to include. The thing is, it's kinda just tacked on the end of a word document the brewers sent me. I have no doubts it's genuine, but I'm unsure of how much information about its origins I'll be expected to include. I don't suppose anyone has any idea how to cite a will, and if so, what exactly does it include? Chances are I'll just leave it out, but I'm curious either way.

Thanks for your help everybody - I hope maybe someone here has had some heavy research-paper experience. Any tips are appreciated.

Zul the Conqueror

Let me start out by saying my qualifications are a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering. So while I've done my share of research papers in both the liberal arts and engineering, I'm by no means an expert.

bsjezz wrote:

- If there's a quote from a source outside of an article I'm reading directly - IE a paper which quotes somebody else - and all I need to use is the direct quote, should I cite the text that I'm reading or skip it entirely and cite the text it's taken from? I don't think I'd have any problems citing it directly but if I had to put a reference in for "both layers" so to speak it might get a bit tricky. Any advice?

I believe the generally accepted way to do this would be something along these lines:

"I like cats." (Smith in Jones, 198)

Where the text you read was by Jones, and he quoted Smith on page 198. Then you have the full citation for Jones' work in the bibliography. You don't want to cite Smith's original work, because you didn't read it.

bsjezz wrote:

- I have to cite a beer label. Yeah, a beer label. I do have copies of the labels (they were included in one of the other texts I read, sans any citations), however I'm not sure how to go about correctly acknowledging them. My first thought is to label them "Figures 1-6 (from Shep, 108-109)" and then include the full citation in the bibliography as usual. Is this going to work, or not? If it makes any difference I'm sure I'm able to pop out and get my own copies of the labels. I could go for a few beers anyway.

I think that citing the source you got the labels from ought to be fine. If you're worried about the fact that that source didn't cite anything, I suppose you could add in "Anheuser-Busch, 1967, in Shep, 108-109" or something.

bsjezz wrote:

- I also have a copy of a last will and testament which would be handy to include. The thing is, it's kinda just tacked on the end of a word document the brewers sent me. I have no doubts it's genuine, but I'm unsure of how much information about its origins I'll be expected to include. I don't suppose anyone has any idea how to cite a will, and if so, what exactly does it include? Chances are I'll just leave it out, but I'm curious either way.

I'll admit that I don't know specifically how one would cite a will. If you know whose will it is, or who prepared it, I would cite it to their name. I'd do the in-text citation the same way you do other things, (Name, Year). On the works-cited page I guess I'd do it something like:

Last, First. Last Will and Testament. Prepared by <Lawyer's First Last OR Firm Name>, Year.

If all you're worried about is not getting in trouble for plagiarism, just include as much information as you have and don't worry about it. If you're in a position where you'll lose points or get in trouble for improper forms of citations, then you should probably ask a librarian at your school (or maybe one posts here...)

Hope that helps.

Reiten

Your library should have a complete guide to MLA format citation. It should answer all these questions in detail. I don't use MLA myself, but I believe their book is called "MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers".

contraband

MLA Formatting and Style Guide @ Purdue.

Virum

- If there's a quote from a source outside of an article I'm reading directly - IE a paper which quotes somebody else - and all I need to use is the direct quote, should I cite the text that I'm reading or skip it entirely and cite the text it's taken from? I don't think I'd have any problems citing it directly but if I had to put a reference in for "both layers" so to speak it might get a bit tricky. Any advice?

Zul isn't quite right.

In the Works Cited list, just use the source you got it from, and in the parenthesis citation use "qtd. in" [quoted in]:

(qtd. in Bernard 69).

bsjezz

Thanks for the advice everybody, especially with citing direct quotes from secondary sources. I've decided to skip on the will as my source really is pretty dodgy, and with the beer labels I've just quoted the article and page number that they were reproduced in.

Honestly I think I've worried a bit too much about it as it's only for a creative writing unit, and it's supposed to be something of a personal essay, but I don't want to make bad habits for future work, so it's good to get this stuff cleared up now. Everything's come together pretty well though so thanks heaps for the tips.

The Cat

If you need a style guide for future reference, I can shoot you a pdf of the one my uni puts out for us. Its got the Harvard, AGPS, and APA systems for cites and bibliographies plus some stuff on structuring various types of assignment. Most universities should put out something similar, but not all do.

TreeGreen

It really sort of depends on what you are doing. If you were writing a literature review you'd damn well better go back to the original source, and make sure it was quoted correctly (then cite the original). Generally this is more of a concern when dealing with statistics, but it never to go back to the original work (particularly if you see that persons work coming up a lot in your searches of other articles). This is something important to keep in mind for future work, and not so much in this case.