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Dear EE,
I am trying to use your "Newsletters (Online Images)" template (Evidence Explained, Kindle ed., p. 806) to create a citation and reference note for information retrieved from an online image of a London Gazette issue.
The London Gazatte is England's oldest official newspaper or government journal of record, publishing offical notices, military commissions, officer promotions and State or Royal honours and awards, etc.
Specifically, I am trying to cite the Military Cross awarded to Eric Spencer Batchelor, which was gazetted in the Supplement to the London Gazette of Tuesday, the 21st September, 1943, published 23 September 1943. A digital image is accessible at its website, The Gazette, at https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36180/supplement/4216/data.pdf.
My problem arises with the manner in how one should treat a supplementary issue of the Gazette. The Gazette is usually published as The London Gazette, whereas its supplements are published as Supplement to the London Gazette of [enter day and date here]. Should the publication name include the supplementary name italicized or just the usual name, The London Gazette?
I have made a stab at a reference note here, opting to italicize the usual publication name and including supplementary details after it. I would appreciate your comments and advice.
- "The Military Cross," The London Gazette, supplement of 21 September 1943, issue 36180 (23 September 1943): p. 4216, col. 2; PDF image, The Gazette (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36180/supplement/4216/data.pdf : accessed 7 February 2016). Gazetting the award of a Military Cross to "Captain (temporary Major) Eric Spencer Batchelor (113268), Royal Regiment of Artillery (Bournemouth)" for "gallant and distinguished services in North Africa."
With thanks and best regards,
Jeremy Stone
Jeremy you've just
Jeremy you've just underscored a point that EE frequently makes. No matter how many citation templates exist, there will always be quirks that don't quite fit any one mold. You've also focused on a significant issue: whether we should cite this under the title of the newspaper or under Supplement to ....
There are actually four issues that could be discussed. Looking at the "big picture" here: Anyone using your citation could find what you've cited and none of the four would affect our assessment of the quality of the material. However, since you took the trouble to ask about a specific point, it's obvious that you are taking care in crafting citations and want to understand the issues, so I'll pick the nits.
Title
From the standpoint of your master source list, if you have a number of citations to The London Gazette, citing this item under the newspaper's core title would make sense. On the other hand, if we go back to the first page of the supplement (p. 4213), we see that Supplement to is the lead element in the title of the supplement. Also, if we "play around" with the URL, taking off extensions and checking different issues (36179, 36181, 36182, 36183, 36184, 31685), we begin to see a pattern for the publication—and we see that there were several supplements issued that same day and each has a distinctive lead to its title:
For this reason, EE would use the exact title as it is rendered on the first page of each supplement. I’ll demonstrate at the end of this post, after we discuss all four issues.
2. Placement of the details for the specific article
You follow a traditional newspaper style in which the article title is cited before the newspaper title. Then, after citing the newspaper in Layer 1, you cite the website data for the PDF as Layer 2. But, you then you create a new sentence, repeat the article title, and double back to Layer 1 to quote specific details.
There’s one basic premise for citing material that originally existed in one form and is now imaged on line: Don’t separate what ought to stick together. (As a mnemonic device, EE calls this the Velcro Principle.) Put another way, all the details that deal with one format need to be presented together—not separated by details of the other format. In this case, the specific details that you found in the supplement need to be part of the citation to the supplement, not part of the citation to the website.
3. Quotation not covered by the citation
You cite the article title as “The Military Cross” and you point the reader to col. 2. But you proceed to quote a passage that does not appear under that title or in that column. Your second quote “[for] gallant and distinguished services in North Africa,” actually comes from col. 1 and appears under a different title. Ergo, your citation has to be to both cols. 1 and 2. Your second quote does appear to apply to three categories of military honors presented on that page. The main title for all three would seem to be the words that preface your quote: i.e., “War Office, 23rd September, 1943.”
4. Confusing publication dates
The supplement you are citing carries two dates. You expressed them this way:
“The Military Cross,” The London Gazette, supplement of 21 September 1943, issue 36180 (23 September 1943): p. 4216 …
If we say, “supplement of” such-and-such a date, we are saying that the supplement was published that date, which leaves the reader wondering what 23 September represents. The title to the supplement actually reads, Supplement to The London Gazette of Tuesday the 21st of September 1943. Below that title, we have the actual date of publication: 23 September 1943.
Putting all these issues together, EE would cite the item this way:
Supplement to The London Gazette of Tuesday the 21st of September 1943, issue 36180 (23 September 1943), p. 4216, cols. 1 and 2, “War Office … awards in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in North Africa … Captain (temporary Major) Eric Spencer Batchelor (113268), Royal Regiment of Artillery (Bournemouth)"; PDF image, The Gazette: Official Public Record (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36180/supplement/4216/data.pdf : accessed 7 February 2016).
Dear Editor,
Dear Editor,
Thank you very much for your detailed and most helpful reply. Your suggested citation is clear, concise and makes perfect sense. As you so frequently advise, "citation is an art, not a science" and you are, withoout doubt, a supreme artist!
I have two minor nits to pick:
To round off this topic, I propose the following source list entry and subsequent reference note:
Source List Entry
London Gazette Supplement (Onlime image).
Publication title as lead element.
Supplement to The London Gazette of Tuesday, the 21st September 1943. Issue 36180. 23 September 1943.
Subseueent Reference Note
Supplement to The London Gazette of Tuesday, the 21st September 1943, 4216.
Again, thank you for your help.
Jeremy Stone
As the old cliche goes,
As the old cliche goes, Jeremy. Even editors need an editor. :) Especially, when they're rushing to meet deadlines! Thanks for catching. I will correct the example in Message 2 so that readers who skim for the examples, without reading all the discussion, will follow the correction.
Re your Souce List Entry and "Subseueent" Reference Note, your "Supplement to ..." examples will work fine, with the title italicized, of course. In the subsequent ref note, you might also want to explain what that "4216" represents. While the standard format for citing page numbers does not call for explicitly saying "page," in cases like this when there's a quirk so aberrant to the norms one would expect (i.e., a newspaper citation with a page number in the 4000s), adding an explanation to ensure clarity is a good thing.
Oops, I hadn't realised that
Oops, I hadn't realised that I had omitted to italicise the publication title. It was correctly formatted when I first cut and pasted the text into the text field but the formatting was lost during 'save'.
And sorry to be pedantic. During your last edit, I think you mistakenly added a quotation mark to the start of the italicised publication title! :-)
Dear Editor,
Dear Editor,
Thank you for correcting my error: indeed, the website's correct title is The Gazette: Official Public Record. The second half of the title is important as it describes the nature of the website.
I had originally proposed citing the publication title as the lead element in the source list but since we would rarely consult the original publication nowadays, I suggest the source list entry should cite the website itself -- particularly since the website hosts all official notices of the government of the United Kingdom (i.e. the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes); and if we cite many issues, supplementary or otherwise, from this source, we should group them under a single source. E.g.:
The Gazette: Official Public Record. Database and images. https://www.thegazette.co.uk. 2016.
Question: in the source list entry, should we indicate the country to which these official public records refer? If so, how? Should we add the jurisdiction in editorial brackets? E.g.:
The Gazette: Official Public Record [of the United Kindom]. Database and images. https://www.thegazette.co.uk. 2016.
For the benefit of other subscribers, I think it important to get this right since the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes are important sources of historical British records.
Again, many thanks for your time.
Dear Editor,
Dear Editor,
Thank you for correcting my error: indeed, the website's correct title is The Gazette: Official Public Record. The second half of the title is important as it describes the nature of the website.
I had originally proposed citing the publication title as the lead element in the source list but since we would rarely consult the original publication nowadays, I suggest the source list entry should cite the website itself -- particularly since the website hosts all official notices of the government of the United Kingdom (i.e. the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes); and if we cite many issues, supplementary or otherwise, from this source, we should group them under a single source. E.g.:
The Gazette: Official Public Record. Database and images. https://www.thegazette.co.uk. 2016.
Question: in the source list entry, should we indicate the country to which these official public records refer? If so, how? Should we add the jurisdiction in editorial brackets? E.g.:
The Gazette: Official Public Record [of the United Kingdom]. Database and images. https://www.thegazette.co.uk. 2016.
For the benefit of other subscribers, I think it important to get this right since the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes are important sources of historical British records.
Again, many thanks for your time.
Jeremy, together, here, we're
Jeremy, together, here, we're proving a point: with citations as with anything else, the best results come from collaborative efforts. No one mind will immediately think of every possibility.
For the Source List Entry, you would not be faulted for either version. (I might point out, for those who are purists about formatting, that a Source List Entry will be formatted with a hanging indent rather than a first-line indent. In that regard, I'll also point out that this forum's Drupal construction doesn't allow us to do that without making a hard break after the first line, which creates an extra space between lines. I must remind my IT guru to try to find a workaround for this.)
The Gazette: Official Public Record (of the United Kingdom). 1943.
Database and images. https://www.thegazette.co.uk. 2016.
In this example above, you will notice two alterations.
Date of publication. When we use a serial (newspaper, magazine, etc.), our source list entry should include the date of the publication or the range of months or years that we examined. Above, the year "1943" would indicate that we examined all issues for 1943.
Square brackets vs. Parentheses: Here, you used square editorial brackets. I've used parentheses. Square brackets are appropriate when we insert something into the middle of a quotation or in the middle of a title that we are copying exactly. Outside of quote marks or italicized title, all the other wording is our own. We may consider part of our words to be parenthetical, but we would not be making an editorial edition to our own set of words.
As ever, thank you for you
As ever, thank you for you advice.
In the source list example above, the lead element is the website title, not the serial (newspaper, magazine, etc.) title, which is not mentioned at all. In that case, should we still insert 1943 to indictate we have searched all publications for that year? Just curious.
Point noted on the use of editorial brackets, thanks.
Best regards,
It would still be a good idea
It would still be a good idea to include, Jeremy, so that going forward you will know the parameters within which you searched that source.
Got it and thanks Ed.! Yet
Got it and thanks Ed.! Yet again, citation is an art, not a science.
That it is!
That it is!