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How often do I need to provide a citation for the same piece of information?
If I say, "Robert Smith married Gladys Jones on 1 January 1856 in Frederick County, Maryland" and provide the appropriate citation; do I have to add another citation (i.e. a subsequent citation) every time I repeat some portion of this statement?
I find that in writing reports, I may revisit a piece of information. In doing so, I find myself trying to decide what citation may be required. So, if I later say, "the earliest record of Gladys Jones is her marriage to Robert Smith in 1856," do I need to add the same citation (albeit in "subsequent citiation" form)?
Up to this point, I had assumed that the subsequent citation was used only when a new piece of information is used from the same source.
Hopefully you can straighten me out on this.
Thanks,
Mike
Mike, the school of thought
Mike, the school of thought that EE follows is this: Every "statement of fact" that is not public knowledge needs to be supported by a citation to the evidence.
If, on p. 7 of our report or an article or a book, we assert that Gladys Jones married Robert Smith, we should cite the evidence. If, on p. 127, we "state that fact" again, we may use a shortened citation. However, we are obligated to identify the source. We will have made many assertions at that point. We cannot expect our readers to remember every "fact" we've already stated and the source of each. Nor would it be reasonable to expect them to reread all prior pages in order to see if, even though we're providing no evidence here, we did indeed identify a source or sources for this fact at some earlier point.
Realistically, too, many users of our work will photocopy or capture notes for only random pages, depending upon their needs. Researchers also share, or post online, just random pages. If, on p. 127, we assert a "fact" without providing evidence to support it, then anyone who uses that one page will know only one thing about that "fact": We asserted it, but we provided no evidence.
Today, both word processing software and relational databases make it very easy to add a citation. Doing so takes far less time than trying to later repair the damage caused by omitting it.
Thanks. That does help. Of
Thanks. That does help. Of course, most of our reports may be far less than 127 pages. Do we follow the same rule when the statement of fact is repeated in some form within the same page, or within a page or two.
Mike
Mike:
Mike:
As writers, we don't just throw words on paper and let them stay wherever they land. We rewrite. We reorganize for clarity. What is on the same page at one point--or just a page or two away--might later end up elsewhere. When we start thinking in terms of shortcuts we can take, we set ourselves up for problems down the road. The standard rule (every statement of fact that is not public knowledge should be supported by an identification of source) is there to help us. It does help us in ways we can't anticipate.