Citation conundrum

By Anonymous on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 13:35

Forums

Hello,

I have a series of  newspaper articles that were originally published in The Greenwich Journal and Fort Edward Advertiser (Greenwich, NY) between 1955-1958. There is a total of 86 articles. They were written by the Argyle Town Historian. I only have the clippings of these and not page and column information and there maybe some confussion on which actual newspaper they came from. I am working to sort that issue out. These articles were each given an article number ie. "article 51"

These same articles were republished in The Greenwich Journal and Salem Press between 2002-2004. In the second publication some of the articles were edited and corrected. For example some of the corrections and additions that were published after the first run were incorporated into the second publication. This publication changed "article 51" to "installment #51." I have most of the articles from the second run.

These same articles were published a third time in 2004 in a PDF document that was available for a time and may still be available by sending a request to the editor of The Greenwich Journal and Salem Press. The PDF document changed the original article numbers' and the 'installment numbers' to chapter numbers and includes an index of names. The PDF has a notice in part, "Genealogical researchers may use information garnered from this source so long as they cite the work by name..., and credit the original author..., and the editor, ... " The title page of the PDF  states "By Mrs. ... Edited and modified by .... for The Greenwich Journal and Salem Press 2004" It should be noted that the editor of the PDF was also the newspaper editor at the time of publication. 

Would citing the PDF be akin to citing a book, citing both the author and editors name? I have not seen editors typically cited in an authored work of this nature. Is this common? 

My first inclination is to use the clippings from the first publication for my citations since the quotes and stated relationships I have used are from the original articles and not the edited versions although in almost all the cases there is no difference. However, since I currently don't have page and column information and the original paper's title is still in question would it be less complicated, hence less confusing to use one of the later publications?

Thank you,

Ann Gilchrest 

Submitted byEEon Sun, 05/17/2015 - 18:25

Ann,

Citing the PDF in edited book format would, as you suggest, be the simplest approach. Given that it contains corrections, it would likely be the most useful version for other researchers who would follow up on your citation. If EE were using the source, we'd add a layer to the citation to describe what we're using and to point out that we're taking the data from the original item and not an editorial correction.

Submitted bycwhermann28on Wed, 05/05/2021 - 17:25

I have a series of an article that appeared in a monthly journal over several years .  These articles were later excerpted and reprinted in a single book publication which is available (imaged) on a number of online sites. I was trying to decide if I should use a published book format or use the QuickCheck Model on page 780 as the basis, but this is for a specific volume and issue date of the journal rather than several issues.  I thought would be better to do in a layered citation with the first layer consisting of the author and article title (which is also the title of the book so not sure if it should be in " " or italics); the second layer the journal title, volumes, dates; third layer the website info? But shouldn't I have the reprint publisher information go - first layer?

Digital images of the original journal publications are also available online.

Here is my attempted footnote and images of title pages etc.

Henry Whittemore, "Genealogical Guide to the Early Settlers of America with a Brief History of those of the First Generation" (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co.,1995); excerpted from The Spirit of '76 Vols. V-XII (New York, Lois H Cornish, 1898-1906); digital copy, Ancestry.com, (http://ancestry.com/card catalog : accessed 5 May 2021).

 

Submitted byEEon Thu, 05/06/2021 - 20:41

cwhermann28, without seeing a sample of the actual pages you are citing, I'm flying blind, considering the type of source you're using. Clearfield and its parent, GPC, has published a number of anthologies, assembled from old journals. Most offer "selected" items from the chosen journal, rather than being a complete reprint of everything. The use of the word “Excerpted” in the subtitle suggests this is what you are dealing with—parts of a whole, rather than a complete reprint.

EE 12.30-12.32 explains anthologies and provides an example. The only difference between that example and your problem is that you have an extra layer to cite: Ancestry's database and website.

Going back to basic principles here:

1.  You're citing a book, for which you'd begin with basic book format. If your book has individually authored chapters (or articles in the case of an anthology), your basic book citation adds the individual author and chapter title at the start of the citation. The basic format then becomes this:

     Chapter/Article Author, "Title of Chapter/Article in Quotation Marks," Book Title in Italics (Place of Publication: Publisher, year of publication), exact page number(s).

Because you accessed that book online, you need a layered citation. The complete book citation, including exact page number(s) will be your Layer 1.

2. You accessed that book online. Therefore, your Layer 2 will be a complete citation to the database and website, using the same basic format--except that, in the case of this database at Ancestry, you don't have a database author or publisher. What you're left with is this:

     "Title of Database in Quotation Marks," Website Title in Italics (Place of Publication = URL : Date), image number if available.

3. Layer 3 then cites the source-of-the-source, which--in this case--is the identity of the original journal.

As you review your original draft, I think you'll notice a few things missing or skewed. For example:

      • You've cited a whole book, without telling your reader where in the book one would find the information you are taking from that book.
      • You have a title in quotation marks, which means that title is just one part of a standalone publication that has a different title. But you don't have any title in italics to tell your reader (and yourself at a later date, after your recollection of this source has grown cold), what that larger standalone publication is.  What you've put in quotation marks is actually the title of the standalone publication--the Clearfield book; but if you're citing an anthology then the exact article title is what should be in quotation marks with the book title in italics. If this sounds like quibbling, it really isn't. The differences in the use of quotation marks and italics makes a difference in how we relocate a source. 

Sorry for the delay in responding. I'm out of the office this week, with limited accessibility.

Submitted bycwhermann28on Sat, 05/08/2021 - 16:52

I think we are taking about the same thing, but in this case it is a bit confusing because the title of the book and the title of the articles in the monthly publication are exactly the same as is the author of the book and the author of articles in the monthly journals. 

If I followed EE 12.30 exactly I would duplicate the author and titles so I thought treating it more like an online archive of the articles would be better. When I was cutting and pasting the citation, I forgot to put the website in italics and forgot to add the page number.

Hopefully this will clarify and provide more detail on the work I am trying to cite. What I am looking at is a book of excerpted articles, all with the same title and author.

An articled/feature titled “Genealogical Guide to the Early Settlers of America with a Brief History of those of the First Generation” by Henry Whittemore was published in monthly journal, titled The Spirit of 76 from 1898-1906. The article was an alphabetical listing of ancestors with information provided for each entry. The first issue started with the letter “A” and it took the 8 years of the monthly publication to work through the alphabet.

I think of it almost as the same article “continued” each month.

The Spirit of 76 was edited and published by Lois H. Cornish as noted in the attached image. Most, if not all of the issues of The Spirit of 76 are available online and one could create a citation for each journal issue as needed/accessed.

All 96 of these articles were combined into a book by Clearfield Company and reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Co. The title page and copyright page are shown on the attached image and other than Henry Whittemore who is listed as the author, I do not see and editor/compiler for the book itself so do I assume the editor is unknown?

EE12:30 states that I should cite both the anthology (the book) and the original publication (the journal) so using that as a guide, and adding the online image layer, then my citation would be:

Henry Whittemore, “Genealogical Guide to the Early Settlers of America with a Brief History of Those of the First Generation,” Genealogical Guide to the Early Settlers of America with a Brief History of Those of the First Generation, unknown editor (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995), [Page]; originally published [or excerpted from], The Spirit of ‘76, vols. V-XII (New York, Lois H Cornish, 1898-1906); digital copy, Ancestry.com, (https://ancestry.com/card catalog ; accessed 5 May 2021).

Since there are no chapters in the book, (it is really more like the combination of all the separate articles into one book) should I forget about the first part in quotations? Then it becomes.

Henry Whittemore, Genealogical Guide to the Early Settlers of America with a Brief History of Those of the First Generation (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co.,1995), [Page]; excerpted from, The Spirit of ‘76, vols. V-XII (New York, Lois H Cornish, 1898-1906): digital copy, Ancestry.com, (https://ancestry.com/cardcatalog ; accessed 5 May 2021).

Submitted byEEon Fri, 05/14/2021 - 08:38

cwherman28, can you provide an exact link to the book at Ancestry. As I mentioned earlier, without seeing the source and its special issues you refer to, I'm flying blind. But the URL doesn't work.

Elizabeth

Submitted bycwhermann28on Sun, 05/16/2021 - 19:30

Elizabeth

Here is a link to the book on Ancestry.com

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/48091/images/GuideEarlySettlersAm-001561-i?ssrc=&backlabel=Return

Here is a link to one of the original publications of Spirit of 76 from Nov 1904 at archive.org

https://archive.org/details/spiritof76devote19041906newy/page/n49/mode/2up?q=genealogical+guide

Submitted byEEon Fri, 05/28/2021 - 16:49

cwherman28, given that the original publications are available at archive.org, you could simplify your life (or at least this situation) by citing the original imaged at archive.org rather than a derivative version published in book form and then imaged at Ancestry.