Need for Citations When Tables are Used

By Anonymous on Mon, 04/15/2013 - 15:39

Forums

If data from the the census record for the family or household of John Smith is entered into a table, and a proper citation for the census record is attached to the table; the question is, when I subsquently refer to data in the table, do I need to add a citation for the census record - or can I refer the reader to the table?

Thanks,

Mike

Submitted byEEon Mon, 04/15/2013 - 18:23

Mike,

Interesting question. Let's think through this for a few moments:

1. What information would your citation support?  Would it support calculations made within your table? Or would the citation be used to support information statements made by the censuses themselves?

If the latter, then . . .

2. In this piece of writing that you are doing, are you providing a copy of the table whereon the citations appear? (Full citations?) If not, and you cite only the table, then how would your readers know where, exactly, to find the source of each piece of census information that you invoke?

Also . . .

3. Have you studied major peer-reviewed journals that use tables drawn from censuses, to get a good feel for what works and what doesn't under a variety of circumstances?

 

Submitted bymcarsonon Mon, 04/15/2013 - 18:48

I would love to see the journals that use tables drawn from censuses.  Could you point me to something?  I general read the NGS Quarterly (past couple of years).

To your questions, for 2-3 census years, I'd like to extract portions of the the census record into a separate tables -each table having a citation.  The citation would follow the EE guide for the the census year.  Only one family or household would be in each table (just like citing a record if no table were used).  With the tables, I can compare and draw conclusions about the information across the tables - such as age consistency, changes in names, etc, etc.

Again, thanks for the help.

Mike

 

Submitted byEEon Mon, 04/15/2013 - 20:51

Mike,

We're still unclear on one point: whether your piece of writing that will refer to your tables will also include the tables. If all the tables are there in that piece of writing, then you could simply refer to the table, by number. If the tables aren't there, then your citation would have to cite the two or three censuses for that household. That's a simple thing to do. Many citations refer to multiple censuses.

Re the journals, in the field of genealogy the NGSQ is the principal one that carries tables. We'd have to go back through the back issues ourselves to cite you which issues have these and, given that a research staff hasn't materialized in this office, we'll just suggest that—an an NGS member—you can skim these back issues online at the NGS website. Or, if you're not a member, you can find a full run of the journal at most university libraries and metropolitan libraries. Almost every issue, of course, has articles that cite multiple censuses in a single citation.