New source for me...need to know how to cite

Shannon:

You raise a very good question. The response will be in two parts. The first will address broader issues. The second will be more specific to your two posts.

Your query could be answered easily enough by just writing your citation for you and saying, "Here, use this." But doing that would not help you the next time you encounter another puzzling online source.  It would also be of benefit only to you in citing this particular record. It would not help other EE users who see your query and our answer.

The issue here is not just how to cite. The underlying issue is how to analyze. How to dissect. How to break things apart and reassemble their essential elements. Once we strengthen these skills, we should be able to develop a sound citation for any kind of source.

The extent to which many researchers undervalue analysis as an essential skill might be extrapolated from EE's trio of forums and the inquiries they've generated since we launched:

• Citation Issues: 255 posts
• Record Usage & Interpretation: 34 posts
• Analysis Issues: 24 posts

It's tempting to deduce that most users of this website are focusing on the mechanics of citation, as opposed to understanding the sources they are using.

All things considered, EE's next QuickLesson will use your query to examine a common problem we might call: Chasing an Online Record into Its Rabbit Hole.

In the meanwhile, we'll address your queries directly in a separate message.

Shannon, your two posts refer to different websites, with different portals into the same set of records. To borrow a metaphor from our first response to you, once we chase these records into their rabbit holes, they deal with two separate volumes and two different pages in those volumes, as well as two different portals and two different images.

Let's focus on your brave attempt to sort out the muddle this website offers. Several issues are involved.

1. Have you had time yet to study EE for the basic difference between a source list entry and a reference note? Your proposed citation starts off as a source list entry but ends up as a reference note. EE 2.4 discusses the difference between the two. (If you haven't done so already, it's a very good idea to read the first two chapters, Fundamentals of Analysis and Fundamentals of Citation, before you do additional research. It is the natural inclination of most people to just dive into whatever chapter covers the kind of record they're using, but reading those fundamental chapters can save researchers a lot of angst and a lot of wasted time.)

2. Regarding the phrase "citing Record of ....," the online image you are viewing does not actually cite anything. The image itself, internally, carries a page header, a page number, and a lot of other data; but the data that appears in the image is not the citation.

3. The "main interface" page to which your second URL points gives us links, but it does not cite a book or a page. In fact, to get from that "main interface" to the actual page image, one would have to navigate through three other pages.

4. The URL you gave in your first query does cite pages, but it also carries a warning: "Page numbers below do not correspond exactly to page numbers on images."  (In other words, the list of "page numbers" are image numbers for this web page; but they aren't page numbers in the original register.) Thus, the "Page 16" that you originally cited was not the actual "page 16." The image of the original page carries the number 509--a serious difference. Even so, we still haven't identified the register itself.

5. Given these factors, if someone followed your proposed citation, how would they find your cited "p. 491"?

6. As you think about these issues, how would you refine your citation?

Glad to help, Shannon. That's why EE exists.