Citing Resumes, and Curriculum Vitaes

By Anonymous on Tue, 11/04/2014 - 05:24

Forums

Hello Everyone,

I have concerns regarding how to cite resumes, curriculum vitaes, and how credible these types of materials are.  I have several CV’s for individuals in my family tree that point out particular bits of information concerning career, and community activities that I feel add to the understanding of who these individuals were, they also add the over all timeline to each person’s life—thus these  sources assist in writing up a narrative for each person.

I have one case where the curriculum vitae is used as a portion of one’s application for promotion from an assistant professorship to an associate professorship position.  This CV is not formatted in the typical fashion with brief citations laying out activities in chronological order, instead it provides short written descriptions--by the narrator/person who applied for the promotion—on all of the activities that this person participated in from the time they accepted the appointment at the university up until the time they applied for promotion. And once again may I add that these activates illustrate not only the persons scholarly activates, but their involvement in the local community, university administrative work, and in student services.  I own a copy of this document in my personal holdings, but it is also on file at the Human Resource office at the university where the person was working, and the person did receive the promotion.  I would like to cite this document correctly, but I am not too sure what category it falls under.

So here are a couple of questions concerning resumes, and curriculum vitaes.  How credible are these documents if they were written by an individual about their own activities?  Would the documents be more credible if—as in the case above—they were held by an institution such as a university?  And is there mention of such documents in Evidence Explained?  I am new to the book so I have not gone through it completely, but I cannot find mention of resumes specifically.

 

 

Submitted byEEon Tue, 11/04/2014 - 18:15

Interesting question, Kaersten.

Re credibility: As with any source, an assertion is just an assertion until it's verified through independently created sources. While a resumé would, theoretically, provide primary (firsthand) information, it is also a kind of document that is self-serving and may fudge facts or have some bias embedded. Even so, a resumé would be a fantastic starting point to reconstruct someone's life. Newspaper accounts, city directories, academic records, company newsletters, and a jillion other resources might then be used to verify the details.

Re how to cite: Two questions are particularly relevant:

  • Would we be correct in assuming that these are unpublished resumés—as opposed to, say, one posted online where, by virtue of its widespread distribution, it would be a published source?
  • If they are unpublished, where exactly did you find them? You mention one that came from a university archive. That one would be cited in the same way you'd cite any manuscript record in an archives. If you acquired a resumé from an individual, or inherited it, then you would cite it as a manuscript record in private possession.

Chapter 3 is the chapter that covers this type of record. There you will find several QuickCheck Models at the start of the chapter that apply to both archived documents and privately held ones. 

Have fun with all the verification.