Newspapers.com citations

Hello, Linda.

If a published article carries Nora I. Churchman's byline, then we would cite her in the author's field. If she is not cited, but we have proof that she was the otherwise anonymous author of a published article, then we can place her name in the author field, with square editorial brackets around it to signal that we are editorially adding what's not there. We should then add a sentence to provide the evidence why we think she was the author.

In this case, I am puzzled by two things:

• Your third paragraph says that the article was "created for the newspaper, but it was a copying a letter that an ancestor wrote."  Are you saying that Churchman created it for the newspaper by copying a different article word-for-word, but this one was not published? Are you saying that it was created for the newspaper and published there, but what you have is the transcription? Are you saying that you have Churchman's original draft of an article that was published?  Or ....?
• When I go to your cited link, I don't see the article. In fact, the link does not take me to the cited paper, date, or page.

We actually need to discuss the citation format (which is missing some needed elements in each case and/or places them in a position that causes them to say what I don't think you intend), but the issues above need clarifying before I can be certain what we are trying to cite.

Linda, thanks for confirming the link. It worked this morning when I got back into the office and went through a Windows update. It did not  work yesterday, through several attempts! Technology!

Given that the newspaper article is a creation of the newspaper editor, that it has a title created by the editor, and that it begins with an introduction by the editor, EE would (a) use the standard format for a newspaper article; and (b) add a statement to explain what the article presents. 

The citation that you provide in your fourth paragraph handles Layer 1 perfectly:

“From a Mission in Far-Off India,” The Topeka Daily Capital (Topeka, Kansas), 6 April 1902, p. 17, cols. 4–7.

Layer 2 presents a problem. It reads:

digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/ : accessed 9 March 2022).  

When we cite a website (a publication), the format is the same for citing a book, a CD, or any other standalone publication:

Author/Creator, Title of Publication in Italics (Place of publication = URL : date), specific location, if any.

The citation you use for “Funeral Tuesday …” does follows this format (but with an issue I’ll address later).  Using this same format for “From a Mission …” would create this alteration to your citation.

“From a Mission in Far-Off India,” The Topeka Daily Capital (Topeka, Kansas), 6 April 1902, p. 17, cols. 4–7; Ancestry, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/ : accessed 9 March 2022).

Layer 3, which is typically a "source of our source" citation, would then address what this article is based on:

“From a Mission in Far-Off India,” The Topeka Daily Capital (Topeka, Kansas), 6 April 1902, p. 17, cols. 4–7; Ancestry, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/63759640/ : accessed 9 March 2022); after an introduction by the newspaper editor, the article presents a letter that the missionary Nora I. Churchman, “a Topeka girl,” sent from Jamalpur, India.

You asked about the following format :

Churchman, Nora I., "From a Mission in Far-Off India," The Topeka Daily Capital (Topeka, Kansas), 06 April 1902, p, 17, cols. 4-7 ….

This raises two issues:

• As you’ll note from EE’s countless examples, Reference Note citations do not invert the names of authors.  (That point is also discussed at 2.16, 2.53, and especially 12.2 in the fundamentals for citing publications.) Names are inverted only in Source List Entries and only because Source Lists are typically alphabetized by author surnames. This is a standard not just for Evidence Style citations, but for citations within all citation guides used within the humanities.
• In the case at hand, given that the article does end with her salutation (name and place), there is justification for your inserting her name in the citation's author field. However, identifying her in Layer 3, together with an explanation, would make the situation clearer to your readers.

Your “Funeral Tuesday …” citation also presents two issues to discuss:

"Funeral Tuesday for Saddlemaker," Omaha World Herald, May 20, 1971, p. 28, col. 1; digital images, Omaha World Herald (http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 10 Aug 2015).

Issue 1

Your Layer 2 identifies the name of the website as the name of the newspaper.  The Omaha World Herald did not create the website. The name that appears in the website title field should be the title of the website itself.

Issue 2

Given the vastness of the website and its many different offerings, the URL needs to be specific. Using the search box at the home-page URL www.genealogybank.com, I used your identifying information in a number of combinations (Newspaper name, locale, date, "saddlemaker," "Funeral Tuesday," etc.) and, again, could not find the item you reference. The citation does not include the name of the deceased, so I could not use that option.  I did scroll through that issue to find page 28; but, as you can see from the image below, p. 28 is a sports page and col. 1 has nothing about the funeral of a saddlemaker.  Is there a reason why you did not cite the exact URL in this case?