17 April 2014
Just how are we supposed to write an author's name in a source citation? The answer, as usual, is: It depends.
Reference notes are written sentence style and names of authors are written in natural order. Example:
1. Kathleen M. Brown, Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 234.
Document labels follow this same pattern.
Source lists are a different critter. Here, the names of authors are reversed so that all the authored publications on the list can be arranged in alphabetical sequence by surname of author:
Brown, Kathleen M. Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2009.
Does it matter? Alas, this question sends us into that sin-ridden world of punctuation, and it's not time for Sunday's sermon yet. Snooze, if you want to. ...
By the standard rules of punctuation that apply everywhere (yes, even e-mail and Facebook), when items in a series are separated by commas, it's a signal to readers that all items in that series are parallel or related in some way.
Remember the puzzle games we played as kids or the trick questions on IQ tests? We're given three items in a series and we're told to pick the one that "doesn't match." Same deal here. When we invert an author's name in a source list, we can separate the parts with a string of commas like this:
Brown, Kathleen M., Ph.D.
It's okay to add "Ph.D." after Brown's name, with commas separating each part of her name string, because that string carries items in a series that are all part of her professional name. But if we use a comma to string the title of Brown's book onto Brown's name, it could carry a totally different implication:
Brown, Kathleen M., Foul Bodies
Nope. Not a good idea. As the cliche goes, every action has consequences. Once we invert an author's name in a source list entry, we set up a situation that can't be dealt with in ordinary sentence style. We have to put a period (a full stop) after her name before plunging into the title of the book. That of course means that, to be consistent, we have to put a full stop at the end of every other element in that citation.
If you're still awake and ready to argue, we can entertain another objection: Why not write the reference note the way we write source list entries? Just invert the name both places, separate everything with a period, and be done with it?
Nope. That's not a good idea either. Reference notes often cite multiple sources in the same note—like sentences in a paragraph. We put each source in its own sentence. We put a period at the end of each source. That period is a signal that says: "Whew! I'm done with that sentence (or source) and I'm about to start another." Ergo, if we put a period after each individual element that identifies a source, then we have no signal to say where the details of one source ends and the details of the next begins. A source-list entry, on the other hand, never puts more than one source in a single entry. Each entry is a paragraph unto itself.
Rules! They aren't just stuff and nonsense. There really is a logical reason for each of them—even if it does take a 546 words to explain one rule.