How to edit citations
December 5, 2009 5:34 AM Subscribe
Footnote filter: I am writing a non-fiction, non-academic book and need help determining what to include in my citations.
The book contains information and data from newspapers, magazines, wire services, governments, academic papers and first-hand interviews. There are very few direct quotes.
I’m using Zotero to manage my citations, which will appear as end notes. I’ve been diligent about citing information so that I can a) trace my sources, b) give credit where it’s due and c) allow readers to dig deeper.
Now I would like to pare the citations down, so that I meet objectives b) and c) without making the end notes unmanageable.
For example, I have a 2,500-word section with 78 citations. That includes citations for information that I would characterize as (for lack of a better phrase) common knowledge, such as when baby boomers will start retiring, or news reports that would have appeared in many media outlets. Eight of the citations are for data from a government handbook.
Can I safely omit these “common knowledge” citations? And can I use a blanket citation for the data from the government handbook?
(Thanks to NYCinephiles for the link to plagerism.com in this thread)
The book contains information and data from newspapers, magazines, wire services, governments, academic papers and first-hand interviews. There are very few direct quotes.
I’m using Zotero to manage my citations, which will appear as end notes. I’ve been diligent about citing information so that I can a) trace my sources, b) give credit where it’s due and c) allow readers to dig deeper.
Now I would like to pare the citations down, so that I meet objectives b) and c) without making the end notes unmanageable.
For example, I have a 2,500-word section with 78 citations. That includes citations for information that I would characterize as (for lack of a better phrase) common knowledge, such as when baby boomers will start retiring, or news reports that would have appeared in many media outlets. Eight of the citations are for data from a government handbook.
Can I safely omit these “common knowledge” citations? And can I use a blanket citation for the data from the government handbook?
(Thanks to NYCinephiles for the link to plagerism.com in this thread)
I'm currently writing a book as well and a lot depends upon your target audience, so I'd ask where are you intending to publish i.e., the trade , mass market or textbook? Mine is a finance book but targeted into trade, with one chapter running about 2K words but only requiring about a dozen citations to insure that credit for non original ideas is properly attributed. It seems that 2,500 words running to 78 citations is close to textbook standard.
I'm targeting trade, and because of this have purposely de-scoped some topics to remove any need for citations to academic papers or textbooks that might not be accessible without preparatory academic work. I've also structured each chapter to include a "would you like to know more" section elaborating on common knowledge topics, but without extensive citations. That being said, anything not generally considered common knowledge I'm citing.
Another thing I'm doing that you might consider is tying to online sources; we're planning to have a Facebook group and online repository of tools (I'm writing a finance book so we'll be providing access to spreadsheets and other models, if the readers care to push that deep into the topic), with discussion forums.
In this way I'm planning to purposely omit between 50% to 75% (so far, depending upon the chapter) of citations in the print version while still allowing readers to learn as much as possible.
posted by Mutant at 6:58 AM on December 5, 2009
I'm targeting trade, and because of this have purposely de-scoped some topics to remove any need for citations to academic papers or textbooks that might not be accessible without preparatory academic work. I've also structured each chapter to include a "would you like to know more" section elaborating on common knowledge topics, but without extensive citations. That being said, anything not generally considered common knowledge I'm citing.
Another thing I'm doing that you might consider is tying to online sources; we're planning to have a Facebook group and online repository of tools (I'm writing a finance book so we'll be providing access to spreadsheets and other models, if the readers care to push that deep into the topic), with discussion forums.
In this way I'm planning to purposely omit between 50% to 75% (so far, depending upon the chapter) of citations in the print version while still allowing readers to learn as much as possible.
posted by Mutant at 6:58 AM on December 5, 2009
I'd be tempted to preserve the citations, since you have gone to the effort of producing them, and they could conceivably be of use to someone. If you're worried about how much space they consume, you could remove some from the book and list them online, as Chris McManus did with Left Hand, Right Hand. But make sure that the URL remains accessible.
posted by James Scott-Brown at 7:36 AM on December 5, 2009
posted by James Scott-Brown at 7:36 AM on December 5, 2009
Your publisher is going to have a house style, so unless you're self-publishing you should do whatever feels best to you for now. Preserve all the documentation you choose not to include so that you can add more in if your editor requests it.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:06 AM on December 5, 2009
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:06 AM on December 5, 2009
If you already have a contract with a publisher and an editor, get the house style sheet from them. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't need to.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:06 AM on December 5, 2009
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:06 AM on December 5, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
Well, as you're not writing an academic book, there aren't many constraints on your citations - I mean, many non-academic books omit citations entirely.
I would suggest, for one thing, you could be guided by your aim of allowing readers to dig deeper. For example, if by government handbook you mean you mention the population of a country and that data comes from the CIA World Fact Book, you could omit the citation because (unless your book is about the population of different countries) that's not an area someone interested in your book would be interested in digging deeper into. In that case I'd say go ahead and combine your citations.
With things like news reports, I would say that precise citations are nice to have if your readers are going to be looking at microforms in their local library, but if people are unlikely to follow the citation (i.e. it's present for purpose (b) only) you could mention the source inline and not use a citation - for example "In 1998 the Associated Press reported Tiger Woods describes himself as Cablinasian".
Another option, if you're just worried about your citations wasting space, would be to print them in a smaller font than the book's main content.
(Thanks to NYCinephiles for the link to plagerism.com in this thread)
I hope you mean plagiarism.org :)
posted by Mike1024 at 6:09 AM on December 5, 2009