Syndicated Newspaper Articles

Frederick Godcharles wrote a syndicated daily column for newspapers. The article I'm citing appeared in multiple Pennsylvania newspapers on 16 September 1924.  I chose this newspaper because I was capturing the image and this newspaper had the clearest print and the most compact column form.

Godcharles, Frederick, "Todays's Story In Pennsylvania History: John Smilie, Member of General Assembly and Congress, Statesman, Born September 16, 1742." [Pennsylvanians, Past and Present] Indiana (Pennsylvania) Evening Gazette, 16 September 1928,  p. 3, cols 3-4, image copy, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/517799759: accessed 31 July 2021)

I am not sure if I should have used a colon following "History".

I also included in brackets the name of the daily column as it appeared in most newspapers and don't know if there should be punctuation with the bracketed title
 

Submitted byEddieBon Sat, 07/31/2021 - 15:30
This is how the article appeared in the Wilkes-Barre (PA) Times Leader

 

Submitted byEEon Mon, 08/02/2021 - 10:29

Eddie B., there's a basic principle that's misunderstood here. It's among those basics covered in Chapters 1 and 2 that apply to all types of sources. Go back to 2.38 "Reference Notes vs. Source Lists."  If we are using one source, and our reference note divides its detail into two different sentences, then our reader (and we, ourselves, at a later date after our recollection of this source has gone cold), will assume that there are two different sources. An additional problem would be that neither sentence will contain all the information needed to relocate the source or to accurately evaluate what it is and what its strengths and weaknesses are.

By longstanding practice in every style guide (and for good reasons), Source Lists use periods between the elements of each Source List Entry. That presents no problem in interpretation because each Source List Entry is a "paragraph" into itself. When we see it, we know that everything in that "paragraph" belongs to that one source.

By contrast, a Reference Note may have multiple sources cited in one paragraph. We indicate where one source stops and another starts from the use of periods. When our readers get to a period, that piece of punctuation tells them "Okay, we're done with that. Now we're moving on to the next source."

Source List Entries also contain significantly less data than Reference Notes.

I'll let you rethink the citation and I'll comment on what you create then.

Submitted byEddieBon Mon, 08/02/2021 - 13:47

Thanks for pointing out that distinction.  Please give me your opinion, I think I want a Source List for my purpose.  I'm on a team that is working on a peer-reviewed descendancy.  This Godcharles article makes numerous assertions about parentage, immigration, dates of holding office, places and dates of residence, etc.  We are taking each of the many Godcharles assertions and comparing the assertions from all other sources in our exhaustive research.  I had added the [Pennsylvanians, Past and Present] to my citation because other family members could have found and used assertions in other Pennsylvania newspapers on that same day but it would have appeared with a different article name.  The contents of the article are the same in all newspapers.

Submitted byEEon Mon, 08/02/2021 - 19:58

EddieB, Source List Entries are used by researchers only for a generic list of sources. That is normally put at the back of books. It's not used to support individual assertions within your text or narrative.

The standard for reporting information on people, compiling biographies, or creating proof arguments is the Reference Note. Every assertion that is not public knowledge must carry a citation to the source and the exact place in that source where the information can be found. Source List Entries are not exact. They cite to the author and book, but not the page. They cite to a collection, but not the document. They cite to a newspaper, by name and time period searched, but not the exact issue, page, and column.  The work you describe, by research standards of any field of history, calls for the use of Reference Note format.

Submitted byEddieBon Mon, 08/02/2021 - 20:03

My Source List

Godcharles, Frederick, "Todays's Story In Pennsylvania History: John Smilie, Member of General Assembly and Congress, Statesman, Born September 16, 1742." Indiana (Pennsylvania) Evening Gazette, 16 September 1928,  p.3, image copy, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/517799759: accessed : 2021) [Syndicated article appearing in other newspapers under the title "Pennsylvanians, Past and Present" on this same date]

 

Submitted byEddieBon Mon, 08/02/2021 - 20:44

Another try.

Frederick Godcharles, "Today's Story In Pennsylvania History: John Smilie, Member of General Assembly and Congress, Statesman, Born September 16, 1742," Indiana (Pennsylvania) Evening Gazette, 16 September 1928, p.3, cols 3-4, image copy, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/517799759: accessed 31 July 2021) [This syndicated article appeared in other newspapers under the title "Pennsylvanians, Past and Present" on this same date]

Submitted byEEon Tue, 08/03/2021 - 09:00

Perfect, EddieB. The only suggestion EE would make is that the editorial brackets are not needed for your added explanation about the source.  Writers use square editorial brackets when copying text exactly (transcribing or extracting) and need to add something into the original text for clarification.

In that case, the square editorial brackets are a flag that says: I'm not in the original, I'm being injected by the current writer or editor.  When writing citations, however, we are composing disparate pieces of information into a sentence that tells our reader where our information comes from. Any analytical or explanatory comment we add is not "injecting outside details into the original."

Submitted byEddieBon Tue, 08/03/2021 - 10:47

My concern is that if someone would find these two citations they could assume that there is different content without my bracketed comment.

 

Frederick Godcharles, "Today's Story In Pennsylvania History: John Smilie, Member of General Assembly and Congress, Statesman, Born September 16, 1742," Indiana (Pennsylvania) Evening Gazette, 16 September 1928, p.3, cols 3-4, image copy, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/517799759: accessed 31 July 2021)



Frederick Godcharles, "Pennsylvanians, Past and Present: John Smilie, Member of General Assembly and Congress, Statesman, Born September 16, 1742," The Altoona (Pennsylvania) Mirror, 16 September 1928, p.11, cols 1-2, image copy, NewspaperArchive.com (https://access.newspaperarchive.com/us/pennsylvania/altoona/altoona-mirror/1924/09-16/page-11/: accessed 3 August 2021)