FTM citations

This is one incredibly basic question but I still need to ask it to confirm: when creating a new Source Citation on FTM, should it be written in the format of a Source List Entry or a Full Reference Note?

Submitted byEEon Sun, 07/12/2015 - 22:11

Juliannej,

You're right. That's the most basic question of all.  I won't address the software issue because every software is different. But the one thing that all good software has in common is that it encourages users to create the citation in the 3 forms that researchers need.

  • Source List Entry
  • Full Reference Note
  • Subsequent (Short) Reference Note

That said, your question becomes this: when should you use one type of note versus the other.  That question is answered at EE 2.4  Because it is so fundamental to understanding citations to history sources, I'll reproduce the whole section here.

2.4 Citations, Types of
History sources are tracked in three basic ways: a source list (used interchangeably with bibliography), reference notes, and source labels.

SOURCE LIST (BIBLIOGRAPHY)
This master list of materials we have used will not document any specific fact. While our research is ongoing, our working source list helps us keep track of the materials we have examined, along with essential details about those materials. When we publish our findings, the source list is commonly called a bibliography. There, it typically omits descriptive data, because its function is to provide readers with a convenient list of key materials. Chapters 3 through 14 offer explicit examples of how to construct individual entries within a working source list. Appendix B illustrates a finished bibliography.

REFERENCE NOTES
For history researchers, this is the major form of citation. Whether we use footnotes or endnotes, we attach these to our narrative to identify the source of individual statements. Reference notes should offer a complete citation of both the source and the specific part that provides the information we are using. Reference notes may provide any other relevant details about the source. Chapters 3 through 14 also demonstrate the construction of reference notes, whose forms can differ radically from the stripped down and alphabetized source list entries.

SOURCE LABELS
Source labels are citations we add to image copies of documents or to abstracts or transcriptions of documents. They are conventionally cited in the same manner as reference notes, using complete details for the document, rather than the generic kind of citation used for source lists.

Also, under the Sample Pages tab here at this website, you'll find another essential section on this topic. See 2.38, "ORGANIZATION: Reference Notes vs. Source Lists."