Two Questions: 1) how do I cite this specific source....

[FionordeQuester]

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp

And 2) Is it right to cite sources you have not actually read yourself, but have been cited by a wikipedia article? For example, the Wikipedia article I'm reading about Ted Bundy right now cites several paperback books in it's article. My question though is, am I able, or even justified in, using those in my citations?

Edited May 16, 2012 by FionordeQuester

[cyron]

the general format is

authors last name, authors first name. wedsite name, "title of article" date acessed <url>

last up date may be necessary i haven`t done this sort of thing recently also the order may be of

[FionordeQuester]

Normally yes, but the above citation is so unusual to me in many ways. Technically it was written by the Babylonian King Hammurabi, and was originally what was essentially the Stone Age version of a print source. But it's now been translated by someone, and then uploaded onto the Yale Law School database. So I'm not really sure how to deal with that.

[Melonhead]

pssh. I don't know. Go to citationmachine.com

[cyron]

umm then ask your teacher/proffesorI just put down what I could remember of the web site format

Edited May 16, 2012 by Cyron

[Original Alear]

And 2) Is it right to cite sources you have not actually read yourself, but have been cited by a wikipedia article? For example, the Wikipedia article I'm reading about Ted Bundy right now cites several paperback books in it's article. My question though is, am I able, or even justified in, using those in my citations?

This is referred to as citing an indirect source. In MLA format, you should begin a sentence citing the indirect source with a reference to the indirect source (i.e. the source you don't ahve direct access to). Either quote (from the source that cited the indirect source) or paraphrase the content from the source, and then make a parenthetical citation along this format: "(qtd. in [author, title, or whichever identifier is most appropriate for finding it in your works cited], [year]). Both the indirect source and the source you obtained it from should be listed in your works cited page.

You should not cite indirect sources unless the direct source (like wikipedia) referenced them (most frequently by footnote) in a particular portion of the article and the information you are pulling seems to be reliant on that source.

Normally yes, but the above citation is so unusual to me in many ways. Technically it was written by the Babylonian King Hammurabi, and was originally what was essentially the Stone Age version of a print source. But it's now been translated by someone, and then uploaded onto the Yale Law School database. So I'm not really sure how to deal with that.

It looks like there was actually an intermediate step: the translation was done for the encyclopedia Britannica in the early 1900s. Personally, I don't think any format works that well, but I would personally cite it as:

Trans. King, L.W. "The Code of Hammurabi." The Lillian Goldman Law Library OR The Avalon Project. Yale U, 2008. Web. [Access date]

But if you have time, better to ask your prof, since it's easier to follwo their guidelines if you can get them.

This is based on t he Purdue OWL MLA citation format for "a page on a web site", but I tossed in Trans as author for the specific web page.

the general format is

authors last name, authors first name. wedsite name, "title of article" date acessed <url>

last up date may be necessary i haven`t done this sort of thing recently also the order may be of

The purdue OWL, which I used to use and was last updated in March of 2012, seems to indicate that the title of the article/page should precede the website name, and some other differences from this.

For citing an entire website:

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available). Medium of publication. Date of access.

and for citing a page on a website:

For an individual page on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by the information covered above for entire Web sites. Remember to use n.p. if no publisher name is available and n.d. if no publishing date is given.

BUT in the example, the title of the individual web page comes before info on the entire web site.

http://owl.english.p...esource/747/08/

[FionordeQuester]

This is referred to as citing an indirect source. In MLA format, you should begin a sentence citing the indirect source with a reference to the indirect source (i.e. the source you don't ahve direct access to). Either quote (from the source that cited the indirect source) or paraphrase the content from the source, and then make a parenthetical citation along this format: "(qtd. in [author, title, or whichever identifier is most appropriate for finding it in your works cited], [year]). Both the indirect source and the source you obtained it from should be listed in your works cited page.

You should not cite indirect sources unless the direct source (like wikipedia) referenced them (most frequently by footnote) in a particular portion of the article and the information you are pulling seems to be reliant on that source.

So the in-text citation should be something like this?

(quoted in "Wikipedia" 2012.)

...and then the Works Cited should be something like this?

Ann "The Stranger Beside Me"

Made Up Name "A Compilation of Ted Bundy's Murders"

Phony Name "The Phantom Killer"

Wikipedia

Edited May 16, 2012 by FionordeQuester

[Original Alear]

So the in-text citation should be something like this?

(quoted in "Wikipedia" 2012.)

...and then the Works Cited should be something like this?

Ann "The Stranger Beside Me"

Made Up Name "A Compilation of Ted Bundy's Murders"

Phony Name "The Phantom Killer"

Wikipedia

I think it's important for it to be qtd., not quoted, and there is some stuff you've italicized generally that wouldn't be italicized, but I'm assuming that's just to separate the hypothetical list so ya, I think that would basically be it.

[FionordeQuester]

That's correct. Thanks a bunch! No seriously, thanks a bunch! You have no idea how much you've helped out, this is something that needs to be done today!

EDIT: Actually, one more thing now that I think about it, one other thing. Suppose I'm reading a PDF of a few pages out of a scholarly journal. Would I still identify it as a Print source, but just put PDF File after it, or do I list it as a source from the Web now?

Edited May 16, 2012 by FionordeQuester

[Celice]

Personally, I say you would say PDF. The PDF may have an error in it which was not in the original article (corrupted scan, for example)--if this somehow affects your research or claims, it should be traced to what you used, not where something comes from. You can usually add an addendum like you would with indirect quotes, either in a foot-note/end-note if you want to explicitly state your source can be found elsewhere or is a duplicate of an original.

And yeah, like said above, titles of works usually comes before where they are compiled at... at least in MLA. Your format matters!

EDIT: so unless you are referring to that indirect object, your citation should only involve the page in question. If the citations are used in a Wikipedia article, then you need to cite the article, not what is referenced.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Celice

[Original Alear]

That's correct. Thanks a bunch! No seriously, thanks a bunch! You have no idea how much you've helped out, this is something that needs to be done today!

EDIT: Actually, one more thing now that I think about it, one other thing. Suppose I'm reading a PDF of a few pages out of a scholarly journal. Would I still identify it as a Print source, but just put PDF File after it, or do I list it as a source from the Web now?

I don't think t he PDF format matters. I would identify it as a web source - theoretically, there could be small changes in pagination or whatever, so its better for the prof or anyone else consulting the sources to be searching for it in the same format you had. I usually gave the URL in brackets in all instances like that and never had any trouble about it, but I don't know if that's proper or not.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Hawkeye Hank Hatfield

[FionordeQuester]

Alright, one last question. When I cite Wikipedia, how would I cite it in the Works Cited page? Would I just cite it as normal, or is there something special I have to include in it's citation to mark what exact sources I borrowed from Wikipedia?

[Original Alear]

Alright, one last question. When I cite Wikipedia, how would I cite it in the Works Cited page? Would I just cite it as normal, or is there something special I have to include in it's citation to mark what exact sources I borrowed from Wikipedia?

You should probably cite the individual articles you used on wikipedia, and cite it as "an article/page on a web site." But, beyond that, I don't think that you would do anything special to connect the sources you cited from wikipedia's citation link and the wikipedia page they were cited from in the works cited page (at least, I coudln't find anything indicating this). As stated before, within the paper, there will be a connection between the two sources, since you will cite the indirect source in the sentence it supports and the wikipedia source in the parenthetical.

[FionordeQuester]

So would this be proper?

Shortly after midnight on January 4, 1974, at the University of Washington, a man sexually assaulted an 18 year old dancer with a speculum and beat her to the point of permanent brain damage after sneaking into her basement dorm. A month later, again late at night, this same killer broke into the room of UW student Lynda Ann Healy, beat her unconscious, replaced her clothing with blue jeans as well as a white blouse and boots, and carried her away. Since then, at the rate of about one victim per month, this killer proceeded to murder Donna Gail Manson, Susan Elaine Rancourt, Roberta Kathleen Parks, Brenda Carol Ball, and Georgeann Hawkins in this same manner, all after midnight. All this time, the killer left almost no physical evidence, eyewitness accounts were few as well as insufficient, and the victims had little in common other than being young, attractive white females with their hair parted in the middle. It was only when the killer kidnapped and murdered Janice Ann Ott and Denise Naslund at Lake Sammamish State Park, that witnesses were able to give any reliable eyewitness testimony. Speaking in a slight accent and wearing an arm sling as he feigned weakness to lure his victims, the killer was identified as a handsome, clean-cut law student by the name of Ted Bundy. Although the detectives on the job initially doubted that such a man could have been the perpetrator, it only became more and more obvious as this serial killer went on to commit numerous more atrocities. Having sex with the victims corpses, sodomizing them, making them watch as he killed someone else, these were all things he would do to these poor women. Essentially anything you could possibly do to victimize a woman, he likely did until his eventually execution in November 24th, 1989. By then, he had already murdered at least 30 women, and likely far more than that in unrecorded cases (qtd. in “Wikipedia”).

I ask because it's really more of a paraphrasing than it is a quoting, so that's one thing that sort of confuses me. In any case, here's the Wikipedia page for clarification...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_bundy

...So what do you think?

Edited May 17, 2012 by FionordeQuester

[Original Alear]

The parenthetical should be ("Ted Bundy," [year article was created]).

[FionordeQuester]

And that's it?