Citations - How To Make People Believe You

Citations - How to MAKE People BELIEVE You

Copyright © 9 Janurary 2009 by Bob Hurt. All rights reserved. Author hereby permits distribution of this work, textually unmodified, without restriction.

Executive Summary - This article explains citations of proof sources, why they have great importance to your credibility, and how easily you can put them in your work. It seeks to convince you to follow a style guide in documenting the sources of your information when you write. It links you to an excellent automated citation tool - the Citation Machine - and to numerous online style guides. See attached style guides for citations.

Cite in bibliography as: Bob Hurt. (2001, 9 January). Article: Citations - How to Make People Believe You. Retrieved from the Lawmen Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/Lawmen Cite in-line (if bibliography, end note, or foot note contains above entry) as: According to one writer (Bob Hurt, 2009) readers "always think datacraving thoughts" (2nd paragraph, "Introduction and Motivation").

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You

Contents Citations - How to MAKE People BELIEVE You...................................................................i Introduction and Motivation ................................................................................................ 1 Enter the Citation .................................................................................................................. 1 Why Do I Need All That in a Citation? ................................................................................. 1 Style - the Way to Write Rightly............................................................................................2 Writing Style Standards ........................................................................................................2 Citation Style Examples.........................................................................................................3 An APA Citation for a Book................................................................................................3 An MLA Citation for a Book...............................................................................................4 A Turabian Citation for a Book..........................................................................................4 More Citation Examples ....................................................................................................4 Links: The Citation Machine and other Writer Resources.................................................. 5 Summary and Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 5 How to Contact the Author ...................................................................................................6

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You

Introduction and Motivation The 1100+ Lawmen Group subscribers have a broad array of educations, avocations, professions, and callings. Some have magnificent cognitive abilities that they use to good effect when drafting and publishing letters, messages, articles, pleadings, motions, memoranda, and the like. Few or none use available, easily accessible resources to cite their sources concisely, accurately, repletely, and professionally. And THAT makes their work less credible. Why? Because readers (I for one) always think data-craving thoughts like:  Who told you that preposterous nonsense?  How did you come up with that inane idea?  Where did you get that unlikely fact?  How can I study that further?  How do I connect that with what I already know?  Oh, really? Why?  What else did the originator have to say?  Where did you read, see, experience, or hear that?

Enter the Citation A single literary tool can help you answer such questions before or as they arise - the CITATION. A citation consists of a concise statement of the source of a writer's or speaker's data. Few tools will serve you better to get people to believe what you have to express because the citation specifically identifies the:        

source media type (speech, interview, seminar, notes, phone conversation, TV show, movie, book, magazine, physical object, article, web site) source name (of book, article, movie, art work, seminar, web site) sub-source (as in a web page in a web site or article in a magazine) publication date and, if necessary time) publishing company publisher location author of data (typically a person's name) page number

Why Do I Need All That in a Citation? Most web-based writing can include hyperlinks to sources. You would use hyperlinks in emails, blogs, web sites, email lists, including word processor output to PDF (POSTSCRIPT (or Portable) Display Format) files for web publication. When you have little time to mess around with the tedious and arcane requirements for proper, standard citations, you will typically include only a hyperlink to the source web page. But this method has a number of serious drawbacks:

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You     

It can hint that you suffer from laziness It can show a lack of consideration for your reader's data-hunger Web links often disappear, and broken links seriously annoy readers Linked web content can change or become unavailable (like the New York Times articles which go into archives and require one to subscribe) A printed copy of your written work can show only a hyperlink name without giving the reader any actual citation reference information.

In other words, if you use a hyperlink to a resource, you benefit the reader best by including the full citation according to your chosen standard, and then make source cited within the formal citation into a hyperlink to the on-line resource. That way a web user can click on the hyperlink, and a hardcopy reader can find the cited material in the local library.

Style - the Way to Write Rightly Organizations and communities require or encourage adherence to standard styles in order to reduce the tedium of reading quantities of texts, and to allow them to expect where and how to find the material itself. By receiving materials written in a standard style, readers can concentrate on the content, not on the presentation. Read this primer on style: http://docstyles.com/archive/primer.pdf (I have attached it hereto for its value to your understanding - READ IT NOW). It explains the elements of style and their importance. Citations and bibliographies constitute the core of style because they give your paper credibility. Style also includes structure, formatting, and organization of the paper. For general writing in blogs and email messages, I suggest putting citations next to the cited material. For general references, put the citation within parentheses after the reference. For quoted text, put it at the end of the quotation. Note that courts throughout America also have style guides that dictate how to structure pleadings, motions, and other court documents. Lower courts care little about style, but the appeals courts do, and the supreme courts (particularly their clerks) will reject entire cases for slight style errors. I do not address court document styles here. However, see the Florida Style Manual in the below list of style standards.

Writing Style Standards I suppose you noticed that above the executive summary at the top of this article I showed how you can cite the article in your written work. All authors could do that for simplicity, but for one problem - not knowing which style standard to follow. I know of several separate authorities on the style of writing research papers and articles, including citations in-line, in foot and end notes, and in bibliographies. Different styles facilitate different types of writing and subject matter - various scientific, professional, and social disciplines impose different citation demands upon writers. For example, a chemistry research paper could use a style that mandates bold-face type for all page numbers. That helps them find the pages in lengthy books easily. On the other hand, a person reading an essay on a magazine journalist has greater concern for the issue and volume number of the periodical, so the page number needs no bold-face

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You font. While these seem trivial at first thought, imagine your reading dozens of professional articles and each author citing references in different ways, each using different styles for paragraphs, headings, and quotations. You might find it interesting, but you would get bogged down finding the content you want, all because of inconsistent or inappropriate style. In such cases, small style differences can make a big impact. I consider the styles below the most popular. You should read Wikipedia's articles on them (at the hyperlinks shown) so you will understand their scope. I do not present all of them here. 

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APA - Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association Style Guide - for final manuscripts and research papers - most colleges require compliance to APA style for courses requiring research papers - used in the social sciences, education, engineering, and business. MLA - Modern Language Association Style Manual (and MLA Style Handbook for Writers of Research Papers )- popular in a broad community of writers easiest for students to learn; abbreviated - used in the humanities. CMS - Chicago Maunual of Style - for book manuscripts (intending publication). Turabian - Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers - adaptation of CMS for student term papers, essays, theses, dissertations - used by historians. APS - Associated Press Stylebook - for news stories (deals with both law and writing style). ASA - American Sociological Association Style Guide (40 pages) - for research papers intended for publication (journals, magazines), refers often to CMS. FSM - the Florida Style Manual http://www.law.fsu.edu/Journals/lawreview/downloads/242/fsm.pdf - Florida State University has created this style manual for all state government documentation. Anyone writing for publication in state journals should adhere to it.

The referenced style manuals explain everything about how to create "proper" scholarly written documents, including rules for type faces, type size, use of bolding and italics, layout and style of headings, body text, quotations, headers and footers, pagination, tables, illustrations, table of contents, index, appendices, chapterization, and bibliography.

Citation Style Examples Our chief concern in this article lies in the area of the bibliography - the list of citations. Here I provide examples of citing a book in a bibliography, footnote, or in-line reference

An APA Citation for a Book Osbeck, K. (1985). The ministry of music. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.   

Write the author's last name and first initial only Write the date of publication at the beginning of the citation Capitalize only the first word of the title and of all proper nouns

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You

An MLA Citation for a Book Osbeck, Kenneth W. The Ministry of Music. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1985.   

Write the author's last name out completely Write the date of publication at the end of the citation Capitalize all major words in the title

A Turabian Citation for a Book Osbeck, Kenneth W. The Ministry of Music. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1985. Turabian uses endnotes and bibliography pages for its citations in an MLA style, as shown in the below anatomy.

More Citation Examples See more citation examples here:

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APA online tutorial APA In-text citations APA Style Guide for a Reference List MLA In-text citations MLA Style Guide for Works Cited Turabian Notes (endnotes and footnotes) Turabian Style Guide for a Bibliography

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You

Links: The Citation Machine and other Writer Resources The physical manuals can cost a lot of money. Fortunately, you can get that part free online. For example the Wikipedia above summarize how style-appropriate citations should look. That will save you a lot of researching. Furthermore, colleges want their students to follow one or more of the style guides when writing essays, term papers, theses, and books. So many colleges provide free on-line writing guides guides (see a few links below).                  

http://citationmachine.net - The Citation Machine - automated citation creator (GREAT tool) http://www.bridgew.edu/Library/pdf/apa_style.pdf - APA Style Bibliographic Entries http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.htm - APA: Citing Information from the Internet and the Web http://www.bridgew.edu/Library/pdf/mla_style.pdf - MLA Style Bibliographic Entries http://www.mla.org/publications/style/style_faq/style_faq4 - MLA: Documenting Sources from the World Wide Web http://www.bridgew.edu/Library/pdf/chicago_style.pdf - Chicago Style Bibliographic Entries http://www.bridgew.edu/library/turabian.cfm - Turabian Style Footnotes and Bibliographic Entries http://cubreporters.org/AP_Style - abbreviation of APS with exercises for newspaper journalists http://docstyles.com/ - Dr. Abel Scribe provides free style guides that you can download and invoke like Windows Help http://docstyles.com/ascribe.htm - Dr. Abel Scribe's style manager software (free for up to 25 references) http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/shrttoc.html - Bedford St. Martins book on style (free style guide chapters on line) http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/ - Washington College "Nuts and Bolts of College Writing" http://www.wisc.edu/writing/ - University of Wisconsin Writer's Handbook http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/StartHere.html - University of Victoria Writers Guide http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ - Guide to Grammar and Writing http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/hss/ref/style.html - University of Florida style resources http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073526142/student_view0/ - online Journalism Craft course with exercises (I recommend this for all bloggers and press release writers). http://www.ilrg.com/ - Internet Legal Research Group

Summary and Conclusion Bottom line, I encourage all of you to start paying better attention to citations, and to documenting your "facts" correctly and consistently using APA or one of the other style guides. You should not try to pose as "the source and authority" on a subject you have

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Citations - How to Make People Believe You learned elsewhere from a senior source or authority, particularly to people who know you personally, unless they know you as that authority and have seen you cite your sources. I know all too many "patriots" styling themselves as leaders and persons of great knowledge who NEVER reveal their sources, as though they received the information they propound in a divine vision or command from God. When others, following their advice or wisdom, get in trouble with the law as a consequence, they have only themselves to blame for NOT asking for proper citations and references to the sources of the knowledge. So, CITE your sources, and do it properly and accurately. More people might then come to know you as an honest writer of great integrity and diligence. Choose a writing style guide and stick to its system of citation throughout your writings, unless a publisher requires you to use a different style. Write and structure your documents according to the appropriate style for your type of writing. Then, you will more likely than not convince others first to read, and then to believe, what you write.

How to Contact the Author Bob Hurt - http://bobhurt.com 2460 Persian Drive #70  Clearwater, FL 33763 +1 (727) 669-5511  FAX +1 (206) 600-5958 Donate to my Law Scholarship Fund Let the Jurisdictionary teach you to litigate Subscribe to the Lawmen Group (a Newsletter)

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