referencing questions

[alex]

Figured some of my fellow academics/people working with academics/people with strong opinions might be able to help with this:

I want to quote something from a bilingual edition of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. The paragraphs are numbered, and so are the pages: each German page has a sequential number, and the corresponding English page has the same plus a superscripted e. Since all of my other citations are to pages, I figure I'll just refer to the page number here, too. Since I'm quoting from the translation, is it okay if I refer to "p. 32e", or will that be horribly confusing to the reader?

(for the record, p. 32e is the family resemblance thing, i.e. the least creative usage of Wittgenstein possible. sorry!)

Bonus question, not because it's relevant right now, but because I wonder periodically:

If I quote a passage and the passage in question contains a footnote somewhere in the middle of it, which I do not incorporate into my text, do I put an ellipsis in the spot of the footnote or not?

[morgan]

I don't have any backup for saying this is the correct way to do it, but yes, I'd cite it as 32e. If the specific book you're referencing is the translated version, and someone decides they need to look up the information, it will be helpful to them that you took the information from the English translation rather than the original German. The general idea with citations, I think, is to give as much information as possible so that people can follow up on sources if they want to. I've seen weird page numbers with letters in citations before, doesn't seem like a huge deal.

No idea about the footnote. I probably would not include an ellipsis.

[RoyBiggins]

I agree with morgan, but also don't have a direct place to cite.  If it's of any value to you, I'd be happy to try and track down the answer in my Chicago Manual of Style at some point in the next 2 days (the book is in a box in the basement)

[RoyBiggins]

Cool, apparently I lied. Now the book is next to me, courtesy of Lucy

[Good Intentions]

I'd guess we don't have the same edition of the Investigations, since in mine the relevent sections are at p 36 and onwards. I've got the newest one, which has been updated quite a bit, so maybe it's worth your while to take a look at the new, 4th ed.

In the philosophic literature it's normal to quote the book by paragraph (likewise with the Tractatus, or other books with such a highly articulated structure, like Aquinas's Summa). In your case, somewhere in §§ 67-77. Different reference styles handle this different ways, but people very often reference to a paragraph in lieu of page numbers (and Chicago has you add the section to the back of your footnote, after the page number).

[theartlessmonster]

I don't know the exact answer to your question but I do know this, I love this website:

http://www.easybib.com/

Try the autocite function and see what it comes up with, it let's you choose your format I alwasy use MLA 7

I love autocite!!! it makes it so easy and it will build and save a bib for you.  love it!!!

[alex]

Thanks, people. I was more concerned with what potential readers think than with what the Chicago Manual of Style thinks. Well, maybe for the ellipsis thing it might be interesting to have an authorative answer at some point, but I can also stop being lazy and looking it up myself at the library.

I'd guess we don't have the same edition of the Investigations, since in mine the relevent sections are at p 36 and onwards. I've got the newest one, which has been updated quite a bit, so maybe it's worth your while to take a look at the new, 4th ed.

Yeah, it's the third edition. New one was loaned out at the library when I needed it. I'm thinking of buying my own, in which case it'll be the newest one for sure. Or just a German edition. But for my purposes here, it is very unlikely to make a difference, and I'm not even quoting verbatim with the exception of seven words ("“complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing”), so, y'know.

In the philosophic literature it's normal to quote the book by paragraph (likewise with the Tractatus, or other books with such a highly articulated structure, like Aquinas's Summa). In your case, somewhere in §§ 67-77. Different reference styles handle this different ways, but people very often reference to a paragraph in lieu of page numbers (and Chicago has you add the section to the back of your footnote, after the page number).

I'm aware, but it'd be quite a stretch to say that I am writing "philosophic literature", so it feels like it would be out of place if I did that.

And thanks, Mary - but I've been building up my own little Endnote library over the last three years though, and plan to stick with that. Or, if I switch, it'll be to Bibtex (because I'm tired of writing in MS Office and hope to change to Latex, but Latex integrates with Bibtex, not Endnote).

[Good Intentions]

I'd still use the paragraph number, simply because it'll be more informative and easier to check across editions -- like referring to bits of Aristotle by the Bekker number, Mozart works by their Köchel number, and so on.

What word processor were you hoping to use with LaTeX?

[alex]

Okay, okay.

I have no idea! My ambitions never went beyond thinking periodically, "man, before the next time I start writing anything, I should really learn to use LaTex. But then I never do.

[Good Intentions]

On Linux the standard text editors (emacs and vi) have really good built-in LaTeX support, to the degree that I kind of imagine the best thing to use on Windows or Mac would be an emacs port.

[alex]

I'm not even sure that I could run that on my work computer. Ah well, we'll see.

[Good Intentions]

Given that your network is probably run by Linux geeks, there will either be a good option pre-installed, or you'll be easily able to work something out.

As for your bonus question, I've never seen any acknowledgement of footnotes in a quoted passage ever. Sometimes authors will mention the footnote when they discuss the quote, but that's as far as it goes.

[Chet]

See if I made a statement like "Many historians have argued that Depression era cinema dealt largely in escapism"

and I wanted to cite a few different works, would I do it all in one footnote, or would I have consecutive footnotes like:

Many historians have argued that Depression era cinema dealt largely in escapism[1][2][3]

My university uses the MHRA style guide, which I think only has minor difference to MLA style.


p.s forgive me if this is a stupid question, I'm an undergrad!

[Good Intentions]

Depends on the style, though it's normally a single footnote. I don't know the MHRA style by heart - surely you've been pointed towards a cheat sheet or something?

[Chet]

There is a big ass handbook but I can't seem to open the pdf right now and I thought I might be able to get a quick answer here.

[alistarr*]

One footnote, each entry separated by semicolons.

You should read the handbook though, because I'm just deciding that arbitrarily on your behalf. I guess you're asking at the wrong time of day for a quick answer.