They mention a lot
on this page that a lot of the websites are edited, but I have
heard that websites that are open to be edited are
unreliable. Why should we use an "unreliable source"
while writing a paper?
If there is no
trace of a publisher or sponsor name then wouldn’t the site be
considered unreliable?
If there is no
author listed, is that source no longer a 'reliable" source?
There is an
important issue here: "sources" are not always about "information";
they are often examples, or evidence that someone
said something (whether what they said was "true"
or reliable or not). Part of the reason it's so important
to be clear about sources is that it always matters who
said something, and where (except for pieces of
information, like how many items in a gross or when JFK
was assassinated)
Questions about abbreviations:
Why is it required
to leave abbreviations when there is no publisher name and no
date?
Why does MLA
require the use of special abbreviations?
Would it be correct
to just not put anything if a part of the source is missing
instead of an abbreviation? For example if there was no date
of publication, could you just skip that part?
Uniform format
is important so that the reader knows that
something wasn't just forgotten. You use n.d.
or n.p. to tell the reader that you looked for the
information and it wasn't there.
Questions about "medium":
What is meant by
"medium of the work" when citing an image?
What do they mean
by "medium of publication"?
What does it mean
by "medium of the work" when citing an image?
The page refers to
a medium often. What is meant by the "medium"?
What is a medium of
publication?
What does "medium
of work" mean when citing a photo?
For the MLA,
in this context, "medium" means only what the authors of
the OWL site say it does: either "Web" or "Print." "Thus,
when including the medium of publication for electronic
sources, list the medium as Web."
Questions about URLs:
Why do some
instructors still require URL's when they are constantly
changing?
Why would some
professors still require a URL if MLA formatting has deemed it
unreliable?
Why no longer is
requires the URLs in MLA citations?
Why do some
professors make you use a URL if MLA formatting has said it to
be unreliable?
Why are URLs no
longer required in online citations in MLA? I thought
that was a necessity in sourcing online articles.
Will you request
for us to include a URL when citing?
The idea of how URL
postings are sometimes required and sometimes not required is
strange to me. Why would some professors require the URL when
search engines can be used possibly more accurately? Also, do
you require the URL?
Why are URLs no
longer necessary in MLA format?
Why did they change
that URL's are not required anymore for citations?
Are URLs always
needed if you are citing a book that was posted on a website,
like an ebook?
There are a
couple of different questions here.
The reason
the MLA stopped requiring them, as it says on the OWL
page, "Because Web addresses are not static (i.e., they
change often) and because documents sometimes appear in
multiple places on the Web (e.g., on multiple
databases), MLA explains that most readers can find
electronic sources via title or author searches in
Internet Search Engines." This was changed because so
many people (like me) thought the URLs were useless at
best.
Some
instructors require them because they don't
know that MLA stopped requiring them, or
because they disagree about their usefulness. One
thing you need to be aware of is that the rule in a
given class is whatever the teacher in that class says
it is -- some use various versions of MLA, some use the
American Psychological Association (APA) style, some use
something else. The requirement in every case is
that you be consistent.
Questions about
twitter:
Why is twitter
included as a online source?
Why is twitter
included as an online source for this page? I didn't
think twitter was a very reliable source.
Why is twitter
included as a online source? How could you properly site a
tweet?
Can Twitter be
completely trustworthy as a main source (They have a template
for citing in Twitter)?
Why is twitter
listed as an online source on this page?
First thing that
popped at me was how they showed how to cite twitter. When
would twitter ever be cited in a academic paper?
The site described
how one would properly cite a tweet, when would it ever be
acceptable to use twitter as a reliable source?
Is Twitter a
legitimate source to obtain information from?
Can you cite a
tweet? How?
Why would you
ever cite a tweet in a research paper?
How do you cite a
tweet properly?
I noticed that
tweets were considered something to site, is this the only
social media site we could use for citing?
When would you cite
a tweet, or even use it as reference?
Is it really needed
to know how to cite a tweet? That to me, speaks volumes about
changes in technology.
When can a tweet be
considered a valid source of information?
This is
related to the question about reliability. A tweet
is evidence that someone said something, not
that the something they said is true. My own opinion here
is that MLA includes citing tweets because they want to be
seen not to be old fashioned. They never did give
a rule for citing a text (not that anyone probably needed
one).
Questions about
this course specifically:
What kinds of
sources will we be citing throughout this course?
Will we be needing
to cite anything at all during this course?
What kinds of
sources will we be citing in this course?
What will we need
to cite in this course?
Will we be citing
anything in this course in the future?
Will we need to
cite an image in this class?
Will we need to
cite a painting or image for this class? and when is that
required?
I noticed it says
that URL's are no longer required. Will you (Russ Hunt) still
require us to provide a URL?
Are you going to
require us to give a URL when citing even though it is no
longer required?
Will we have to
cite URL's for you, although this page says they are no longer
used?
Will you (Russ
Hunt) require the url if we were assigned to write an MLA
essay?
Even though we are
not obligated to cite the URLs, will you require us to cite
them?
Even though
according to Purdue OWL the URL of websites is no longer
required, will we need to include them in this course?
Do you in
particular require the URL?
I was very
surprised that so many people asked whether I would
require URLs. Whether you'll be using citations is another
question, and the answer is yes. I can't imagine why you'd
need to cite an image or painting, but if it happened you
know where to find the instructions for how to do it.
Questions about things that might be cited:
How do I quote
something a teacher said in class?
How do we quote
from a lecture?
Under what
circumstances would one need to cite a course or department
website?
When would you need
to cite a painting, sculpture, etc?
How would you
cite/reference something physical such as a painting or
sculpture?
There is a citation
template available for e-mails, doesn't that seem a little
unprofessional though?
Why would you need
to cite an email?
Just out of
curiosity, when would someone ever need to cite a painting or
sculpture?
I have never had to
cite an e-mail before. When would we have to do that, and why
cite an e-mail?
In an essay, I
recently quoted a letter, but it was a picture on the internet
where I found the letter. How is that cited?
Would you need to cite an image if you were talking about it,
actually using the image, or both?
Do you cite a photo
different than you would cite a website?
Much here is
related, again, to the "reliability"
issue -- check what I say about reliability above.
There are probably many cases where emails need to be
cited -- for example, if you emailed someone and asked a
question, and she responded with something you wanted to
quote. I've never seen a class lecture cited, but if I did
it I'd use the same form as for an email, blog, or
tweet.
Questions that are
answered on the OWL page:
What information do
you need for you citation?
What information do
you need for a citation?
What information is
needed to formulate a correct citations and research note in
MLA style?
How do you properly
make a citation from a reliable source?
Questions about missing information:
What do we do if
we cannot find information that is required?
What if you can
not find all the information to cite your source?
What should I do
when I am missing information for my citation?
What information
do we need to create a citation?
Is their any
particular rule to follow when you are missing information for
your citation?
Generally, if
the information exists you need to find it, and if
it doesn't you need to indicate that. (This
is one reason for keeping really good notes when you're
doing research: not much is worse that realizing that you
forgot to write something down or save it at the last
minute, when it's too late to find it.)
Questions about font and presentation:
Do I need a
specific font for my reference page?
It says to not make
a title page unless specifically requested. Why is a title
page not required? Will you be requesting us to provide one?
Would it matter
what font you write your reference in?
Do you need to use
a certain font and or font size when referencing a page?
These kinds of
thing are usually specific to the course (different people
have different rules). But in general, this isn't a
question about "electronic sources" but about
presentation, and the MLA gives some suggested rules about
formatting term papers as well (and the OWL has a
discussion of them, under "General
Format").
Names:
Why was it decided
that a username or a screen name could replace the real name
of an author of a blog post?
Why can we now use
the username to replace the actual person's name (author)?
"Include
screen names as author names when author name is not known."
See the OWL's example.
Questions about order:
There seems to be a
specific order for how the information in the citation should
be posted, what is the reasoning for this order?
Why must the
information be in a certain order?
This is a
matter of uniformity. If everything is always in the same
order, a reader knows exactly what's there and how to read
it. What the order actually is probably doesn't matter;
what counts is whether a reader expects what's there.
Questions worth some discussion:
If we find a
scholarly journal article on an online database, which one do
we cite it as?
This is an
important question. It's answered on the site, but possibly
people missed it: "Cite articles in online
scholarly journals that also appear in print as you would a
scholarly journal in print, including the page range of the
article. Provide the medium of publication that you used (in
this case, Web) and the date of access.
Why does the
Humanities Department use MLA while others use different
types?
There are
reasons for choosing MLA over APA, and vice
versa, but really they are simply matters of
what's been done. Readers expect it.
If you're just
using an article on a website, what is the point of having to
source the entire website? Doesn't that seem a little
vague to whomever has to go through it?
When would you need
to cite an entire website instead of just one page?
If you're simply
saying the Web site exists, you cite the
whole thing; if you're quoting or summarizing
something specific, you add that (just as
you would if it were a book).
(This may not be
included in the article, but I thought it was important).
While using the UNB library to find sources, there is a tab
that will create the citation for you, what is the validity of
that engine?
It's useful, but it's always important to check the
results against the rules you're following. The library
folks who set this up can't anticipate everything.