History Department Referencing
If using EndNote, select the History Dept_Canterbury referencing style.
The following is excerpted from Guide to Writing History Essays by G.W. Rice (History Department, University of Canterbury, revised ed., Feb. 2007) pp. 12-14:
Footnotes / Endnotes
When to use footnotes or endnotes? There are four ‘musts’:
(a) Quotations from someone else’s work. These must be copied exactly, including original punctuation and capital letters, and must always be enclosed in quotation marks. Copying someone else’s sentences or phrases without acknowledgement is PLAGIARISM, a cardinal academic sin.
(b) Key ideas or arguments which you borrow from someone else’s work. In a first-year essay, your Bibliography acknowledges your general intellectual debts, but where an idea or research finding is crucial for your argument, play safe and footnote it.
(c) Statistics: we need to be able to check their accuracy.
(d) Information which is not commonplace (i.e. not found in most general history surveys), which the marker may wish to verify.
Footnotes or Endnotes?
The traditional Oxford method insists on having the footnote on the same page as the sentence to which it refers. In some historical monographs this results in more space being given to footnotes than text! (This is also the hallmark of a PhD thesis, where problems of evidence and interpretation are usually discussed in the footnotes.) The APA and Chicago styles followed by the social sciences places short references in brackets within the text, usually just the author’s surname with a page number. This is a convenient style for drafting an essay, but it has the disadvantage of breaking up the text and the flow of argument. (The margin is still the best place to jot down a short reference in your essay draft.)
However, some word-processor packages do not create same-page footnotes, and many academic publishers (for reasons of convenience and cost-saving) now prefer to place references at the end of a book or chapter, as endnotes.
The University of Canterbury has a licence for EndNote as a useful software package for senior undergraduates and postgraduate students.
Though there is a diversity of practice (every academic journal seems to have its own particular house style), we still follow the Oxford style and prefer that you follow it too. We will accept endnotes instead of footnotes, but not Chicago-style short references in brackets. Above all, be consistent and never mix different citation systems.
What to put in a footnote? Remember that the primary purpose of a footnote is to tell the reader the source of your information, not to show off how clever you are. (Some academics seem to prefer the latter.) In a first-year essay, simple citation of sources is all that we expect, and perhaps the occasional comparison of sources, to explain why you prefer one historian’s view above another’s. Don’t use footnotes to pile on additional information to get around the word limit. If the point is important, it should be in the main body of your text. One of the key skills tested by essay-writing is your ability to select evidence and to judge the importance and relevance of information.
Format for Footnotes and Bibliography
The main difference is that the author’s surname comes first in a bibliography, because the arrangement is alphabetical by surnames. In a footnote, the author’s surname is preceded by initials or first names.
The bibliography (and preferably the first footnote citation of a work) must give full details. Older history books tend to give only authors’ initials, and to omit the publisher’s name. Your bibliography should follow current library practice, which is to give first names in full and to include the publisher’s name. (When citing an article in a journal, however, you do not give the place or publisher; just the name of the journal.) Always identify a second (or subsequent) edition or a revised edition, but ignore reprints and reimpressions. Never name the printer. The publisher’s name is the only one required, and just the name: omit ‘and Company’ or ‘Publishing Group.’
(I am indebted to my New Zealand History colleagues for the following spoof names and titles.)
Bibliographic reference to a book:
Snipe, James D., A History of Mudslinging (London, Gutter Press, 1968)
First footnote reference to the same book:
J.D. Snipe, A History of Mudslinging ( London, 1968), p.12
Bibliographic reference to an article:
Snipe, James D., ‘A History of Whitewashing,’ Gutter Studies, vol.1, no.24 (August 1980), pp.13-15
First footnote reference to the same article:
1. J. Snipe, ‘A History of Whitewashing,’ Gutter Studies, 1:24 (1980), pp.13-15
Note that book titles and the names of journals should be underlined or in italics (not both!), and articles should be enclosed in single quote marks.
Where you have used only one work by the same author, subsequent footnotes need give only the author’s surname and the page number:
2. Snipe, p.5
Where you have used more than one work by the same author, you need to distinguish the works by using short titles, for example:
5. Snipe, Mudslinging, pp.24-8
6. Snipe, ‘Whitewashing’, p.13
Bibliographic reference to a chapter in a collection of essays:
Snipe, James, ‘The Art of Sledging’, in Denigration: a Beginner’s Guide, ed. Clive Carp and Forrest Grump (Bendigo, Gasworks Press, 1989), pp.55-67
Acknowledging the words of a primary source when quoted by a secondary source requires you to cite both works, and in the same way it is identified in the bibliography of the secondary work. For example:
Oscar Grouch, Blackening Reputations ( London, 1867), p.32, quoted in J.D. Snipe, A History of Mudslinging, 2nd ed. (London, 1970), p.124
Common Footnote Abbreviations (Latin):
- c. = circa = about
- cf. = confer = compare with
- etc. = et cetera = and the rest
- et.seq. = et sequentia = and what follows
- fl. or flor. = floruit = flourished, alive at this time
- ibid. = ibidem = in the same place
- i.e. = id est = that is
- n.b. = nota bene = note well: important
- op.cit. = opere citato = in the work cited
- q.v. = quod vide = which see (i.e. look it up!)
- viz. = vide licet = namely, or in other words
Note also the usage of these familiar abbreviations:
- B.C. = before Christ
- A.D. = Anno Domini (in the year of Our Lord)
- C.E. = Common Era
- 44 B.C.
- 1066 C.E.
- BUT: A.D. 1588
Citation of Electronic Sources
The creation of the World Wide Web has revolutionised the way we communicate, and has also revolutionised the academic world, making databases and academic journals available on-line. Most students are now accustomed to using PCs at school and the Web as their first line of research for essays and assignments.
The Library's subject guide for History is the best entry point for on-line searching.
Use of the Internet is increasingly encouraged by most lecturers, and all History courses are now located on Blackboard. As with any other source, students should ensure that web-based material is cited properly, and that it is from a reputable source.
In general, sources from a website ending in .edu or edu.au or ac.uk or ac.nz may be considered reputable. These are sites operated by tertiary education institutions in the US, Australia, UK and New Zealand. As with publishers, the well-known universities such as Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Princeton or London are likely to be the most reliable.
Academic sites are rigorously checked for the accuracy of their information and the quality of their scholarship. There are many other sites on the web that are operated by groups or individuals promoting specific political, religious or social agendas. Their presentation of facts and ideas may not be entirely objective or free from distortion. Sources such as Wikipedia are not subject to rigorous checking, and can be added to by anyone, whether qualified in the subject or not. Wikipedia should NOT be used in the preparation of an academic essay. And a quick Google search is no substitute for proper research!
Electronic sources include the Web, e-mails, listserv messages, newsgroup messages, chat-rooms and discussion forums (should that be fora?) and gopher sites. Citation styles vary for each of these sources, but the main ones for social sciences and humanities are MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association) and Chicago. Full details on these are available at: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/citex.html
The same principles apply as in printed books and articles. The whole point of a footnote or citation is to enable the reader to find the same source and check the accuracy of the author's use of the information. In most cases, simply add the URL to the standard citation of author, title, date with a date of access. For example:
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 26 August 1789, in 'The French Revolution', Internet Modern History Sourcebook, <http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook13.html> (29 February 2007)