Critical Editions
MLA:
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince. 1532. Ed. & Trans. Robert M. Adams.
[author, by last name.] [title.] [original publication date] [editor & translator, by first name.]
Norton Critical Editions. New York: Norton, 1992.
[series name.] [city of publication: publisher, year.]APA:
Machiavelli, N. (1992). The Prince (R.M. Adams, Ed. & Trans.). Norton Critical
[last name, initial.] [(year).] [title] [(editor & translator.).] [series name.]
Editions. New York: Norton. (Original work published 1532)
[city of publication: publisher.] [(“Original work published” date)]Chicago:
37. Machiavelli, Prince, 45.
[fn. #.] [quoted author, title, page number.]
[Shortened Chicago reference; see More Notes on Chicago Style for more information.]
Critical editions print in one book a text as well as scholarly responses to it and other information useful to understanding the text (such as letters from the author). This kind of sourcebook is most common in the humanities, but may also be found in other disciplines. If you use material from a critical edition, you should cite it the same way you would cite an Article in a Book or a Preface, Foreward, or Introduction.
But like Sources that Cite other Sources, critical editions can sometimes tempt a writer to pad his or her bibliography. In the example above, if you cite Machiavelli in one place, but then cite one of the critical articles as if you read its original publication, you can make it look as if you found sources in two different locations. Please resist this temptation. First of all, in nearly every case, disguising your use of the critical edition will constitute unnecessary busywork, as almost any professor who wants you to use critical sources will be glad to see you consulting a critical edition. And on a simpler level, it’s just wrong to deny credit to the editor of the critical edition for selecting the very readings that you’ve found helpful in developing your argument.
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