Sources that Other People Suggested
MLA:
1My use of Bouvard here was prompted by Jessica Scott’s “Judgment Day Everyday.”
[footnote mark] [brief explanation] [publication information—do not list Scott in Works Cited.]
Mercer Street, Ed. Alfred E. Guy Jr. 2001. 50-54.APA:
1See Scott (2001).
[footnote mark] [brief reference, and list Scott in References.]Chicago:
36. My use of Bouvard here was prompted by Jessica Scott’s “Judgment Day
[fn.#.] [brief explanation] [publication information—do not list Scott in Bibliography.]
Everyday.” Mercer Street, Ed. Alfred E. Guy Jr. 2001. 50-54.
If the source you’re reading quotes another text, and you want to use that quoted material in your own essay, you must give credit to the author who originally selected the quotation. See Sources that Cite Other Sources for more information. But even if you focus on different parts of the second text, and make a different argument, you may still want to give credit to authors who lead you to other sources. In the example above, you may end up focusing on very different aspects of Bouvard’s text than Scott did, leading you to quote different passages and to make your own argument. But if it was reading Scott’s piece that gave you the idea to look at Bouvard, you may want to acknowledge her help.
In the MLA example above, credit is given by the use of what’s called a discursive footnote (a footnote that adds information that isn’t part of the central argument). Since you don’t use Scott directly in the essay, you would include the publication information in the footnote, rather than in your Works Cited. In the APA example, only the author’s name and date are given in the footnote. In this instance, you would include the publication information in the References. But you can use the briefer version for MLA and the fuller version for APA; the format for this kind of acknowledgment is not rigidly defined. If you want to call even more attention to Scott’s influence, you could add the phrase that gives her credit directly into your paragraph. In that case, follow the instructions on how to cite that kind of source (in this case, an Article in a Book).
Ultimately, every thing you read can lead you to something else, and it would be possible to go overboard in acknowledging the Webof texts that have influenced you. But especially for beginning academic writers, it can be quite gratifying to make visible the conversation of ideas you’ve entered into and which has resulted in your current paper.
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