Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 June 27

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 27

Massachusetts newspaper

Where can I find a good free online database for searching Massachusetts newspapers during the Civil War? The Library of Congress doesn't have much.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 08:11, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Not sure if you will find all the various newspapers in a single database. For any newspapers which still exists from that time, they likely have a method to search their archives. For those which no longer exist or where the records have been lost, the surviving copies are likely spread around various libraries, making any search difficult. Then there might be some where a complete set of records exists, but only in paper form, as they've never put them online. StuRat (talk) 02:17, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

See Google News Archive Search and Category:Newspapers published in Massachusetts.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:50, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Citation styles

I'm using APA style citations to write a paper on Abe Lincoln. Can I use superscripts in the text like Wikipedia uses, or would I have to use the inferior "in text" citation after each reference when I'm citing works in a "bibliography" section?

What citation style is used at Harlem Riot of 1943, when using superscripts and referencing page numbers in a "references" section that refers to a bibliography? Can I use that method in APA style citation? Thank you. Seattle (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. APA uses the in-text citations with brackets (either author-date, or just date if author was just named in the running text of the sentence).

The style of Harlem Riot of 1943 does not appear to be any particular, formal style. The use of superscript numbers and footnotes or endnotes is accepted in the The Chicago Manual of Style and others. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:24, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

"inferior "in text" citation" -- citation needed! Inline citation is used for most of the top science journals, except for the top ~5, which use numbers out of space concerns. In-line citations are far easier for the reader to follow, because they convey information at the point of citation, without having to scroll or flip to a references section. If this is a school project or similar, APA style will make it far easier for other students and the teacher to read the work and understand if it is properly referenced. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Except it isn't simpler. Different disciplines use different citation systems in order to provide different "proper" referencing. If someone handed me parenthetical citations in a history paper, I would be puzzled and appalled: my expectation is Chicago Footnote + Bibliography or preferably Turabian Footnote + Bibliography. (Yes I know, journal standards in the outlet you're publishing in come first). I want to know the full publication details on first use, and after that am fine with Author & Shorttitle. My needs in reading history include having immediate access to the work to evaluate it when its cited. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:35, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's somewhat a matter of taste. To me, if I read "[claim]... (Smith & Xu 2000)" I can easily ascertain if I am familiar with that work. If I read "[claim]...[16]", I have to look around a bit to figure out what that means. Later in the same paper, I'd rather read "(Smith & Xu, 2000)" and know that the same work is being referenced, compared to having to remember that that work is referred to as '[16]', while (Xu & Smith, 1998) is referred to as '[4]'. For me, I'd rather not have to constantly flip through the article to know what's being cited. My main point is, there is not really an objective way of assessing which citation method is "inferior" or "superior" -- we just use different ones for different reasons, with a healthy dose of accident of history and obscurely justified journal requirements. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:40, 1 July 2014 (UTC)