Attribution and citation

Almost the same thing. But not quite. I've gotten enough questions about this that I want to go over it one more time before you hand in your research papers on Thursday. This is a formal research paper — it's not a news story, and it's not a personal essay, although I know that a few of you are writing about a personal experience you've had.

The confusion that seems to arise is when you want to quote someone who was interviewed in an article. For instance, let's say Montana Republican-Democrat editor Melanie Cooper is quoted in an article in the American Journalism Review as saying the following: "Ever since the Stephen Glass scandal, we've made it a policy to run photos with any story where there might be questions about whether the people we portray actually exist."

Now, hold that thought. At the end of your paper you will include a bibliography that will list your primary and secondary sources. One of those sources will be the article in which Cooper's quote originally appeared. Your citation — keeping in mind that this is a fictional example — should look something like this:

Stevens, Peter. "After Glass, Editors Seek New Tools for Credibility." American Journalism Review, May/June 2004. http://www.ajr.org/credibility.html

(I'd do a hanging indent, but I don't know how in Blogger.)

All right, then. Let's return to your paper. Here's a paragraph that you might write:

Aficionados of the movie "Shattered Glass" may recall the moment when the office secretary tells New Republic editor Charles Lane that Glass never would have been able to get away with as much as he did if the magazine ran photographs with its stories. Sure enough, that's exactly what Melanie Cooper, editor of the Montana Republican-Democrat, is doing. "Ever since the Stephen Glass scandal, we've made it a policy to run photos with any story where there might be questions about whether the people we portray actually exist," Cooper said (Stevens).

As you can see, the paragraph contains both an attribution, to Cooper, and a citation, to Stevens. And we know what you mean by "Stevens" because, when we turn to the bibliography, we see the full citation for his article in the AJR.

You may use traditional footnoting if you wish, but in-text citations seem to be the way most research papers are formatted these days. As I have told you, I am not hung up on format; but I insist on thoroughness.

Some of you who have more experience writing research papers may wonder why I do not italicize the titles of magazines and newspapers (and books and movies). The reason is simple: I'm trying to follow AP style as much as possible. As you know (or as you should know), there are no italics in AP style. This is a holdover from the days when teletype machines literally couldn't transmit italic type. Even though that has long since ceased to be the case, AP style still hasn't caught up.

Because this is not a newswriting course, I will not mind if you choose to follow the more formal style of using italics for magazine, newspaper, book, television-show and movie titles. But please try to be consistent.