Constant Content

I don't think I understand clearly the rules of articles that require research.

I am not clear on when credit needs to be given. I thought the rule was that everything that is not common knowledge requires source credits. However, I have poked through the science and tech articles for examples of given credit and I have found many technical pieces that give no credit at all.

If credit should be given, how should it be given? I believe I read in the guidelines somewhere (I have not been able to find it this evening) that credits should be given in MLA bibliography style. Would that bibliography be attached at the end of the article?

Is there a good primer for research articles?

Thanks!

Sorry. It's late. I don't mean a formal research article. I mean an article that required research.

There are two blog articles that deal with this.

Referencing Sources: [url]http://constant-content.com/blog/?p=81[/url]

Researching Articles and Providing Accurate Information: [url]http://constant-content.com/blog/?p=80[/url]

From what I understand, you are not required to list sources in your article (also, if you do, you may just do it in the document and not the long summary), but it could be a selling point for your work if you have taken the time to do appropriate research.

I prefer sources at the end of articles, particularly when the sources are scholarly/print publications, as long as their format fits within our guidelines.

Ed

Thank you both.

I think I have visited the first link earlier, but I had not seen the second link... I forgot these guidelines weren't in the help section.

Ed~ Is it appropriate to give credit only when quoting or paraphrasing? Are we supposed to give credit for general reference material? I thought it was correct to give sources credit with or without direct reference to the source within the body of the article.

Sorry for all the questions. I know this falls outside your job description, but I am finding a lot of conflicting information.

Thank you.

For CC, it's all about what you're comfortable with as you build your reputation as a freelancer.

We don't require sources. However, if you've used sources, I think it's good form to cite them at the end of the article. Quoted material should always be sourced, but some people do it within the text itself.

Personally, I think it's best to get material from authoritative sources - and these should most certainly be cited. On the other hand, I think it detracts from an article to cite Wikipedia (Wikipedia and websites of its ilk, or not even of its ilk, should not be used for research, period). Wikipedia is fine as a launch point for further research if you know little or nothing about the subject, but all of the information included within an article should be found elsewhere.

Again, personally, I would never use a print source or an academic web source without citing it.

It frustrates me and baffles me when I point authors to the blog entry that explains how to reference web sources so that they fit within our guidelines, and they resubmit the article with sources completely removed. It takes so little effort to remove the prefix at the beginning of web addresses.

Hope this helps.

Ed

Ed~

Thank you for again answering my questions. I really appreciate it.

It must be very frustrating to go through the effort of explaining things only to have people change their articles to avoid the issue all-together. Perhaps it is laziness, but I can also see how people could get confused or overwhelmed by the rules of crediting sources.

In any case, I won't be offended when you reject my articles if you don't get annoyed when I submit the same one five times.

Thanks again!

~~kmd

I guess my thinking is twofold:

If you have taken the time to research, show readers you've done your work -

and

- give credit where credit is due.