The Writing Dead: How to Cite a Deceased (Yet Strangely Prolific) Author

by Jeff Hume-Pratuch

Who is the author of Fowler’s Modern English Usage? (Go ahead and Google it; I’ll just wait here and hum the “Jeopardy” theme until you get back. . . .)

I’ll admit that it’s a bit of a trick question. The classic style guide was written by Henry W. Fowler and published in 1926 as A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. It quickly dwarfed most of the competition due to its pithy, antipedantic, and somewhat idiosyncratic advice.*

The name of Fowler became so closely tied to the notion of clear and correct writing that the second edition (1965) was published as Fowler’s Modern English Usage, even though its eponymous author had died in 1933. His presence continues to hover over the work as it approaches the century mark (Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 2004). The content has been almost completely rewritten, but it has never gone out of print.

Similarly, H. M. Robert’s Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies was first published in 1876 and is now in its 11th (highly revised) edition. When a work is in its third, fourth, or (in the case of Robert’s Rules of Order) 11th edition, there may not be much left that was actually written by the person who penned the first edition. How should these works be cited? Should we credit the dead hand of the original author or those who carry on the franchise?

The answer follows from one of our basic principles of citation: “Cite what you see.” Whose name is on the cover and/or title page? Unless another role is specified (e.g., editor, compiler), that person—dead or alive—is the author.  Fowler and Robert can rest in peace while their successors carry on.

References

Burchfield, R. W. (2004). Fowler’s modern English usage (3rd ed. rev.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Fowler, H. W. (1926). A dictionary of modern English usage. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Fowler, H. W., & Gowers, E. (Ed.). (1965). Fowler’s modern English usage (2nd ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Robert, H. M. (1876). Pocket manual of rules of order for deliberative assemblies. Chicago, IL: Griggs.

Robert, H. M., III, Honemann, D. H., & Balch, T. J. (2011). Robert’s rules of order newly revised (11th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Perseus Books.


*E.g., “To shrink with horror from ending [a sentence] with a preposition is no more than foolish superstition; but there are often particular reasons for not choosing that alternative” (Fowler, 1926, p. 635).

Citing an Edition of a Book in APA Style

by Timothy McAdoo

Question

When a book has multiple editions, which edition should I include in my reference list?

Answer

Your reference list should include the edition of the book that you read and are relying on for your information.

You need to include references to more than one edition only if you read two or more editions of the same book and are using information from each one in your paper.

Example

So where does the edition information go? Here’s an example:

Smith, P. (2012). Cut to the chase: Online video editing and the     Wadsworth constant (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: E & K Publishing.

Note that because the edition information is not part of the title, it is not italicized.

Other Resources

Don’t miss our other book-related posts that you might find useful:

• Books and Book Chapters: What to Cite
  
• How Do You Cite an E-Book (e.g., Kindle Book)?
  
• How Do I Cite a Kindle?
• Finding (and Using) Page Numbers for Kindle Books

Books and Book Chapters: What to Cite

 by Chelsea Lee

After slogging through a 500-page tome, you may find but one or two shiny little facts relevant to your research. It might seem like going overboard to cite the entire book when you used just a paragraph or a chapter . . . so what to cite, then, the chapter or the book? 

The type of reference needed depends on who wrote what. Essentially, you should cite the largest entity that the author in question is responsible for.

Book References

If the author wrote the entire book, then provide a reference for the whole book. Here are templates for print books, electronic books, and books with DOIs (print or electronic), respectively:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work. Location: Publisher.

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work [E-reader version, if applicable]. Retrieved from http://xxxxx

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work [E-reader version, if applicable]. doi:xxxxx

Book Chapter References

On the other hand, if the chapter comes from a book where each chapter is written by different authors (and the whole thing is put together by an editor), then provide a separate reference for each chapter that you used. The templates for chapters in edited books are shown below, for print books, electronic books, and books with DOIs (either print or electronic), respectively:

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In B. B. Editor (Ed.), Title of book (pp. xxx–xxx). Location: Publisher.

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In B. B. Editor (Ed.), Title of book [E-reader version, if applicable] (pp. xxx–xxx). Retrieved from http://xxxxx

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In B. B. Editor (Ed.), Title of book [E-reader version, if applicable] (pp. xxx–xxx). doi:xxxxx

Here information on both the whole book and the chapter is provided. This allows the reader to retrieve the book and to know who is responsible for both the whole book and the chapter in question. If there are no page numbers in the electronic book, omit that portion of the reference. 

Other Notes

If you read an e-book on an e-reader, such as a Kindle, Sony Reader, or Nook, provide the version that you read (e.g., Kindle DX version) in square brackets following the title, not italicized, as shown in the examples above. 

To help your reader find the cited material, you can provide additional detail (page numbers, chapter numbers, etc.) in the text reference. Always give specific location information (generally, page numbers; here's what to do when there are no page numbers) for direct quotations; it is optional for paraphrasing and other mentions. 

More information and real-life examples are provided in the sixth edition APA Publication Manual, section 7.02 (pp. 202–205).