Thank you Margaret. After the exchange yesterday I googled "MLA Style" and
found numerous examples of citations. Those example showed exactly what you
describe - accessed dates for electronic media only, not things found in
books, etc. in libraries, rare holdings or not. I found it interesting that
I had to look at several examples before I figured out that the date just
before the web address was probably the accessed date, as it was not
identified as such. I consider this an example of a lack of clarity, one of
my objections to this style of sourcing. Perhaps Legacy actually puts in the
word "accessed", which would be an improvement (and said to make sure this
is even remotely on topic). Of course, I still think the accessed date is
unnecessary as knowing that I accessed something in August 2007 is of no use
to me whatsoever. If the website has changed, would knowing when matter?
Elizabeth
researching the descendants of William and Sarah (Patterson) Thompson
----- Original Message -----
From: "M Couch" <genet...@wave.co.nz>
To: <LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com>
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 1:05 AM
Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Re: Access dates
I've enjoyed the energetic discussion on this topic, it's so hard to
convey
nuance over the 'net though:-), easy to misinterpret.
To give you some context, I teach tertiary students, they are back in
class
next week and we will be revisiting the referencing style guide, so this
was
fresh in my mind.
Most current scholarly sourcing guides (not just EE) do require accessed
or
retrevial date for electronic sources because of the frequent changes on
websites. Think of it as type of version number.
The quote below from the APA Style guide (American Psychological
Association) - often used in humanities. It pretty much covers what other
contributors have written.
"Retrieval date. The date an electronic source was retrieved is important
if
the content you are citing is likely to be changed or updated. When no
fixed
publication date, edition, or version number can be cited, the retrieval
date offers a snapshot of the content at the time of your research.
For undated or otherwise changeable content retrieved from the open Web,
as
well as in-preparation, in-press, or preprint journal articles, include
the
retrieval date. No retrieval date is necessary for content that is not
likely to be changed or updated, such as a journal article or book..."
http://www.apastyle.org/elecmedia.html (30 Jan 2009)!
--
Margaret
-----Original Message-----
From: k...@legacyfamilytree.com [mailto:k...@legacyfamilytree.com] On Behalf
Of Elizabeth Richardson
Of course, if it's important to you to have the date, then record it. Does
EE require it? (Not that I'd probably care if it does, but the standard
sourcing I've seen in other scholarly journals does not include this
information.) I'm not out to prove that I'm a better researcher than the
next guy... <snip>
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