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Subject:Re: Citing Sources From:"Wayne J. Douglass" <wayned -at- VERITY -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 17 Jan 1997 16:04:42 -0800
At 04:59 PM 1/17/97 -0500, Michael Barwick wrote:
>In the meantime, I have a question regarding the citing of sources.
>What are everyone's thoughts on this matter? Hypothetically, if a
>technical writer draws on another document for information in a manual,
>is it sufficient to supply a bibliography with the manual or does every
>individual fact need to be cited in some way? How have other people
>dealt with this kind of situation? I must say that I have yet to
>encounter footnotes in a manual or in technical reference material but
>then I haven't been at this long enough to say with confidence that my
>experience is definitive.
>
Footnotes are indeed rare in technical manuals, so the elaborate 60+ page
discussion in the Chicago Manual of Style is overkill. When sources are
cited at all, the format is usually more informal than academic. A corporate
style guide should spell out the circumstances and format of citations. As
usual, I defer to Philip Rubens, ed., _Science and Technical Writing: A
Manual of Style_ (ISBN 0-8050-1831-X) for advice. The discussion is a mere
20 pages and focuses on technical writing.
--Wayne Douglass
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