Case Study: Source Use & Citation

A "guard" and "prisoners" from Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment

1. From analyzing Bess' work with his sources, what standards or rules does he seem to be following for citing his work? What information is provided the first or second or third (etc.) time a source is noted?

- When Bess first sites other works, he cites the author name, title of work, publisher, date of publication, and page number if applicable. When citing the same source a second time, he only lists the author name, title, and page number if it has changed, omitting the rest of the repeated information. If he is citing the same source a third time, Bess uses "Ibid" and the page number to express that it is the same repeated source being used again. He only uses this if the citations are consecutive; if there is a different source cited in between, he reverts back to author, title, and page number.

2. Bess' work provides us with example of "Annotated" notes. (Examples: 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 25). Based on these examples, what do you understand annotated to mean?

- By using annotated notes, Bess provides a his opinion on the source, and/or a further explanation on the specific source. From this, I take annotated to mean something that is elaborated on, or further explained.

3. Which notes do not have a page number citation? Why might that be? There is more than one explanation. Compare the notes pages with the reading passage itself. (Make sure you consider how notes 10-14 are different, and why the author used so many specific notes, instead of one, even though he is dealing with just one work: Milgram).

- Many of Bess' notes do not have page number citations. There are different reasons for this depending on what type of citation note he is making. In note number 2, Bess is most likely referencing Browning's work, Ordinary Men, in general and not as a specific page reference, which is why he only cites the shortened title and the author (as he had already cited the whole source previously). In note number 8, Bess is listing specific examples of scholars and their works on the moral habits and decisions of everyday men and women, because he wants to further specify what he said in the text ("Not surprisingly, these issues have attracted a great deal of attention from scholars in many disciplines over the past few decades). This specification has nothing to do with citing a text for specific information, therefore it does not need a page number. Regarding notes 10-14, Bess is using different tactics for citing the same source repeatedly. First, in note 10, he references the text in general, giving the author's full name, the full title of the work, the publisher, and the date of publication. Next, in note 11, he gives an annotation about the work and experiments which he cited previously, in an attempt to explain how ethical standards have changed between the time of the experiment and current day. In note 12, Bess cites the same Milgram text again, this time giving only the author's last name, an abbreviated title, and a page number because this is a page-specific citation. Then, in note 13, he uses another page-specific citation for the same work a third time, so this time he uses "Ibid" and the page number, explaining that it is the same text being cited three or more times consecutively. He uses the same form in note 14.

4. How did Bess credit his sources in the text to make it obvious when he is working with the words of other authors? In other words, if we lost the notes pages and the bibliography, why would we still know the sources Bess was using? What would we not know about his use of the source if we didn't have the notes pages?

- In the text, Bess credits his sources by giving the author's full name and the abbreviated title of their work or study before he starts talking about and giving an overview of it. He then makes sure to frequently mention the author's name throughout the text when he is referencing them, making sure that it is known who is responsible for the work. He also makes sure to state where a quote is coming from and by who, when he is directly quoting a text or dialogue from one of the mentioned author's texts or experiments. If we lost the notes pages and the bibliography, we would still be able to find the works which Bess is mentioning and drawing from, but we would not know the specific parts or pages that he is using, or the annotations that help explain why he chose the source and what he thinks about it.

5. In the passage you read, Bess is working with many primary and secondary sources, but makes extensive use of one in particular. Given how extensively he is using the work of other historians or researchers, what makes his argument original?

- Bess heavily draws from and includes primary and secondary sources in his text, giving an overview and explaining all the main sources that he is referencing. However, his argument is in fact original because he has gathered all of these sources together, given his thoughts and explanations for all of them, and then connected them together in his own unique way to give the reader his opinion on what conclusions can be drawn from comparing these real life examples with the experiments. He is using specific pieces of literature and specific studies because he knows that the people who conducted and wrote them are specialists in their fields, and that those studies are evidence to making more general, connected conclusions about human decision making.