Thylacoleo is on the prowl...

[ithika]

Essay writing question:

So if I write "As Taylor so astutely put it in his text The Vital Landscape, 18th century scholars believed that 'human beings were distinguished from minerals, plants and animals by the faculty of reason.'" or something similar, in my essay, do I then have to footnote that sentence? I honestly don't know  - I'm letting the reader know that this sentence is not my own, but it doesn't tell them where to look for the quote. I'm thinking footnote it. But I don't want to over-reference, because I got told off for that once and I think it's a silly thing to lose points for.

Comments

[auntpol.livejournal.com]

What I meant was that they don't mind about which style you use. Some disciplines are !nasty about using an EXACT referencing format (e.g. harvard). Philosophy are like, eh, if we can reasonably find what you're talking about, you're all good.

[bloodied-aura.livejournal.com]

Oh okay. :) That seems a nice way of doing things.
ALVA recommends Harvard, but apparently only because of some dumb thing where people get Oxford wrong more often. I used Oxford in my first essay and my tutor wrote "nice to see someone use Oxford referencing correctly!"
so I use that.
But still it's... odd. The whole faculty is... odd.