Re: King Arthur: Saxons attacking from North?

From: Alan Crozier (name1.name2_at_telia.com)
Date: 01/30/05 

Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 16:00:41 GMT

"Doug Weller" <dweller@ramtops.removethisdemon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:fvvpv0desj8nqdcrboipokfccovhhno0te@4ax.com...
> Cambridge PhDs have to use the Harvard system.
> I think different parts of Oxford have different preferences - the
> archaeology department seems to see footnotes as ok as a supplement to the
> Harvard system of referencing.
> The Council for British Archaeology uses Harvard.
>
> I'm not sure which is the most popular in the UK, but from my experience
> I'd guess Harvard (even though it was developed at a rival University).

The two main methods used to document texts are popularly known as the
Oxford system and the Harvard system.

The Oxford system puts references in footnotes. The first time a reference
appears it is given in full, e.g.

Joan Jones, "The Holy Grail and its Holes: An Orificial Study," Journal of
Welsh Trypology 23 (2003), pp. 22-56.

For subsequent references it is enough to shorten this as:

Jones, "The Holy Grail," p. 37.

This is reader-friendly in that a glance at the bottom of the page tells you
at once which work is referred to.

The Harvard system involves author-date references. In the text you write:

The holes have recently been examined (Jones 2003).

And at the back of the book you provide a full alphabetical list of
references, with Jones 2003 explained as follows:

Jones, Joan. 2003. "The Holy Grail and its Holes: An Orificial Study."
Journal of Welsh Trypology 23, pp. 22-56.

This is author-friendly and saves space but is not particularly
reader-friendly because you are constantly being sent to the back of the
book, especially if there are many works by Jones and you can't keep track
of the dates.

A third, hybrid, system is growing in popularity. It is called the Linköping
system. Here the author provides a long list of sources at the end of the
book, but there is nothing in the text to indicate which claim is supported
by which source. At specific points where more explicit source references
are called for, the reader is referred to a footnote and a statement of the
following kind:

1. I gave the source for this to the groups in 1995, but I was not writing
as a private person and not from my present Internet account.
2. This map hung on the wall of a school in Scandinavia where my great-aunt
once taught.
3. This manuscript was edited by three Dutch professors in the 1820s but
only four copies were published. One of them may turn up in a second-hand
bookshop near you.
4. This is recorded in an untranslated Chinese manuscript described for me
by an Eskimo I once met.
5. A professor and two PhDs can confirm this.
6. I have quoted the source for this in a previously edited article. It is
listed in the catalogue of a Royal Library, but under my maiden name.
7. Doubting my word on this point proves that you are an abusing stalker.

This system is author-friendly in that you can make outrageous claims
without substantiation, referring to sources (1) even though they do not say
what you claim they say; (2) even though you have not read them or even seen
them; (3) even though they do not exist. The system is also reader-friendly,
at least for the the kind of reader who doesn't care about scholarly
references and just wants an entertaining read.

Alan 

-- 
Alan Crozier
Lund
Sweden