The terms source & citation: Synonymous & interchangeable? [closed]

Question

WikiTree policy holds that:

• WT's preferred sources style format is Evidence Explained (EE), which is based on CMoS,
• 'There are two ways to add your sources' – either as asterisked sources list items or as ref-tagged inline reference notes, but not both.

EE and its associated Genealogical Proof Standard include the following guidelines.

• A full and accurate citation is given for each sources.
• The terms citation and source are not synonymous and should be used interchangeably.

It is hoped that this G2G question can help fill a gap in a number of recent related research effort and G2G discussions including, especially G2G's Need to clarify Sources Style Guide in terms of terminology & formatting?

The fact that the latest book version of EE is close to 900 pages long raises daunting challenges about the feasibility of living up to the promise of EE as WT's preferred format. EE's glossary appendix alone is 11 pages long.  

Comments

Sometimes with collaboration you end up seeing both styles on one page and that does make it hard to read - and GEDCOM junk - numbered references with span tags and so on make it a real pain to read in edit mode - BUT it is a wiki and is volunteer based so what can you do?  People are messy - just do your best, clean up as you go and try and make the profiles you care about somewhat better than they were, correct typos - put things in chronological order, verify and add more sources, rewrite the biography so it reads like it should, a story of a life - that is what I try to do

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If one chooses to preserve the purity of applications at Wikitree, then one will NOT confuse a Citation with a Source. A Citation is essentially a quote (from or about) and a Source is usually (not always, apparently, in Mondern Times) a record kept by and issued by a duly authorized legal source (of records kept) 

AS AN ILLUSTRATION -- IF I quote -- as a source for what I am asserting -- what Billy Bo said about Danny Joe, that is a citation "Cousin Billy Bo said that our Cousin Danny Joe said HE was born in Dallas, not in El Paso." I use that citation to "explain" why I put the place of birth for Danny Joe as Dallas County, Texas. 

However, if I discover a record of Danny Joe's birth and it's in the archives at Austin Texas for the State of Texas and it states clearly that the place of birth was El Paso County, Texas, I will prefer this source over the citation. Because the State of Texas is a duly authorized agency. 

Am I 100% certain either one -- but not both -- is correct? No. I might actually examine the scan of the birth certificate itself and discover it was delayed by some period of time, and that the informant was neither the hospital nor the physician, because Danny Joe was delivered by a midwife at home and home was 15 miles outside of some town and not in either county. And she is the informant. 

So the ACTUAL source would be the certificate of birth whereas the source I'm using is the address of the repository where the certificate is recorded.  

So where was Danny Joe born? Apparently in Texas, which is the one fact all the "sources" agree on. Specifically, who knows? 

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The question is a rhetorical one. The issues that matter are in sub-text to the question per se.

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Is there, then, any point to anyone attempting to answer your non-question?

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Yes there is contradiction in holding that, on the one hand, Wt's preferred sources style format is EE, and, on the other hand EE / GPS guideline calling, contrary to WT guidelines, for a full and accurate citation be given for each sources, the two terms therefore that not being synonymous and interchangeably. Why this contradiction?

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+1

what Susan said

A source is where the info came from (the original document) and a citation is a mention of the source.

On WikiTree, you're recording a citation of a source or a "source citation."  For simplicity, it is abbreviated and we say to enter your "source," when in reality, you're entering a source citation.

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According to EE:

Citation: the statement in which one identifies the source of an assertion. Common forms of citations are source list entries, reference notes, and document labels.

Information: a statement offered by a source. Information exists in three basic weights, primary information  secondary information and undetermined .

Source: an artifact, book, document, film, person, recording, website, etc., from which information is obtained. Sources are broadly classified as either an original source, a derivative source, or authored narrative depending upon their physical form.

Source list: a bibliography or list of sources used for an essay or in a research project.

Source list entry: an individual citation within a source list..

These terms partly define how EE can be WT's preferred sources style format. It is simply unacceptable in my view to say  by way of clarification in a G2G discussion, that 'we say to enter your "source" when in reality, your're entering a source citation.' It ideally needs to eventually be spelled out in a formal WT policy document of such sources style format terms.

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So is your concern that WT policies, and people on G2G, say "source" when they mean "citation"?

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There is concern in wanting WT terminology to be consistent with EE terminology if indeed EE is WT's preferred sources style format.

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Well that would be making things clear - which is what we need our instructions to do - as currently lots of them do not

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 Navarro, the nature of WT, if I understood various comments on various posts, is one of  volunteers. And volunteers sat down singly or in cyber conference and wrote out the various pages for WT -- helps, explanations, examples and so forth. 
The key words here are VOLUNTEER, voluntary, and COMMITTEE, consensus

 SOMEONE would have to volunteer, or a number of someones, to work their way though the various pages and change the Offending WT terminology to match that of either the EE or some other "authority" outside of WT 

 

Hello? Do I hear 5 or 10 or 30 Volunteers with the EE list of terms (or any other outside authority's list) in one hand and the pages from WT in the other hand and red ink pen to mark up the WT so that the end result "conforms to this outside authority"?? Silence is deafening.

We can only speculate what the original band of volunteers experienced in writing the pages we have now. They were Volunteering time energy best efforts and they no doubt conferred and collaborated and produced. We laud them. 

I'm reasonably certain people straining toward their first 100,000 or 500,000 or 1,000,000 are not going to volunteer to undertake this. It is a Sacrifice called for here -- not for the glory and praise of result but for the time labor energy lost opportunity for other activities etc 

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My sense is that this is a policy issue that likely requires broadly-based buy-in / consensus and high-level approval..

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D. Amy, NAME those who are at this high level so that those PM are are interested in volunteering to sacrifice their time and labor on this Great Enterprise can Petition them

Names are required so the petitions arrive at the correct (cyber) desk.

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Yes volunteers and so we can just plug along, making what we find a bit better each day and hope that is what most of the rest are doing but this would be infinitely more likely if the help pages and instructions for various features were clear - perhaps you would like to pitch in with that - there is a procedure to begin change - um where?

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Beyond people mentioned in this current G2G question (with Doug McDougall, Chase Ashley, Navarro Mariott, S J Baty and yourself having a more than passing interest in the issues) , some of the people mentioned in the two G2G questions Should the policy on source citation formatting be changed ... if so, to what? (714 views) and Changes in Inline Citation Styling? (1.4k views) will likely be of special interest. Singling some of these people: Gail Conolely, Jiliiane Smith, Dale Byers, Helen Ford, Liz Shifflett, Helmut Jungschaffer, C S, Ros Haywood, Abby Glann  and Chris Whitten himself.

As a side matter, copyright of EE glossary terms would need to be dealt with. Does someone in WT have connection to Elizabeth Shown Mills to see if she can give permission to incorporate in part, but verbatim, EE glossary terms in WT glossary equivalent?

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Well, Navarro, that's the question -- who IS in Charge at Wikitree? who it is that is supposed to be "high-level" at WT, who is it that D. Amy points at. Who it is that must approve renovation of the terminology of the manual pages of text at WT itself?  

 Name names, that's all I say, so we can send a petition (together or individually) for these changes to CONFORM TO SOME OUTSIDE (of WT) AUTHORITY ON TERMINOLOGY.   D. Amy seems convinced they -- whomever they are -- exist and can bend the "corporate" body of PM at WT toward conformity with some authority NOT at WT. 

Does the majority of PM at WT want renovation? Note the word majority, should be "the majority of the active PM currently"   

As for myself, I continue as I have, and as others say they have, to profile without reference to some "authority" outside of WT that is NOT universally (globally) accepted  

If D. Amy believes, in her heart, the terminology must conform to some standard outside of WT, then let her draw up a list of offenders and the suggested reforms and let her send a copy to all the people she mentions in this discussion ... and then she can see how far that goes ... who knows, perhaps one or more she's listed are in the higher levels and can authorize the changes to WT manual pages (texts on how-to etc) ... which D. Amy can then volunteer to undertake 

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Whoa Susan, now I had to go eat, am trying to finish scrubbing green stuff off the siding and have to shower before bed, so maybe now I can find it - how we propose changes - but I never thought we needed to change the system or anything- just the help pages so they are easier for new folks to figure out and the sources go in a little more consistently - I mean NOW I know what is meant by inline sources (footnotes) but when I started here I definitely was confused by that description of what to do - and we help people who stumble into G2G so often and I learned by looking at a lot of question answer threads here - learned a lot - but that was my thought - propose a help page improvement program - I know several of them have had a recent revamp and are better now but many are still not as helpful as they could be it would seem - I think that is the key to seeing an increase in better looking source citations on more profiles - heck I still have so many to fix myself but it is tedious sometimes, and there are so only so many hours in a day -

ok here is an example of an informal proposal for change similar to what we might need:

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/525106/proposed-change-to-photo-faq-help-page?show=525106#q525106

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 Navarro, you are an innocent angel in all this without guile or fault. Or so I hope. This isn't about any one person this is about shadow boxing with and in fog ... if the one with the plaint cannot contribute to the solution, then the one with plaint who continues to labor the plaint becomes part of the problem 

People who propose changes to be made, renovations, alterations in procedures, any such alteration of the current system need to do certain things first 

1. what is the purpose of this proposed change?
2. what is the desired result of the proposed change?
3. what is are the steps that must be taken, in order of occurrence, for the goal to be achieved?
4. who is in charge of the project? Is the project headed by one individual or by a committee? And if by committee, who is the leader?
5. are there any special permissions, licenses, tools, funds, or other resources that must be gathered before undertaking the project?
6. who will do the actual labor, put in the actual work, on this project?

There are other questions that need to be answered in the planning stage, including contingency plans if some one or other step (or steps) cannot be accomplished.  

What I kept also hearing was that the autonomy of WT over its own texts (manuals, help pages, etc) was to be abrogated (done away with) in favor of some UNSPECIFIED OUTSIDE AUTHORITY and that none of the mentioned authorities had GLOBAL acceptance

IN MY OPINION If you want to change something, then you should get yourself into a position where you can actively do so, get your hands on it, put in the time and labor to bring about the goal. IN MY OPINION, if D. Amy wants the changes made, then she should -- somehow -- collect the agreement from I don't know who and neither did she -- to make those changes -- and specifically the changes SEEMED to be terminology -- well, let her produce a list of Offensive Terms and a list of Acceptable Terms -- having gotten an agreement before hand from the unknown and unnamed higher ups -- on WHICH OUTSIDE AUTHORITY that Wikitree would abrogate its autonomy for.  

Answer 1

Wow  D. Amy,

I commend you for your detail of thought!!   I'll admit,  I don't consider myself a  "genealogist"  but a family  researcher instead.   I didn't even realize I wasn't supposed to use EITHER  "asterisked sources list items or as ref-tagged inline reference notes, but not both "...... I combine them.    

I'm curious to hear the responses you receive to this question.... but I've created quite a few profiles without reading the 900 pages of EE......

There are incredibly skilled genealogists on WikiTree,  but I assure you the majority of us are less skilled.    

Thanks for the question! 

Comments

Can you guess what this G2G forum stands for?

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The acronym .....Genealogist to Genealogist

But I assure you, the community is larger than the formal  "Genealogists".... which I believe is a term reserved for a few,  who need the assistance of others to accomplish the goals set forth.

But I'm not the one to debate philosophies,  if that's what you need.

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And THAT is exactly why I didn't use it for about 4 years.  I thought it was just for the balding dudes with the PHD.s and bad breath. Not once did it ever mention it was a forum for all WikiTree users.

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Steve,

I barely used G2G  my first 3 years  (maybe not at all).....I was very content just creating family profiles.   But when I started following G-2-G,  I started picking up some pretty great tips about  WIkiTree.... But I'll always enjoy working on profiles the most.

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Like I said above, many profiles you end up seeing both combined because some one comes in with a new source and uses their preferred method of adding it and adds it while the profile has the other one to begin with - now some may have time and convert the whole thing over but many times they do not want to mess with it or are in a hurry so they don't so you have a profile that uses both - not the worst thing, at least it is sourced

Answer 2

EE is a compendium of examples of how to do good citations. It illustrates rather than prescribes. Basically it amplifies the basic rule of citations which is who, what, when, wherein and where is. It is also the style of citations that anyone wanting to become a Certified Genealogist in the United States would have to master. That is, it is the standard for professional genealogists here.

The GPS is not exactly associated with EE. Both are associated with the Genealogy Standards of the Board for Certification of Genealogists so it is only associate by inference.

Comments

Pardon me. EE calls it 'Evidence Analysis Process Map' instead of 'Genealogical Proof Standard' used by BCG, U. of Strathclyde, Marc McDermott and others. But the substance is exactly the same.

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The GPS (by whatever name) requires valid sources. Citations give an indication of that. So, yes there is a relationship. WikiTree has other problems with sources. A profile is considered sourced if it has a single source citation. That citation doesn't even have to be for a valid source. I seldom see any Genealogical Proof Statements and even less a proof argument. That doesn't mean striving for those is pointless. EE is still the gold standard for citation but it isn't forced on anyone. I do think we should all try to follow the BCG standards and you don't have to be a professional to do that.

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The GPS is part of genealogical community effort to formalize genealogy as a discipline that is subject to scientific method standards. Whether such scientific method is done by trial and error or according to an explicit methodology such as EE is a matter of time until the latter eventually overwhelms the former. It is also a question of competition. Who among online offerings (RootsMagic, Zetero, Mandeley, etc) WT competes with will ultimately survive, partner with, ...? I for example joined WT betting that WT might still be a going concern 40 years from now. That is, I joined hedging my bets that WT would outlast my paid MyHeritage subscription.

Answer 3

Citations are descriptions of or references to sources. The source is the book, record, etc. The citation is the set of words used to refer to it.

Comments

The question is a rhetorical one. The issues that matter are in sub-text to the question per se.

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I wasn't sure. But when I see a softball question, I hit it.