[Air-L] Citing from a Kindle

jeremy hunsinger jhuns at vt.edu
Tue Jan 4 07:01:03 PST 2011


direct quotes are less of a worry than providing reference, I'd think.  One can search for a direct quote and usually find it.   However, if someone is referencing an idea, we really do need the exact page or location of the item in question.   My solution is simple, go to the library and find the page number.   That to me is just doing 'due diligence' as an author citing another's work.  I work primarily with e-books, usually in pdf format with page numbers, but when it is missing... I go to the library and look up the page number.   Sometimes i can also find it in google books or amazon books.   In short, that you have a gadget that transforms the text... that doesn't mean you should be using that gadget's lack of provision/affordance to not provide page numbers as justification for providing less useful/common information, as the reason for providing the citation is not for your use, but for the rest of the world who does not necessarily use the gadget that you have.    

For instance, I have transformed around 100 books into fragments and reconstructions for my own use, i keep them in slipbox.   They are still the 'books', but they are in a format that I use.   Should i be able to say... oh you should all use slipbox, it is slip 1754 in stack 5, downloadable here.   .... I'm guessing not.  Even if slipbox had a standard methodology and was used by 500k people, it isn't about those people, it is about the readers. So, please look up the page numbers if you can.  

granted, that in some scholarly topics there are unique citation traditions, such as in plato, aristotle, kant, etc. and one should stick with the tradition which is most commonly used centrally to the tradition, i'd guess.   


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