Contemporary China (CEAS 500 / EALC 590): Primary Sources/Citation

I. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period.  A primary source reflects the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. 

• Literary and cinematic works including short stories, novellas, novels, poems, feature films, documentaries and so on.
• Diaries, journals, speeches, interviews, letters, memos, manuscripts and other papers in which individuals describe events in which they were participants or observers.
• Memoirs and autobiographies. These may be less reliable than diaries or letters since they are usually written long after events occurred and may be distorted by bias, dimming memory or the revised perspective that may come with hindsight. 
• Original records or document collected by government agencies: births, deaths, marriages; permits and licenses issued; census data, etc.
• Records of organizations.   The minutes, reports, correspondence, etc. of an organization or agency serve as an ongoing record of the activity and thinking of that organization or agency.
• Published materials (books, magazine and journal articles, newspaper  articles) written at the time about a particular event.  The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis.
• Photographs, audio recordings and moving pictures or video recordings,  documenting an event.
• Research data,  field notes, data of scientific experiments, and
• Artifacts of all kinds:physical objects

II. Secondary Sources

Secondary sources provide interpretation and analysis of primary sources.

• Literature and book reviews
• works of criticism and interpretation of the original  

Research Guides: Primary and secondary sources (Ithaca College Library)

Primary, secondary and tertiary sources (PDF file by Jana Krentz)

Learn the difference between primary and secondary sources. (by Hartness Library CCV/Vermont Tech)

From a references list or "works cited" list, we can see if a student have used primary sources, the subject scope of his research finds,  the type of resrouces used (book, journal/periodical, multi-media, website, etc.) and if the student has the ability attends to details. I usually look the references/works cited page first.

• a list of sources (books, journals, websites, periodicals, etc.) one has used for researching a topic.
• can also be called "references" 參考書目, 參考文獻 or "works cited" 引用文獻 depending on the style format one uses.
• usually includes the bibliographic information (i.e., the author, title, publishing place, publisher, year, etc.).

Each individual bibliographic entry is called a citation.

EndNote is a citation management software tool that helps user to collect, store, manage, and generate bibliographic citations. The program works with Microsoft Word Documents.

Import Citations -- Use EndNote connection files and filters
Manage EndNote Library -- Create, store, edit, sort, and searc references
Generat Bibliographies -- Insert and format citations (while writing a paper) and create bibliographies

Download
http://technology.ku.edu/software/endnote/#download
Your download should begin automatically within a few seconds. If not, you can download the program directly by clicking the above link. If you experience difficulties during the download or installation of EndNote, please contact the IT Customer Service Center (itcsc@ku.edu, 864-8080)

View the EndNote X3 Basics online tutorial

EndNote Web

View EndNote Web Basics online tutorial

An open source tool use with the FireFox browser. It  captures and saves web pages and web citations easily, in addition to edit and sort stored information. Lacks the storage capabilities of Refworks and Endnote. [collect, organize, cite, sync, collaborate]

• Give credit to the author/creator of an idea or creative work

• Provide the source (book, journal article, website of a published or unpublished item) with the author, title, publisher and place of publication, URL, and date

• Direct the reader to the original work consulted

EasyBib: the bibliography maker.

There are several styles in which the sources of an assignment should be cited. The most popular of these styles are MLA, APA, Chicago etc. All these styles have their own set of guidelines.  If your professor has not assigned a particular style, you can choose one and use it consistently.  

11.109 Titles of Japanese and Chinese works:

"As in English, titles of books and periodicals are italicized, and titles of articles are set in roman and enclosed in quotation marks (see 8.154–95). The first word of a romanized title is always capitalized, as are many proper nouns (especially in Japanese).

Chen Shiqi, Mingdai guan shougongye de yanjiu [Studies on government-operated handicrafts during the Ming dynasty], . . .