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HONR 211: World of Fairy Tales

History, Reference, and Primary Sources

Citing Your Primary Sources

Works Cited Page

While you will often see Chicago style citations in discipline of Museum Studies, for this class you will be using MLA.

The Nine Core Elements of MLA are:

  1. Author(s).
  2. Title of Source.
  3. Title of Container,
  4. Contributor,
  5. Version,
  6. Number,
  7. Publisher,
  8. Publication Date,
  9. Location.

Adapted from MLA Style Center.

Citing Art/Sculpture/Photographs

To cite artwork including sculptures and figures you will want to include the following parts of a citation:

  1. Author (Artist Name)
  2. Title of Artwork in italics
  3. Date of composition
  4. Name of the institution housing the artwork
  5. Location of Institution (unless the location is in the institution name, for example, The Art Institute of Chicago)

Dalí, Salvador. King Solomon. 1975, Nasher Museum, Durham.

If your source is found on a website, you would add the URL and change the comma after the date to a period (the date refers to the date of creation and not the date the art was published on the website).

Dalí, Salvador. King Solomon. 1975. Nasher Museum, Durham. https://nasher.duke.edu/artwork/10097/

Usually, in MLA, the medium and/or materials (for example, oil on canvas) isn't used in a citation, nor are the dimensions if known. However, this can be really important information especially for a digital exhibit. If you know the medium/materials you may include it at the end of the citation (or in the caption of a Figure in your text); if important the size/dimensions should be included as part of the Figure caption (see Illustrations in Text).

Dalí, Salvador. King Solomon. 1975, Nasher Museum, Durham. Drypoint etching on paper with stencil. https://nasher.duke.edu/artwork/10097/

Adapted from Purdue OWL.

Citing Objects

Depending on what you have found in the Nabb Center you may be citing objects with unknown creators, unknown titles, and unknown dates of creation. To cite objects, you'll want to include the following parts of the citation if known:

  1. Author(s).
  2. Title.
  3. Date.
  4. Title of container (the collection title)
  5. Location (collection number or identifier, Box number, Folder number. Name of repository, Location of repository)
  6. URL (for digital collections)

Example:

Marias, Therese. Correspondence from Janet Gilson. Date unknown. Therese Marias letters. SC2013.096, Folder 1. Edward H. Nabb Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland.

Often there may not be an author or title, in which case you would use a description of the object as a title and skip the author entirely. If there is an approximate date use that date with a question mark at the end, for example "1910?".

Example:

French servicemen's cap. Date unknown. Serrell family collection. SC2018.041. Edward H. Nabb Center for Delmarva History and Culture, Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland.

Adapted from CSUDH.

Illustrations in Text

Your museum catalog will include the images you chose for your exhibit. In MLA you should provide a figure number (Fig. 1) with a caption that includes source information under the figure. While the figure itself should be noted with an uppercase F, when referring to the figure in the rest of your text you should use a lower case f.

When including a brief source of information you will use a comma between each element, artist, title, year, etc. For example, "Fig. 1: Salvador Dalí, King Solomon, 1975, etching on paper, 65.7 x 50.2 cm." and then include the full source information on your works cited page.

You may decide to include the full source information within your caption, if so you need not include it on the works cited page but the caption needs to follow the same formatting as it would show on the works cited page with the exception of the artist which would appear with first name followed by last name. For example, "Fig. 1: Salvador Dalí, King Solomon, 1975, Nasher Museum, Durham, etching on paper." If providing the full citation in the caption, information about the size/dimensions would be omitted.

Adapted from Purdue OWL.