Some Help with Old Documentation Terms

Most of these appreviations are old-fashioned and students seldom have to use them in their own writing, but you should be able to interpret them if you do any research into older secondary sources. Take a look at some of these examples of footnotes and then check out the explanations at the end.

Typical MLA Footnotes, circa 1972:

1       James J. Graham, The Enemies of the Poor (New York:
            Random, 1959), p. 373.

2       Ibid., p. 377.

3       Geoffrey Hartstock, "The Feminist Standpoint," p. 23 cited by
             Michael P. Jaggar, Plutarch's Nose (New York:
             Atheneum, 1955), p. 376.

4       Ibid., p. 376.

5       Graham, p. 372.

6       Ibid.

7       Ibid., p. 375.

8       See also Lincoln Tavris, God is Good (New York:
            Peebles, 1969), pp. 63, 88-89.  Numerous studies by J. 
            Arrow, Peace (New York: Bloustein, 1967); 
            Sheridan Blau, Bergman on the Supernatural (New
            York: Harpers, 1956).

9       Graham, p. 346.

10      See Tavris, esp. pp. 38-45 for a discussion of sexual mores and sex
             roles in the Mediterranean world during the period.

11      See Arrow, p. 208. It should be noted that neither Posner nor
             Kraemer is sympathetic to Christianity.  Thus Arrow writes:

              Those preoccupied with Christianity might do well . . . [etc.]


Typical MLA footnotes, circa 1945:

1       G. Hutton, We Too Can Prosper (1953), p. 8.

2       Ibid., pp. 61-62.

3       See, for example, J. R. Parkinson, The Economics of
             Shipbuilding in the United Kingdom (Cambridge, 1960), 
             p. 165; material in the British Productivity Council, A
             Review of Productivity in the Printing Industry (1950), 
             D.P. Wilson, Dockers (1972), p. 215.

4       Walter D. Binger, What Engineers Do (New York,
             1938), p. 63.

5       Ibid.

6       Hutton, loc. cit.

7       Parkinson, op. cit., p. 162.



Footnotes included with a Works Cited page:

1      See Jones, p. 4.

2      H. Jones and Marks would disagree.  See Brown, pp. 56-78; also see
           Schmitz, p. 5ff.



Typical Abbreviations:

cf.           compare
f., ff.       and the following page or pages
n.d.          no date given
n.p.          no place given
n.pag.        no pagination given


Older Terms:

ibid.       in the same place
loc. cit.   in the place cited before
op. cit.    in the work cited

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