Re: Target: Citing Information?

[Joni Rathbun <jrathbun@OREDNET.ORG>]

> On Tuesday, July 8, 2003, at 03:28 PM, Nancy O'Donnell wrote:
>
> > I am working with several LMS on a plagiarism information brochure for
> > teachers in our district. At our last meeting one of the LMS stated
> > that an English teacher told her that information that is "common
> > knowledge" does not have to be cited, either in a bibliography or with
> > an in-text citation. The English teacher used the example of Abraham's
> > birthday being on Feb 12th. The teacher stated that because this
> > information can be located in five general encyclopedias, it does not
> > have to be cited. I think this is a poor example, because for middle
> > and high school students this would NOT be "common knowledge". This
> > generated quite a discussion. I believe that we are teaching the
> > entire research process and students need to cite all their work.
> > Also, teachers need to require students to cite their work. Has anyone
> > run across this "common knowledge" idea?

Yes. You'll find it in the MLA Guidelines as information that
recurs in five or more sources (and therefore does not need to be
cited). Lincoln's birthday would be common knowledge. The definition
of common knowledge is based on the nature of the information
itself. If you are preparing students for college
research, you may wish to teach them this bit about MLA. It's
not just something your English teacher made up.

http://www.cbc2.org/instruction/library/mla/Doctutorial2.htm





J. Rathbun, Librarian                  | "You may say I'm a dreamer,
Mojave High School                     |  but I'm not the only one..."
Clark County School District           |
Las Vegas, Nevada                      |            John Lennon
Email: jrathbun@orednet.org            |

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