Sunday, April 08, 2007

 

Works Cited vs Bibliography

The idea is this: There are works that we quote in life, and there are those that we don't quote or paraphrase directly, but upon whose ideas we draw directly. This spans Christians who quote from the Bible and the pop culture enthusiasts among us who quote from comedians. Also helps to shed some light upon those among us who can't get lines of songs from our heads, or those of us who really like to fall back upon Calvin & Hobbes or different years of Seinfeld or Northern Exposure.

The works cited covers those works to which we can refer directly, either for purpose of paraphrase or quoting directly. The bibliography covers those that we don't quote or paraphrase directly, but which provide excellent background reading to explain our thoughts or actions in a particular circumstance or over a span of time.

An example would be the first Batman movies. "This darkened alley in this decaying city makes me feel weird and kind of arty," one might say, and one might then call to mind the various Batman movies directed by Tim Burton. Think of a footnote, as in, See Tim Burton, Dir., "Batman," MGM films (or whatever), 1990-1992.

That would be something for a bibliography.

If for example you were later to comment to a friend that she really didn't weigh 108 pounds, or whatever it was that Kim B. said she weighed when Batman asked her before lifting her far above the street before the bad dudes showed up, well, if you didn't get your face slapped for saying such a tasteless thing, then that'd be a direct quote from another work, and therefore would enter into the works cited. Get it?

Further examples of works cited entries:

Whereas bibliography entries would just be helpful to understand the general context of things. Basically if there isn't a specific passage or specific words to cite, then it's a bibliography thing. If we were talking about silly picture captions, then I may generally refer you to The San Francisco Chronicle. If the situation in which we found ourselves were rife with windowless rooms in which the only thing clear to us were our persecution and we knew nothing of the charges, then we may refer generally to the works of Kafka.


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