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CCS 117 : Coming Out! The Gay Liberation Movement

Following the Bibliographic Trail

For the Reframing Pride assignment your professor has asked you to "follow the bibliographic trail" in order to conduct your research. This means that you will be performing something called bibliographic research. This means that you will identify resources that you wish to use in your assignment from the bibliography of a previously published article. For this assignment, you will use Armstrong & Crage article and online supplement. For full details on the assignment please see your Canvas page. 

Making sense of citations

Citations are key to participating in the scholarly community; they provide all of the information you need to find out more about a given source.

While citations can be formatted in a variety of styles (most often MLA, APA, or Chicago depending on the discipline) they contain common elements that you can recognize and use to determine if the citation is for a book, book chapter, journal article, newspaper article, or other source. Understanding what kind of item the citation is for can help you understand how and where to find it in the library catalog or database. 

Typical elements of a citation include:

  • The author or authors name or names
  • The title of the work
  • The date of publication 
  • The name of the publication where it was published (if it is an article)
  • The volume and/or issue number (for journals)
  • Page numbers
  • Publisher name and location (for books) 

Below are some examples of citations in from the Armstrong & Crage article and some helpful tips for figuring out what the citation is for:

Book
Teal, Donn. 1971. The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in America, 1969-1971. New York: Stein & Day.
  • A clue for books is that the publisher's name and sometimes the location will always be included. 
  • Notice that the title of the book is indicated by italics. 
Book Chapter
Marcus, Eric. 1992. "Fearless Youth, Morty Manford," In Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990. New York: HarperCollins, pp. 199-202
  • Here, notice the publisher's name and location, as well as quotation marks around the chapter name and italics for the book's title.
  • The presence of all three of these elements will help you understand that this is a book chapter. 
Journal Article

Kissack, Terrence. 1995. "Freaking Fag Revolutionaries: New York's Gay Liberation Front, 1969-1971." Radical History Review 62:104-134.
  • A great clue for journal articles is the presence of an issue/volume number (62) toward the end of the citation.
  • Again, notice the quotation marks which usually indicate either a book chapter or article title. 
Newspaper Article 
New York Times. New York. June 29, 1969. "4 Policemen Hurt in ‘Village"’ Raid: Melee Near Sheridan Square Follows Action at Bar." p. 33
  • Newspapers may or may not include an author's name, but they will always include the title of the newspaper in italics and the location where it was published.
  • Newspaper citations often include the month, day, and year of publication. 
Primary Source

"The Lavender Menace Strikes." Come Out 1, no. 4 (June-July 1970): 14. Lavender Menace, May 2, 1970-June 27, 1974 and undated, MS Folder No.: 07510, Lesbian Herstory Archives: Subject Files: Part 4: International Women's Day-Peace Camps. Lesbian Herstory Archives. New York, NY. Archives of Sexuality and Gender. Accessed February 27, 2021. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/EGRVPL885359011/AHSI?u=taco25438&sid=AHSI&xid=3fcc71da&pg=3

  •  Includes the same basic information for the type of source being cited (e.g. a newspaper, a letter, etc.).

  • The last 3 [highlighted] elements in the list above refer to the document's physical location in a specific archive. 

  • If using a digital archive to locate primary sources, include the name of the database or repository, and a link to the source at the end of your citation. 

In-class Activity : Citation Jigsaw

Part I: With your partner(s) arrange the citation puzzle pieces you have in the correct order (in Chicago Style). Identify if the source is primary/secondary/tertiary. You can use the Chicago Manual of Style, linked below, for help. 


Part II: Using your prepared citations (from Armstrong & Crage), identify what each part of the citation is. Identify if the source is primary/secondary/tertiary.

Keep these questions in mind:

  • Note differences & similarities between your primary source citations and your partners
  • Note similarities & differences between your citations and the puzzle citations you put in order
  • Who is the author? Do they seem credible?
  • What kind of resource does this point to? A book? A chapter?
  • What kind of information do these citations tell you about the source?
  • Do some seem more authoritative than others? Why?
     

Finding Primary Sources

In addition to searching the library catalog (Primo) you may want to look up sources in these primary source databases as well:

Finding Secondary Sources

The best place to start for finding known secondary article is the library database (Primo).

  • Try searching by the article title, or journal.
  • You may have to do some digging to find what you're looking for.
  • Keep in mind that you may not be able to find what you are looking for in the library catalog because we do not have access to it.
  • For the purposes of this assignment, move onto another source. In the future if you are looking for an article but cannot find it, you should contact a librarian for assistance. 

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