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I want to cite the article on pages 29 - 30 from this journal: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/86583#page/7/mode/1up

The cover of the journal is: enter image description here So I created a bib-entry and have this: enter image description here But if I download the citation from the website https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/39008, I get: enter image description here

So actually I would say that I can rely on these notes, but the author "Niels Bohr" is not named in the journal. Is my attempt wrong?

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  • 27
    Generally, trust your eyes over an automated citation generator. They're a convenience, not a truthtelling oracle.
    – Anyon
    Commented Mar 3 at 16:15
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    Lose the biodiversity site. Why would you use anything other that the original publ8cation?
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Mar 3 at 19:27
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    @lereu - that has nothing to do with how yu cite it.
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Mar 3 at 22:02
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    You don't need to cite where you got the article. You need to cite the article. Proceedings articles are articles, not books.
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Mar 3 at 22:06
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    Proper citation in MLA, from Google scholar: Pocklington, Henry C. "The determination of the prime or composite nature of large numbers by Fermat's theorem." Proc. Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1914 18 (1914): 29-30.
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Mar 3 at 22:09

3 Answers 3

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The proper citation in MLA format is

Pocklington, Henry C. "The determination of the prime or composite nature of large numbers by Fermat's theorem." Proc. Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1914 18 (1): 29-30.

Proc. Cambridge Philosophical Society is a journal, not a book, so the style you've chosen is incorrect.

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  • I used @article in my bib-file.
    – Lereu
    Commented Mar 3 at 22:35
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    @lereu. Sorry. The style bibtex or biber chose is incorrect, as "In:" suggests a book.
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Mar 3 at 22:45
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    The one in this answer is correct.
    – Scott Seidman
    Commented Mar 3 at 22:47
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    My guess is that the OP uses biblatex. For some reason, its default style uses 'In:" for journal articles as well.
    – jnanin
    Commented Mar 4 at 13:55
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    There's nothing wrong with in, at least not semantically. You are citing a specific article which appeared in this issue of this journal. Sure, a book chapter is in a book, but an article is also in an issue. Yes, the in can be elided, but I don't see why it would be wrong, as such. Not in accordance with MLA, possibly.
    – terdon
    Commented Mar 4 at 16:25
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The point of a citation is to make it possible for the reader to find the cited reference. The first one does just that.

Your paper is about mathematics. I wonder why your citation has a biodiversity URL. I would search for a better one. Wikipedia offers https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofcam1718191316camb/page/28/mode/2up with the full text.

My guess would be that the physicist Neils Bohr appears in the second citation because he was one of the editors of these Proceedings, which cover many sciences.

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  • I worry that my surveyor say "citation wrong". And thank you for the hint, but does it matter from where the journal comes? The journal in your link is the same (and I try to avoid archive links).
    – Lereu
    Commented Mar 3 at 16:01
  • The text of the citation tells the reader everything: Author, title, journal, pages. The URL is a bonus feature. Why not offer a link to the full text? You cold avoid the archive by finding the actual page at biodiversitylibrary.org/item/108208#page/12/mode/1up . I might provide both URLs. I don't know who or what your "surveyor" is.
    – Ethan Bolker
    Commented Mar 3 at 16:10
  • Surveyors are two profs in univerity that will review my thesis
    – Lereu
    Commented Mar 3 at 16:33
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    Your surveyors will be just fine with the first citation, with any URL(s).
    – Ethan Bolker
    Commented Mar 3 at 16:35
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The second bib-entry is clearly borked in several ways. Ignore it.

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    Strongly borked. It seems to be about a different paper: different year of publication, different page numbers, and different author(s).
    – Andreas Blass
    Commented Mar 3 at 20:01
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    This isn't really an answer. If you point out how it's "borked", perhaps, but as it stands it is a comment. And not a very informative one, really. I mean, you're not wrong, but you don't tell anyone why you're right.
    – terdon
    Commented Mar 4 at 16:23
  • If @terdon's comment makes you want to include more details, you're welcome to use those in my first comment.
    – Andreas Blass
    Commented Mar 5 at 0:54

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