Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related MLA Citations for fanfic on the archive... plus another question

Okay... because I'm missing my handy writer's guide and just confusing and frustrating myself looking online... and because I have another related question so I might as well do it all at once...

I'm writing a term paper on Lois and Clark for my "Sociology of Utopia" class. (Yay!! )

Yes, article from a webpage works. How to reference them, here are two bits of information I found on a google search..

Websites:
include the title of the web page, the name of the entire web site, the organization that posted it (this may be the same as the name of the website). Also include the full date the page was created or last updated (day, month, year if available) and the date you looked at it.


Internet Magazine Articles:
Include the company that provides the database service and its home webpage; the full date of the article (day, month, year if available) and the date you looked at it; as well as the library or other organization (and its location) that provided you with access to the service. If you are citing a journal instead of a magazine, include the volume (and issue number) and date as shown under the Journal Style above.


I guess internet magazine articles does not apply here but just in case...

When I get back home I'll look up my MLA Handbook..

Hope this helps,
Ankit

Regarding your second question,

I'll let someone else answer this. But in my experience (of citing web resources),

If the website is not restricted (ie username / password protected); one follows the same guidelines as in borrowing a quote from a book, that is crediting the author as appropriate, in case of a page number website name, etc...

-Ankit.

Oh Sara I feel your pain LOL! Good luck with your paper! As for MLA, I'll try to look it up first thing in the morning if you haven't gotten or figured out the answer before then ... but if memory serves me you should be able to just basically list the name of the website, the URL, and the date you accessed it. It can be that simple I believe. For example:

Lois & Clark Archive. http://www.lcfanfic.com 28 April 2005.

Just going from memory here so that's probably not entirely accurate, but I know that some of the websites I've cited in the past have been that simple (due to lack of article, interview, etc. and all that other stuff they list) and my professors seemed to feel it was cited sufficiently. Sorry to be so vague, it's late and my finals week starts tomorrow so I'm fried LOL. Good luck and I hope I helped more than hurt!

Stories on the archive (or here) should be considered copyrighted material. They're original works,* and most authors actually put up copyright notices on their stories.

In general, that means you can't use them without permission, but we're talking about an academic citation. If you read something in a book by, say, H. G. Wells and wanted to quote it in your paper, you'd be able to do that so long as you properly credited him for his words and ideas.

Now, fanfic authors are a lot easier to contact than H. G. Wells, and you even know some of them personally. That shouldn't change the way the citation works. I'm sure authors would be flattered to know you chose their work for your paper, but going strictly by the guidelines, you don't need to contact them first.

As for the actual citation, I've checked out a couple of sites. Specifically, here and here.

From the second site:

Going by that, then, you'd want:

Kraft, Sara. "Wherever You Will Go." The Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive. Ed. Tricia Walpole. Nov. 2004. The Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive. 29 Apr. 2005. <http://www.lcfanfic.com/stories/2004/wherev.txt>.

(Note, BTW, that lines after the first are supposed to be indented. I just can't do that here because of the way the boards handle spaces.)

In the slot for Editor, you could use the EIC of the archive (Doctor Klein's LabRat), the GE of the story, or perhaps the BRs. The GE would probably be the closest to what's meant, but unfortunately, GEs aren't always credited. My inclination is to list the GE if credited, leave out the editor if not.

Similarly, the "sponsoring institution" can be listed as "Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive," "Lois and Clark Fanfic Archive Staff," "FoLCs," or just left blank. The archive is maintained on a volunteer basis by the archive staff. It's not sponsosred or run by any larger entity. In other words, in this case, the title of the page and the sponsoring institution are the same.

Hope this helps more than confuses. <g>

Paul

* Which happen to be based on another original work (the show) which happens to be based on copyrighted characters. This is okay in this case because we have the tacit approval of the copyright owners. That is, the fandom's been fairly prominent for more than a few years (they've obviously been aware that we're around and writing stories), and in that time, they've never told us to stop.

Thanks, guys!! Very helpful info!! And Paul, that was exactly what I was aiming for, so thanks!

Sara

Sara, Paul did it exactly right. The only change I would make in his example citation (the one that used your name) would be to remove the period before the URL. A period follows the date of upload given earlier in the citation, but there is no period between the date you accessed the site and the URL for the site.

The rules of copyright are the same for any published work; that is, there is a certain amount of latitude given for quotations for an academic work. They can be longer than would be allowable for any other purpose--but only if each quote or paraphrase is properly attributed in the body of the paper by author's name and title (e.g. In "For the Greater Good," Wendy Richards writes--followed by a comma if it is a short quote or a colon if it is a long one). Don't forget to cite your paraphrases, too. Unfortunately, you can't add that wonderful paraphrase-or-quote-ending parentheses with the page number in it since html articles aren't broken into "pages" the way a pdf document would be.