Query: citing Google Scholar

[intertext]

I need the help of the wisdom of the flist! It's so long since I did any serious academic work (well, two and a half years, but a lot can change in that time...). I have an article that I found on Google Scholar, and GS links directly to a pdf file that you download, not to a website, so I assume that I cite it as I would any other online fulltext database, like EBSCO?? Is this a correct assumption?? Are people actually putting "accessed Google Scholar" and then whatever date?

Comments

[forthright.livejournal.com]

If I am able to download a PDF from a journal article, I don't even cite the database at all. I find 'accessed from EBSCO on X date' followed by a URL to be about as pointless as adding 'went to the library and looked at it' to the end of regular citations.

[intertext.livejournal.com]

:-) Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I can move away from the anal-retentiveness of the college composition instructor...

thanks

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

Electronic resource citation styles vary greatly, but as you are not a student wanting to show the teacher that you deserve brownie points for using a database as opposed to Wikipedia, I don't see any problem with putting the url and date accessed. The important thing with citations is to enable someone else to find the same information that you found, not necessarily your entire research path. This is why citations that refer to a newspaper title and year (no complete date, let alone a page number) madden me so much. Which you didn't need to know, but I felt like sharing. :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Depends on your style manual, but generally I would cite the original source (oops, I'm being unclear: by "original source" I mean the original journal) and then just put the access date and place you retrieved it from. But to people wanting to follow up on your references, more important will be the original journal, etc., than how you got hold of it (they may use a different database or may go for the actual print journal, who knows?)

[intertext.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I think the .pdf that links from Google is in fact from an online journal - I may see if it's still there and then I can provide the URL. Another similar example I have, however, does not exist except in a "cache" from Google scholar, so I guess then, that's what I'll need to cite. The style guide from the journal that sponsors the conference is MLA, which I'm familiar with but tends to be a bit on the side of over- rather than under - citing.