Mac T Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Hey Everyone! I'm an amateur blacksmith and engineering student with an upcoming design assignment I'm working on. The assignment is to examine various options for a chosen engineering opportunity and make a recommendation (similar to an engineers recommendation), I've chosen to make mine related to forging. I really want to include information that I've gathered on this forum, and was wondering if any curmudgeons could provide guidance on how I can provide the appropriate attribution in my report. My professors have said they are flexible with citations (i.e. I don't have to follow a specific citation style, as long as the authors are receiving "appropriate credit"). My guess is that I can simply treat IForgeIron.com as a "research journal" of sorts, with each thread being an individual "paper," and all posters on that thread are "co-authors". I wanted to make sure that the people in charge of this site are okay with that, or if they would prefer some other way of providing attribution. I'm really sorry if this question has already been asked and answered: I did some searching through old threads and couldn't find any information. Finally, thank you to everyone on this forum! I've been lurking on here for a while; learning from you old-timers has given me a deep appreciation for this art. Happy Forging! Mac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Hi, Mac, and welcome aboard! I would suggest taking a look at the style guide for the APA (American Psychological Association), which is quite comprehensive: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/online-forum-references The MLA (Modern Language Association) guide is good, but doesn't cover usernames: https://style.mla.org/comment-in-online-forum/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Ouch; would the fact I don't use a user name mean I might get cited more? Perhaps I can change to Clinker of Doom, C.O.D! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Maybe if you spell clinker with a ST. Oh great, Stinker Of Doom! Has a nice ring to it, just rolls off the nostrils, doesn't it? This is an interesting question and I'm always willing to offer my thoughts, qualifications gleefully lacking. I don't know how citing all the contributors to a thread will work, some folk are just guessing often uneducated guesses. That and the way threads often go would make for a rabbit warren of sidetracks. Kind of a paper killer in my opinion. How are you going to handle thread subjects? Quote the OP then select pertinent responses drawing to a conclusion? It'd make citing contributors much easier, maybe just leave the web handle attached. You're welcome to quote me, if I had qualms I wouldn't be posting on public fora. I'm a fountain of positive and negative information and not at all ashamed to have my glaring mistakes held up for public examination and critique. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac T Posted September 29, 2020 Author Share Posted September 29, 2020 Thanks JHCC for the links (and the warm welcome), I can't believe I missed that! As for Frosty's questions: It looks like I'll just be citing contributors who's comments I actually draw information from. I get the argument that the OP deserves credit (in fact that was my initial assumption) but the style guide says nothing about it, so I'll just stick to what they say. Well, with that outta the way now all I have to do is write the actual paper! Mac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 Thank you for considering IForgeIron as a reference in your work. The site is set up in sections, and then individual questions (threads), which are then discussed. Those discussions can run for several posts, and can be picked up again at a later time (months or years) to add to the subject matter. The discussions can also go sideways or off subject to later return to the subject being discussed. Reference to IForgeIron, that section, and that question or thread is all that is needed. You may need to distill the information down to a much shorter version of an answer, with a note that distillation occurred, and where to locate the original discussion. There is no way to credit each poster by name for a discussion that can run several hundred posts long. We would like to have a reference to your design assignment when it is finalized. Thank you for requesting how to handle the reference back to the site. If you have additional questions, please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 You can cite a post and its comment thread as a bibliographic reference, while citing individual comments and/or posts for direct quotes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac T Posted September 29, 2020 Author Share Posted September 29, 2020 Hi Glenn Thanks for the response. I would be happy to privately share the finished report with you (with personal info redacted of course) but if at all possible I'd prefer not to post it publicly. Mac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 Please send me a copy as I would be interested in reading the material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 See, IFI is a peer reviewed document... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 Also a commoner reviewed document! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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