The latest issue of the Tennessee Genealogical Society’s Ansearchin’ News features two more reviews of the new edition of Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Here are the highlights:
In the first review, archivist and genealogist Melissa Barker writes, “Mills has done an excellent job in this fourth edition. . . . Chapter 3 is a brand-new chapter for the fourth edition and is titled “Building Citations” and includes 14 templates that replace the previous 170 QuickCheck models in previous editions. . . . One of my favorite chapters is Chapter 4 titled “Archives and Artifacts” because I am an archivist . . . . Genealogists need to understand the hierarchy of archived collections, and Mills goes into detail about the layers that are found in archived collections and offers her expertise in composing a source citation. . . .Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Fourth Edition is a must have for any genealogist’s reference shelf. The quick references, thorough explanations and expertise given by Elizabeth Shown Mills are even more enhanced in this fourth edition. . . . I can highly recommend this new edition.
Reviewer Nancy Walczyk, who writes the second review and also teaches a class on source citation, writes, “As Elizabeth Shown Mills so clearly articulates in the first two chapters of this book, citations are about truly and deeply understanding the source; format and punctuation rules are not the purpose. The revisions to those two chapters in the new fourth edition make the point even easier for beginners to grasp. But I was most excited about Chapter 3, the new chapter titled “Building a Citation.” This chapter helps beginners understand the components of a citation by focusing on the Basic Seven Building Blocks . . . Creator, Title, Description, Place, Date/Year, Publisher, Specific Item. The fourteen templates each start with a table explaining how the Basic Seven Building Blocks apply to that type of source and provide examples. . . Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. Fourth Edition belongs on every beginner’s bookshelf.”
