Exercise 12: A Book (in many volumes)
Citing a multi-volume work can prove difficult. A reference to a work in several volumes published over a series of years should give the following information:
- The number of volumes (which should be given in the form 2 vols, 3 vols, etc.; and which should immediately precede the bracketed publication details)
- The inclusive dates of publication (so where you usually only cite one year of publication, for multi-volume works published over several years you should give the years of publication of the first and of the last volumes)
- The number and date of the volume specifically referred to in your work (the volume number should follow the bracketed publication details and be preceded by a comma. It should be given in small roman capitals and should be followed by the year of publication in brackets). Note that page numbers immediately following a volume number do not use 'p.' or 'pp.' .
Here's an example. I am referring to material on pages 58 to 62 of the third volume of this five-volume work:
A. H. Johnson, The History of the Worshipful Company of Drapers of London, 5 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914-22), iii (1922), 58-62.
Note: Where all the volumes of a work were published in the same year, you only give one date of publication and you do not need to provide the date of the volume you are citing.
Exercise
For this exercise, imagine you wanted to cite page 72 of this book. Don't worry about trying to produce small caps: simply use capital roman numerals for the volume number.
Tip 1: You will find all the information you need to produce your footnote on the title page and its reverse. Tip 2: Be particularly careful about how you give the publisher's name.
Correct footnote:
Your footnote above should look like this:Philip Ward, *A Dictionary of Common Fallacies*, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Cambridge: Oleander Press, 1980), I, 72.In your own work, the same footnote would look like this (note the small caps):
Philip Ward, A Dictionary of Common Fallacies, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Cambridge: Oleander Press, 1980), i, 72.
Comment:
There were several parts to perfecting this footnote reference:
- Recording the volume details. This was relatively straightforward as the volumes were published in the same year and the title-page's reverse reveals the number of volumes in the work.
- Recording the edition information. As we are citing the revised second edition, we give the year '1980' not '1978'.
- Recording the publishers' details. Remember that we omit an initial 'The' when giving the names of presses.
Note: If you are citing a work in several volumes which is incomplete and still in the process of publication, the date of the first volume should be stated, followed by a dash. For instance:
The Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, ed. by Nadine Akkerman, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011-), ii (2011).
Or
The Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, ed. by Gary A. Stringer, 8 vols (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1955-), viii (1995).
