Evidence Explained

Are you considering the purchase of Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources From Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills? The author explains in the book how-to cite-your-source in 885 pages. You should think even an oddball source is covered and explained. The author does provide explanation, and gives examples often with variants and too derivative source citations. She notes the source, an example of the first use citing the source and subsequent citations in your document. Let us agree it is a great reference book.

Here is what it may cost you:

• from Genealogy Publishing Co. it sells for $49.95 plus $6 for s/h.
• from Wholly Genes, it sells for $37.45 plus $11.20 for s/h (priority mail.)

or an electronic Adobe pdf-file:

• from Footnote, it sells for 24.95, no s/h, you must download it to your computer.

It isn't available at Amazon.com and may not come out as a deal. Correction: Amazon.com is selling the book for $49.95 with free s/h. [see comments.]

It may come down to how you do your work.

I don't plan to carry around another 5 to 10 pounds of book. Most people however collect there information with basic resource information in the field and enter the information into their collection at home. Then again, some source are a more complicated than others to document and having a field copy would be a true resource, or you may be on a trip to the country (or another country) collecting information and will be away from home for sometime.

Another consideration is how do you use a reference book. You look up a topic and find a paragraph or a chapter on it. How much reading off a laptop will you tolerate?

There is the price the electronic version to consider. It is about half the cost, but there is no tangible paper copy. If you plan to print out your electronic version, please do your economics.

Please share your comments. Did I miss something? Somebody with the book weight it for us.