Documentation

Documentation provides the reader with information about a writer's sources in a smooth and unobtrusive manner. Prevailing systems of documentation are based on a two-part system of providing the reader with information in the body of a work, and then again at the end of the work. Thus, it could be said that documentation occurs in two parts--during one's reading, and then again at the end. Documentation within a work should be unobtrusive, so as not to prevent the flow of the writer's ideas; at the same time, such documentation should supply enough information so that an interested reader can find the source of the documentation in the "References" or "Works Cited" section at the end of the body.

Documentation has the following characteristics relating to rules of convention: "presentation of authors' names; indentation; punctuation; presentation of dates of publication; use of italics, capitals, and quotation marks; and use of abbreviations" (Giltrow, Study Guide, 39). The functions of documentation are the following: (1) to credit another author; (2) to give credibility to one's own views; and (3) to provide a sort of bibliography so that an interested reader can follow-up on some topic by locating the entire source of a relevant citation.

In the course of the following inquiry, seven cases of documentation will be examined with regard to documentation. Conventions of punctuation, indentation, presentation of dates, and other characteristics of documentation wil

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