can I take notes off wikiversity books?

[billdotson]

So I am reading the Intro to Programming book on wikiversity.com and I am taking outline notes on it. Can I do this w/o having to state where it came from because wikiversity is open source.. or do I have to say it is from the wikiversity book?

[Mateo]

? are you publishing the notes?

[H.E. Pennypacker]

So I am reading the Intro to Programming book on wikiversity.com and I am taking outline notes on it. Can I do this w/o having to state where it came from because wikiversity is open source.. or do I have to say it is from the wikiversity book?

You must cite everything that is not overly common knowledge (e.g. the fact that the United States was attacked on 9/11 does not need to be cited - everyone already knows).

[billdotson]

no I am not going to publish these at all. They are simply for my own learning. So if I have to reference them even if I am not publishing them how do I go about referencing them? Do I just put the URL of the article/book or do I have to put that and then have the references on the wikipedia site under that?

It really doesn't make much sense that I need to reference if I am not using them for anything other than to have on my own PC for personal learning use.

[red_Marvin]

If you're not going to publish them you don't need to cite your references, but it might perhaps be a good idea to do so anyway, since a year from now you might want the bigger context of your notes.

[billdotson]

so in order to cite them I put the URL of the wiki article/book or the URL of the wiki article/book and it's references (as wikipedia and related projects require documentation or else it cannot be considered entirely accurate)?

thanks

[H.E. Pennypacker]

so in order to cite them I put the URL of the wiki article/book or the URL of the wiki article/book and it's references (as wikipedia and related projects require documentation or else it cannot be considered entirely accurate)?

thanks

Well, since you're not doing this for education or scholarly purposes, you don't need to cite anything, but if you want to keep track of your references, you can do so. How you cite your sources depends on which format you want or need to use. Many schools use MLA. This only applies if you live in the United States. The Internet has many resources dedicated to MLA formats.

[billdotson]

MLA? I never paid attention in those stupid english classes about that stuff is that where you have something like this: (Work_Used, Author, page#)

??


English classes are stupid :mad:

[Xzallion]

MLA? I never paid attention in those stupid english classes about that stuff is that where you have something like this: (Work_Used, Author, page#)

??


English classes are stupid :mad:

I suggest for your own benefit you pay more attention to those "stupid english classes." Since you are so interested in learning you will eventually want to write about stuff you became knowledgable about, and will need to cite you sources in a standardized way. MLA, APA, and Chicago are the styles I would suggest learning.

But for your own notes, I would reccomend just citing the URL and article title.

[billdotson]

I really do now plan on writing on anything I am going to learn.. I am just using these notes to help me learn how to program.

Is MLA format like this: (Author/Work, page#, paragraph)

[daynah]

Purr... Chicago.

Billdotson, no style format is ever that simple. I suggest you go down to your nearest college bookstore and go to the section for english books and look for a book like this...

Should be Spiral Bound, should have Tabbed Sections, should cover at LEAST MLA and APA style formats. If you're majoring in any sciences, then it should also have CSE. By the way, the abbreviation for Chicago style is "CMS", so if it says that on the style, you know you have one of the most beloved style formats ever (based on MLA).

The book I use is by John Ruszkiewicz (and two other people), called SF Writer, and it's the Third Edition. Used or new, doesn't matter, formats don't change that much. This particular book will also answer the question you askedin this thread which is...

No, you don't have to cite your personal notes.

I also suggest you find a used bookstore and find some books on "how to write in ____ discipline" because writing in each discipline is very different. I'm a pretty good good non-fiction writer, I think. But ask me to write some legal papers and I think I'd just sit there and rant and rave about the bad sentence structures law makers use. I wanna be a biopsychologist, so I have a few books on how to write in science, how to write in biology, and how to write in psychology, all around $2 each, but worth their weight in gold.