How to cite a blog in an academic paper : Respectful Insolence

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Orac is the nom de blog of a (not so) humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued here, along with a DISCLAIMER that you should read before reading any medical discussions here.)

Orac's old Blog is archived at Archived Insolence.

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How to cite a blog in an academic paper

Category: Blogging • Medicine • Science
Posted on: October 15, 2007 12:22 AM, by Orac

Yes indeed, if you ever want to cite any of the pearls of brilliance laid down on a regular basis here, you can. Heck, you can even cite comments on blogs!

So now you know.

Here's a sample citation.

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Comments

As my commenters were quick to point out, the suggested format is far from ideal.

Posted by: coturnix | October 15, 2007 12:42 AM

Yeah, I was one of those commenters. I still just can't believe how bad they are. It's like they had Ted Stevens helping.

Posted by: Mr. Gunn | October 15, 2007 2:09 AM

I actually came across an instance of this the other day. One of Michelle Dawson's papers quoted the MOM-NOS blog, as I recall.

Posted by: Joseph | October 15, 2007 3:42 PM

The proposed citation style seems to be trying to fit blog posts into a dead tree media procustrean bed. What is the relevance or meaning of Place and Publisher?

Posted by: Acad Ronin | October 15, 2007 4:39 PM

I've never understood why anyone still cites a place for books. That made sense 100 years ago when there was precisely one publishing house in precisely one big German city, but those times are over. Some publishers are at home in several cities on several continents at once. Citing a place adds zero information.

Posted by: David Marjanović | October 16, 2007 10:40 AM