Citing and referencing sources in a memoir??

Educators do require citing and referencing sources (so they can check up on you and make sure you didn't make them up), but when it comes to a memoir, it's not a requirement. Especially in this day and age when you can google for primary source material easily. What I did in my memoir is every time I reference a primary source in the narrative, I make it clear where it can be found by googling.

If you were writing a non-fiction "history book", footnotes, endnotes, and a comprehensive list of sources would be part and parcel of your manuscript. However, a memoir gives you a certain amount of creative freedom, so that you can present material without having the citations interrupt the flow of the narrative.

However, it sounds as though you are presenting material that might be of interest to people who would want to do further research on the subject, so adding an afterword, bibliography, etc., as an aid to that further research is something your readers would probably appreciate.

This is something that your publisher and editor will most likely work with you on to ensure that your readers get the most out of their experience.

Sounds like an interesting story, btw.

Focus

"annie's ghosts" is a memoir replete with endnotes for references. Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear" is chock full o' footnotes, as is "next". I'm sure there are plenty more, but those might be helpful for guidance in how to construct your bibliography and notes.

philipmichael said:

. . . Can someone explain to this novice what the criteria and requirements are for citing or references sources?

Click to expand...

Others have already offered some fine comments.

My view, FWIW, is that your memoir might be well served by a bibligraphic essay following the body of the work, describing sources for pertinent topics in the memoir. I'd not advise burdening the reader with superscripts or cluttering pages with footnotes. However, it is entirely possible to tie endnotes to particular passages without the clutter of superscripts. That is done pretty often these days in nonfiction. A notes section in the back is keyed to page and phrase. (Library of America annotates its volumes in that fashion, by the way.)

You could insert notes as footnotes or endnotes in the manuscript (or, for that matter, as in-line bracketed insertions) and they could be fixed up to a less intrusive style by the editor/formatter.

--Ken