Hi all,

I am a grad student in history writing up my dissertation at the moment. Being generally rather insecure about my writing, I have recently noted a problem that makes me particular anxious.

At times, after writing up a chapter, I will come across a book or article that states a similar historical fact/analysis that I also mention/discuss in my chapter using my own primary sources. I am explicitly not talking here about the main argument that book or article makes. If there is an overlap in terms of our main arguments, I then would normally of course add an additional sentence/footnote in my chapter. What I am rather talking about are basic statements about historical events/facts that are made in other scholarship, often just in passing. In those cases, I then get very anxious about whether or not I should add a footnote saying: "on this, also see" or something similar or whether I should just leave it.

The Turiabian (7.9.3) states:

Readers don't expect you to find every distant source for every familiar idea, but they do expect you to cite the source for an idea when (1) the idea is associated with a specific person and (2) it's new enough not to be part of a field's common

It also notes that "cite a source for an idea not your own whenever an informed reader might think that you're implying that it is your own. Though that seems black and white, it has a big gray area in the middle."

For me, the first quote from the Turabian does set quite a high bar for citation and most of the other scholarship that gets me anxious would not fall under this category. At the same time, given that there is this "big gray area," I often still find it difficult to decide.

Just recently, I came across a non-English language work that has one sentence that broadly states something that I also discuss in one of my chapters. The author actually just seems to state it as a matter of fact, as she does not provide any sources for the assertions. This could indicate that she either did sloppy work or, more likely, thinks this is a sentence that is common knowledge and needs no sourcing. That would suggest that I also do not need to add a citation to her. However, it still makes me anxious as there is no iron-clad rule about this and I am afraid that someone might accuse me of not acknowledging the scholarship of others.

I realize that some might just suggest to always just cite in case of doubt. But not only do I think that I already cite more than most of my colleagues and citing even more often will just clutter up my footnotes, but I also think that once I need to revise the dissertation for publication, presses might not be too happy with such long footnotes. Then again, if I do not cite I am always afraid that someone might accuse me of not citing this or that scholar.

I also do understand that this all is just a matter of experience and that I will get more confident about these judgements as time goes by. Moreover, my adviser so far seems to be happy with how much I cite. However, atm I find myself so anxious about this that I am not enjoying reading the work of others as much as before, as there is always the fear to come across a sentence on a historical event here or there that might be similar to something I discuss in my writing, as that then leads to anxiety as to how to deal with it again. So I am wondering how other historians deal with this problem and what I could possibly do about it.