Referencing Plato: The Republic

dambarude · 22-10-2010 08:38PM #1

This is my first visit to the philosophy forum, and I come bearing a question.

How should Plato's Republic be referenced in Harvard style? I have a 1955 Penguin Books edition, translated by H.D.P. Lee, printed in London. I don't know whether I should be referencing Plato in the body of my essay, and if I do, what year should I use?

22-10-2010 09:32PM

Harvard style link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13299644/Harvard-Citation-Style You reference Plato, not the translator in the text. In the references you also cite the translator in addition to Plato. The year of your publication is 1955 and should be used for both within text citations and in the references.

Within text citations:

When making reference to an author’s work in your text, their name is followed by the year of publication of their work:

This view has been supported in the work of Plato (1955).

Or when directly quoting:

Plato (1955, p. 65) stated that "..."

References:

Cite as you would any other book. Add "Trans."—the abbreviation for translated by—and follow with the name(s) of the translator(s).

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Vintage-Random House, 1988. Print.

dambarude · 22-10-2010 09:36PM

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Harvard style link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13299644/Harvard-Citation-Style

Thanks for that, but I know to do more run of the mill references. It's just that because there doesn't seem to be a certain date for when Plato wrote The Republic, and because it's a translated book, I wasn't exactly sure what should be included and how. I thought somebody in this forum would have referenced him at some stage!

22-10-2010 10:16PM

dambarude wrote: »

I thought somebody in this forum would have referenced him at some stage!

Fair enough. I have not written in Harvard style myself, but in APA, Chicago, and MLA styles, so I had to look Harvard style up.

dambarude · 22-10-2010 10:20PM

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Fair enough. I have not written in Harvard style myself, but in APA, Chicago, and MLA styles, so I had to look it up.

Thanks very much for your help Blue_Lagoon, I didn't expect anybody to go to such trouble!

So you're saying that I should reference the year the reproduction of Plato's work was printed, rather than year Plato actually wrote it? (ie sometime around c380 BCE)

22-10-2010 10:23PM

dambarude wrote: »

So you're saying that I should reference the year the reproduction of Plato's work was printed, rather than year Plato actually wrote it? (ie sometime around c380 BCE)

You should use 1955 for both in text citations and in your references at the end of your paper per Harvard style. In the references, Plato will be the author, whereas the translator will be included within the reference as in the example above.

Joe1919 · 23-10-2010 02:54PM

I hope I'm not confusing things but there was an older system of references used with Plato and explained below and still useful. (it is often shown on the margins of his work).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanus_pagination

23-10-2010 06:11PM

Joe1919 wrote: »

I hope I'm not confusing things but there was an older system of references used with Plato and explained below and still useful. (it is often shown on the margins of his work).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanus_pagination

This is very interesting, but the OP wanted to know how to specifically cite a 1955 publication in translation using Harvard style.

Permabear · 23-10-2010 08:18PM

This post has been deleted.

dambarude · 23-10-2010 08:25PM

Thank you all very much, I know what I'm doing now.

23-10-2010 08:40PM

dambarude wrote: »

Thank you all very much, I know what I'm doing now.

We are here to help each other on this forum, so I might call on you for help someday if that's OK? In the mean time, consider posting more to our forum.

dambarude · 23-10-2010 08:45PM

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

We are here to help each other on this forum, so I might call on you for help someday if that's OK? In the mean time, consider posting more to our forum.

That's OK. My experience and contact with philosophy is minimal (it's only a very small part of my course), but I'll be checking in here more often from now on. Very helpful posters round:cool:.

Joe1919 · 23-10-2010 11:02PM

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

This is very interesting, but the OP wanted to know how to specifically cite a 1955 publication in translation using Harvard style.

Some Harvard guides recommend referencing classical works such as the Koran, the Bible etc. as well as important documents such as constitutions, bill of rights etc by their original referencing style. e.g John 1:1, (Bible).

In the case of Plato, there is a tendency to reference the work in a similar manner, especially if the translation has these numbers on the margins.e.g. if quoting the story of the ring of gyges(359d) and showing the full details of the edition /translation in the Bibliography.
Other books and secondary sources are referenced in the normal style.

Anyhow it is an option and something that I think is preferable, especially with 'sacred' and classical texts.

Referencing Plato: The Republic

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