Well, never mind that then. Thanks Jerry.
Well, it would be better to find something that said “The constituation doesn’t use the word ‘choice’” and cite that, instead. Is that an option?
Why would I do that?
Well, here’s my thing. You really can’t cite the constitution as not containing something, to my knowledge. It’s a strange concept, and unless you went through the entire constitution and confirmed that it does not contain that word, you don’t have right to claim that information. You really need a statement from a third party to back up your claim.
Believe it or not, I did read the whole thing (I had to for class). I just want to cite the whole thing and I can’t figure out how.
Well, then here’s your situation:
You have discovered that the constitution does not contain the word “choice.” This is your own information. I don’t think you have to cite it at all. The problem with this is that your teacher may not like that, and it’s not as convincing as it would be coming from a third party.
If it were me, I would try to find that mentioned somewhere (do you have some databases you can search?), and if I couldn’t find it, I wouldn’t cite it at all. This is because you’re obligated in the sentence to say, “this is not included in the US Constitution,” so you don’t have to cite the Constitution parenthetically, anyway.
You can just cite the US Constitution, or if you can find a published version (I know the Cato Institute has published one), cite that. Getting every citation exactly correct is much less important than getting your argument correct.
Well, I just quickly re-read the entire Constitution myself just to be sure, and I found the word “choice” eight times.
(Actually, I copied from a website, pasted into a Word document and ran a “find” on “choice.” It took about five minutes, start to finish.)
Best wishes,
Jerry
Dang.
P.S. How are you?
You should post more often.
Hi, Friend (capitalized as fits the usage).
Just fine, thanks. Nice of you to ask. Things are going quite well these days. Normal ups and downs, of course, but the overall trajectory is definitely up, and I’m feeling more optimistic about life than I have in quite a long time.
And you?
Best wishes,
Jerry
Oops, I forgot to comment about posting more often. Perhaps I should.
Sorry about that.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Exactly the same. I got a dulcimer today, which is pleasant. See:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=39068
Oh, I did see.
Thanks for reminding me (it was a long day). That made me smile, and now your reminder is making me smile again.
I don’t remember exactly what you said, but reading between the lines, I got a vague sense that you’re more or less favorable towards the new dulcimer.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Umm, just from the standpoint of an instructor-sort of person . . . I’d say that it wouldn’t be a very good idea to cite the US Constitution as not including the word “choice” if it did, in fact, say it eight times.
I agree with Congratulations that you cannot cite something as not saying something. You can only cite what it says.
That being said, I can say that even if it was possible to cite something as not saying something, seeing it cited that something didn’t say something would would require me to get out a copy and see if it said so myself. Which, in the midst of grading a bunch of papers, would really, really, really annoy me.
Noble causes are all well and good, but really, really, really annoyed instructors give worse grades than they do if they’re not aggravated.
Something to consider.