citation of sources

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES,

  At a recent meeting in Mexico, a young investigator reported a set of
analyses based on Spanish child language data from CHILDES, including
citation of specific error forms such as "he comido" for "comí"  without
citing the proper sources or even the fact that the data came from CHILDES.
One of the people present at this meeting recently called this to my
attention and I promised that I would again remind researchers that all uses
of CHILDES data, whether oral or written, should include proper citation of
the individuals who have contributed these corpora.  It is also incumbent on
senior researchers to communicate these rules to their students and junior
colleagues.  In most cases, this can best be done personally, since younger
people may not yet be aware of the rules.  Many thanks for your help on
this.

--Brian MacWhinney