# How to write a bibliographic cite for multiple USGS topo maps

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-bibliographic-cite-for-multiple-usgs-topo-maps/939194>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 2, 2021, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-bibliographic-cite-for-multiple-usgs-topo-maps/939194 "2021-04-02T00:32:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-bibliographic-cite-for-multiple-usgs-topo-maps/939194/1 "2021-04-02T00:32:33Z")

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I’m finishing up writing a book and I’m doing my bibliography. I’ve come across something that I can not seem to find a way to write the source for. I am dealing with small cemeteries and sometimes they come up on the USGS topographical maps. Normally the 1:24,000 scale. I looked over 10-12 from the 1940s-present.

I have seen examples for one topo map, but not for multiple at a time. I’ve got a copy of Elisabeth Mills’ _Evidence Explained_, while it has how to do it for the single map, it doesn’t say how to do it for many of them. Since I probably looked at 30+ maps, I don’t want to do something for each one as many of them didn’t have anything useful.

I didn’t actually use any as cites, but I do want to say that they were looked at. Is there a good way to do this?

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**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2021, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-bibliographic-cite-for-multiple-usgs-topo-maps/939194/2 "2021-04-02T03:54:35Z")

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Without consulting any bibliographic style guide, I’d probably do something like:

United States Geological Survey. Topographic maps: various quadrangles, scales, years.

If they were _all_ the most modern 1:24,000 scale, you can put that or “7.5-minute series” in as the scale. But a few modern maps were 1:25,000, and the older ones were 1:62,500. If you want to be encouraging to modern readers, you could add “Available online at [topoView | USGS](https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/)”

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**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2021, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-bibliographic-cite-for-multiple-usgs-topo-maps/939194/3 "2021-04-07T06:02:45Z")

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The Bedford Handbook gives an example of a map cite:

Fred Zwicky; NIAMS; Arizona Board of Regents; Lynn Hunt et al.

Hope this is of use.

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**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\
**Post date:** [April 7, 2021, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-write-a-bibliographic-cite-for-multiple-usgs-topo-maps/939194/4 "2021-04-07T12:03:12Z")

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I ended up going with Mr\_Downtown’s suggestion. There was an entry for multiple dates of newspapers that was similar.