Helen Shiner Aug 1, 2014:

@Björn Thanks. Only today, I've been dealing with in-text citations from the Bible! I guess that applies to APA, though I don't think it is universal. Best to check whenever it comes up, depending on the system used.

Björn Vrooman Aug 1, 2014:

@Helen No worries, I won't. I was simply referring to: "Reference list entries are not required when you cite ancient Greek and Roman works or classical religious works. However, in the first text citation, indicate the version of the classic work you used." http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-bible.aspx

Thus, classical literature would not require an entry in the bibliography. So the question would be moot. That was all.

I thought your additional information was very interesting - didn't think about it so much in my field of studies (sociology). The discipline is said to be not that old (around 200 years) and for most of the books you will find the relevant information.

Helen Shiner Aug 1, 2014:

@Björn That's the APA system. I cited the Harvard one. They are all slightly different. That's one for the discipline of psychology, for instance.

When I was doing my doctoral work, I came across quite a few German books that had been published without place and date of publication printed on them. Yes, now that the internet has so many resources, it might be possible to find out this information. But bear in mind that many things were privately published by wealthy people (I'm talking 19th and early 20th century) and may be available in archives or specialist libraries, having never been assigned ISBN numbers. Nothing more frustrating that a book with no pagination, for instance. But it happens. When that information is not available, one has to signal it somehow.
I still don't understand your point about the Classical texts. Either they are the original manuscripts, in which case they are handled as such, or they are published translations or published transcriptions, and thus are like any other book.
But please let's not get into a long discussion here, since it goes way beyond the remit of the question asked.

Björn Vrooman Aug 1, 2014:

@Helen Just saw your entry - KudoZ seems a bit random in its decisions to send email notifications...

Yes, I did mean the different handling. I was referring to, e.g., http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/12/happy-holiday-citi...

At least in my opinion, it seems quite odd that a book has no place of publication and no date given. Most you'll find by googling or just somewhere in the book, and style manuals will even tell you to try to find it instead of leaving it out.

I also wanted to exclude the possibilty that this book belongs to the hundreds of classical texts as referenced here: http://classics.mit.edu/index.html (more than 400). In addition, there may be a DOI number if this book is an online version (one can never be too sure nowadays).

Thank you and have a nice evening!

Helen Shiner Aug 1, 2014:

@Björn No space in comments section. Yes, I understood you to be referring to the Classics, but I didn't understand why you said such sources needed to be treated differently. Usually, you choose one referencing system and stick with it. I am sure it is the case that different academic disciplines have preferences for different systems/conventions, but as long as their referencing system is uniform throughout the bibliography in question, it doesn't matter. There are conventions within each system for referencing all kinds of sources, including manuscripts. Perhaps you meant that the original ancient sources would require different handling.

BrigitteHilgner Aug 1, 2014:

See http://www.dict.cc/?s=ohne Jahr o J