What is a Viewpoints Essay?
Gale's Opposing Viewpoints is a series of print anthologies. The articles in these print anthologies have also been reproduced in Gale's Opposing Viewpoints Research Center database. A typical article is called a "Viewpoint Essay" and consists of:

• a short introduction written by the editor of the anthology;
• a set of questions for the reader to think about, also authored by the editor;
• excerpts from (or a reformatted reprint of) an article (journal, magazine, newspaper, report, government publication, etc.) that the editor has pieced together from various parts of the original article;
• a list of related articles ("Further readings") compiled by the editor.

Background: Changes in Gale's citation advice
Gale provides an example "Source Citation" at the bottom of each Viewpoint Essay. Interestingly, their citation examples have changed over the past few years. For example, they used to identify "Opposing Viewpoints Series" as the series name, whereas now they include this title as part of title of the anthology (as in Opposing Viewpoints: Endangered Oceans). In addition, Gale used to include details about the original (excerpted) print source in the citation. For example, compare the old and current source citations for this Viewpoint Essay:

Gale's previous citation:
Source Citation: "Antisubmarine Sonar Threatens Marine Mammals" by Nathan LaBudde. Endangered Oceans. Louise I. Gerdes, Ed. Opposing Viewpoints® Series. Greenhaven Press, 2003. Nathan LaBudde, "U.S. Navy Plans Ocean Assault," Earth Island Journal, vol. 41, Summer 1999, p. 18. Copyright © 1999 by Earth Island Journal. Reproduced by permission. Reproduced in Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group. 2004 <http://www.galenet.com/servlet/OVRC>

Gale's current citation:
Source Citation: LaBudde, Nathan. "Antisubmarine Sonar Threatens Marine Mammals." Opposing Viewpoints: Endangered Oceans. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Example High School. 12 Mar. 2009 <http://find.galegroup.com/ovrc/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve&tabID=T010&prodId=OVRC&docId=EJ3010130253&source=gale&srcprod=OVRC&version=1.0>.

How should you cite a Viewpoint Essay?
In the examples above, Gale indicates that the article "Antisubmarine Sonar Threatens Marine Mammals" was taken from "U.S. Navy Plans Ocean Assault," an article in Earth Island Journal which was published in 1999. It is certainly possible in NoodleBib to cite this as a journal article reprinted in an anthology that is reproduced in the Opposing Viewpoints database.  However, we concur with Gale's current citation advice which does not treat this as a reprinted article since this Viewpoint Essay has been reformatted and edited, and contains a significant amount of new material including the editor's introduction, reader questions, and reading list. 

Therefore, cite a Viewpoint Essay as a short work in an anthology, available online in Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center, without reference to the original magazine or journal source from which material is excerpt.

• Choose: Anthololgy/Book Collection
• Select: Material in a book (collection) - A short work (poem, essay, etc.) original to the print book / anthology.
• Select: Online: Text of a printed anthology or other book collection available online

The citation for the source above, created in NoodleBib looks like this:

LaBudde, Nathan. "Antisubmarine Sonar Threatens Marine Mammals." Opposing Viewpoints: Endangered Oceans. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2004. N. pag. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Web. 29 Aug. 2009. <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/?db=OVRC>.

A note on the URL
While Gale's InfoMark URL will return you to the article as long as you are logged into the database, it is long,  Therefore, we have included only the home page in the optional URL field.  You can include the InfoMark in the URL field of your notes or the Gale Document Number: EJ3010130253 in the Annotation field of your works cited list so that you can return quickly to this source.

A note on evaluating and citing an excerpt 
Generally MLA suggests that you read original rather than edited or quoted sources when possible.  Since Earth Island Journal is a well known environmental periodical (see http://www.earthisland.org/journal/) you could try to locate the original source of the material in order to comment in your essay or annotation. In this case, you cannot read the original article because this journal's open archive does not go back to 1999.  Other excerpted sources in Opposing Viewpoints, such as government publications or reports are often available in full on the agency's official Web site. When feasible, we suggest that you locate and read the original source, since this shows the excerpt within the context of the entire document.  At the same time, you may have learned additional information from the "enhanced" excerpt in Opposing Viewpoints.  Therefore cite both the enhanced excerpt and the original document in your source list.