Getting back into the mindset of school...
Sep. 9th, 2010 07:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beboots Well, I've returned to university! For those just tuning in, I'm in my fourth year in the honour's history undergraduate programme at the University of Alberta.
What better way is there to celebrate my return to academia for the autumn than a senseless discussion of academic styles? I encourage anybody on my friends list (or anybody else reading this who has had experience with such things) to put in their own two cents.
My question is this: what is the best citation style?
Inevitably, during the first lecture or two, the question is brought up: how do you want us to cite our sources in our papers, professor? Inevitably, the professor gives a very specific answer - something they clearly want the student to use - but, of course, reluctantly admits that such-and-such a style would be (only barely) acceptable, if you must. (The last part must be spoken with at least a hint of disguised distaste.)
Perhaps it's merely a matter of which one you learn to use first. Rather like a native language, anything other that that first style seems stilted and, well, foreign. Cumbersome to use, even.
What am I talking about? MLA vs APA vs Chicago vs anything else I've missed vs, well, chaos. Some professors will accept anything "as long as it's an actual style."
Personally? I'm a huge fan of the Chicago Manual of Style. (As much as anybody can be a "fan" of such things, of course.) Why do I feel so strongly? Well, I had to learn how to use MLA for an English class that I didn't particularly like, and I've had to use APA for a psychology class before, but, well, quite frankly? In-text citations look UGLY to me.
I have no idea why English majors and English professors don't insist on Chicago style. Aren't they all about the flow of language and such? When you have to stop a sentence to stick in a huge set of dates and authors' names and such, you can't just skip over.
It's not that the Chicago style isn't clearly citing one's sources... it's that we're just not obvious about it. No, we're subtle, discrete, even. It's all in the footnotes and endnotes. Tiny little numbers, barely visible, but with informative footnotes just within easy glance. A random date and even a name tells me nothing. But a footnote can contain FAR more information in a much more stylish way.
My mother tells me (rather like a horror story) that in the style she must use at the hospital where she works (I think it's APA style), one can't shorten a list of authors in-text to "et al" until after five or six names. And with all of these modern, empowered and educated women (with, of course, hyphenated last names to show that they're married but still modern, empowered and independent women), well... That doesn't look graceful at all.
Is it just a matter of placing the authors one's citing front and center? Is it all about narcissism after all?
(Isn't Chicago style the best?)
What say you, f-list?
(And that's it for your daily dose of dweebery. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. :P )
What better way is there to celebrate my return to academia for the autumn than a senseless discussion of academic styles? I encourage anybody on my friends list (or anybody else reading this who has had experience with such things) to put in their own two cents.
My question is this: what is the best citation style?
Inevitably, during the first lecture or two, the question is brought up: how do you want us to cite our sources in our papers, professor? Inevitably, the professor gives a very specific answer - something they clearly want the student to use - but, of course, reluctantly admits that such-and-such a style would be (only barely) acceptable, if you must. (The last part must be spoken with at least a hint of disguised distaste.)
Perhaps it's merely a matter of which one you learn to use first. Rather like a native language, anything other that that first style seems stilted and, well, foreign. Cumbersome to use, even.
What am I talking about? MLA vs APA vs Chicago vs anything else I've missed vs, well, chaos. Some professors will accept anything "as long as it's an actual style."
Personally? I'm a huge fan of the Chicago Manual of Style. (As much as anybody can be a "fan" of such things, of course.) Why do I feel so strongly? Well, I had to learn how to use MLA for an English class that I didn't particularly like, and I've had to use APA for a psychology class before, but, well, quite frankly? In-text citations look UGLY to me.
I have no idea why English majors and English professors don't insist on Chicago style. Aren't they all about the flow of language and such? When you have to stop a sentence to stick in a huge set of dates and authors' names and such, you can't just skip over.
It's not that the Chicago style isn't clearly citing one's sources... it's that we're just not obvious about it. No, we're subtle, discrete, even. It's all in the footnotes and endnotes. Tiny little numbers, barely visible, but with informative footnotes just within easy glance. A random date and even a name tells me nothing. But a footnote can contain FAR more information in a much more stylish way.
My mother tells me (rather like a horror story) that in the style she must use at the hospital where she works (I think it's APA style), one can't shorten a list of authors in-text to "et al" until after five or six names. And with all of these modern, empowered and educated women (with, of course, hyphenated last names to show that they're married but still modern, empowered and independent women), well... That doesn't look graceful at all.
Is it just a matter of placing the authors one's citing front and center? Is it all about narcissism after all?
(Isn't Chicago style the best?)
What say you, f-list?
(And that's it for your daily dose of dweebery. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. :P )
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 01:36 am (UTC)Of course, once you get past the classes stage and move on to your professional career, citation style doesn't seem to be that big a deal. As long as you credit, it doesn't seem to matter. I've seen academic journals with formatting all over the place with a hodge-podge of different formatting rules put together in a single citation.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 01:59 am (UTC)And as you say, after school... who cares? A lot of academic journals, in the editing stage, will use whatever style they deem best, and may even change it for the author. So... whatever, I suppose. ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 01:39 am (UTC)As for styles... I haven't really written enough papers to have much of a preference, though I certainly agree that in-text citations disturb the flow of the text.
PS! Are you still thinking about joining the fencing club?
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 05:35 am (UTC)You can either do footnotes/endnotes or end-of-text sources with parenthetical citations (Author Year: Page). For footnotes/endnotes, you list the whole source once, then Author Year: Page for the rest. And by "Author", they just want the last name.
It's a citation system designed for lots and lots of citations, for citing multiple works by the same author, and for citing a variety of publications such as periodicals and theses and manuscripts. It's also conscious of the fact that no one really cares about the publisher or the city or even the edition; author and date are what you really need to know at the end of the sentence.
I use AAA whenever I'm not constrained by someone else's preference, and either AP (as in Associated Press) or Chicago for basically everything else, such as how to spell out numbers or letters and what to capitalize and what not.
This is also, incidentally, what I used in my master's thesis, but then I had a very flexible interdisciplinary program that basically said "use whatever, so long as it's a real style." :D
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 05:49 pm (UTC)What was your master's thesis on, out of curiosity?