I think where and when you pay close attention to citation style depends
on what you are doing and why. I don't think too many students actually
learn a citation style when they are forced to use it. Or, they learn
it for the immediate context and then forgot et. Learning is much more
likely to happen when students feel they have meaningful tasks to do.
I think my message is that we can get way too focused on something that
doesn't really affect meaning or content in a piece of writing, and use
that focus to keep students from being successful writers in the moment
because of a rather robotic attention to citation style. Should some
attention be placed on it. Of course. I'm not suggesting otherwise. But
my experience, again, is that "real" editors either clean up little
goofs, or don't notice them. I know some teachers who will grade a
paper down if there are citation style irregularities. There's no
change to fix the mistakes. It's the "Hey, I say in my syllabus that you
have to use APA style correctly." And on the tasks we ask them to do
aren't spaces in which to learn but hoops to jump through in order to
get to the good stuff in life.
I think that's kind of sad.
Nancy G. Patterson, Assistant Professor
Literacy Studies Program Coordinator
School of Education
Grand Valley State University
Chair, Assembly on Computers in English
[log in to unmask]
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/patterna
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Christine Gray
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 11:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Research papers
Nancy, why not care about both-Works Cited style and source/content???
I think the editors or proofreaders do clean up Works Cited errors.
BTW, I believe that the MLA doesn't require dates after a quotation
because generally the publication date is not that significant.
Works written on in the humanities-Paradise Lost, for example-haven't
changed. Commentary from Coleridge to Greenblatt on Milton is relevant.
The date of publication just doesn't matter-unless a new manuscript has
been uncovered in an attic someplace.
Christine Gray
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However, a significant number of electrons were temporarily
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-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Nancy Patterson
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 1:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Research papers
I think I read once that social sciences and education are more
concerned with the timeliness of a document, so the placement of the
date and the use of the date in the in-text citation is important. When
writing for the humanities, context is more important, so if someone
wanted to look at the context of a particular citation, he or she wants
a page number.
And here is my blasphemy. I couldn't care less about citation style. I
want to now where statements, research, etc. comes from, but I really
don't care if there is a comma between the author's name and the date or
a period or a flying fig. We can get so bogged down in the minute
details that we forget to pay attention to the more important stuff.
And lest you think you can't get published if you don't pay attention to
those minute details, I am breathing proof that you can. I publish all
the time in peer reviewed journals. Just got an acceptance yesterday for
an article I co-wrote. And I did the works cited stuff for the article.
I wouldn't stake my life on whether it strictly adheres to MLA style. Do
you put a comma or a period after the author's name. And do you use the
author's full name or just the last name and initials?? Egad. If the
editor is worried about it, she/he can fix my fluffs.
I was adamant that my middle school students cite their references, but
I really didn't care about style. I wanted them to get in the habit of
citing their references and that was a challenge. Author, title, larger
work, if that was appropriate, date, and page number.
And, of course, I dearly love End Notes. I just have to remember to
enter the references into the data base. Sigh.
Nancy G. Patterson, Assistant Professor
Literacy Studies Program Coordinator
School of Education
Grand Valley State University
Chair, Assembly on Computers in English
[log in to unmask]
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/patterna
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