Karl Dowell wrote:
> <>This is slightly off that topic, but I have a soapbox I'm eager to
> speechify from regarding citation and formatting. I've always thought
> many students who plagiarize do so because citation style formats have
> such a steep learning curve. But I recognize that formatting skill is
> now about as necessary as creating
> subject cards for my automated catalog.
>
> Thanks for letting me spout.
I agree with you - citation formatting is a royal pain. Perhaps it is
time for a better system, and who can invent it better than librarians!
A citation has two main purposes: to give credit to the person whose
work you are borrowing, and to enable the reader to check your
information. As long as the second purpose is served the first one will
automatically be taken care of. The question then becomes one of
accurately identifying the source of the information.
Print materials actually can be best identified by the ISBN or ISSN, so
it seems to me that giving the author, title, issue date for
periodicals, and ISBN or ISSN would be sufficient. Web sources can be
done by the URL and date and time accessed, since those sources are much
more likely to be changed. The "Works Cited" page ought to be divided
into two portions - print and web. Print sources can be identified as
above, in alphabetical order by author's last name, and web sources in
alphabetical order by site. In fact, if the paper is written using a
computer, it ought to be possible to make the web citations hot links,
at least in the original work (obviously the printed paper won't have
hot links), so that the sites cited can be checked.
Those of you with more experience than I can probably simplify this idea
even more. Those of you teaching at the college/university level might
see a need for more citation detail, but if we can use a fairly simple
model at the HS and lower levels we can get kids used to citing their
sources.
What think ye?
--
David Lininger, kb0zke,
MS/HS librarian
Hickory County R-1 Schools
Urbana, MO 65767
417-993-4226
tss003 at tnp dot more dot net
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