[CASL-L] research/citation tools--what is your school using?--I'll compile the results

[Church, Jackie]

I agree that citations are not difficult if you just follow the steps and examples.  It does mean you have to identify what each element is, and students are not used to doing that frequently. Practice, practice.


The Wikipedia article is helpful in giving an overview of the whats and whys of citing sources, but the question I always get is "but why does it have to be a certain way?" In other words, why can't we just include the information in our own way?  It's a format rebellion. This below is the only somewhat clear explanation I found in a quick search online.  It's from Mercer University in Georgia.

Why can’t we just have one citation style?

It might seem like academic authors can't agree, but really, authors write for different purposes and different audiences, and so the citation styles reflect that.

We continue to use different citation styles for two main reasons: disciplinary differences and tradition. Researchers in different disciplines cite different types of resources, and different disciplines place higher value on different criteria. For example, most researchers in the social sciences are more likely to cite a scholarly article than any other type of source, while a researcher in the humanities might need to cite a variety of source types, including archived personal letters or first-edition works. Over time, organizations like the American Psychological Association created style guides that were meant to help standardize the format of citations within their discipline, focused on the types of works most often used in their field.

The oldest of these style guides have been in use for decades, and been adopted by researchers in similar disciplines. This means that there are large communities of researchers who have traditionally used one citation style for many years, and they are reluctant to adopt a new style. This is especially true when they believe that a new style will not be well-suited to their citation needs.

https://libraries.mercer.edu/research-tools-help/citation-tools-help/why-are-there-so-many-different-citation-styles
[https://libraries.mercer.edu/research-tools-help/citation-tools-help/++resource++mercu.images/mercer_white.png]<https://libraries.mercer.edu/research-tools-help/citation-tools-help/why-are-there-so-many-different-citation-styles>

Why are there so many Different Citation Styles? — Mercer ...<https://libraries.mercer.edu/research-tools-help/citation-tools-help/why-are-there-so-many-different-citation-styles>
libraries.mercer.edu
Download a PDF version of this guide. Different citation styles have developed over time to address the specific needs of different disciplines.

So now, my new answer will be "Tradition based on resource types commonly used in that field, the type of information about those resources needed, and consistency."


Lovely side trip, everyone. (I've always preferred Noodletools, btw. I thought it helped explain citations better than EasyBib.)


Jackie Church
Library/Media Specialist - Spring Glen School
Hamden Public Schools, Hamden, CT

jchurch at hamden.org


________________________________
From: CASL-L <casl-l-bounces at mylist.net> on behalf of Rocca, Jennifer <roccaj at brookfieldps.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 6, 2016 12:07 PM
To: Dave StGermain
Cc: Cas-l Listserv
Subject: Re: [CASL-L] research/citation tools--what is your school using?--I'll compile the results

Citation should *become* easy through repetition and practice.  It is a valuable and necessary skill but nobody (students or teachers) think, "Yeah!  We get to cite sources today!"  It's just a skill that needs to be learned through repetition.  Making it too easy is where, in my opinion, EasyBib went wrong.  It will be hard in the beginning,. and time consuming.  But it's the swamp they have to wade through to build their citations muscles.

Then, it will be easy to transfer those skills to any citation tool or format.

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 12:02 PM, Dave StGermain <dstgermain at milforded.org<mailto:dstgermain at milforded.org>> wrote:
Hi Dawn -

You might have luck asking the teacher to first consider the purpose of citation. According to Wikipedia this includes attributing work to the actual source and allowing readers to determine the whether or not the works cited help to support claims made by the author (Wikipedia contributors. "Citation." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Dec. 2015. Web. 6 Jan. 2016.).

We want students to be able to competently cite their sources when they are out in the real world and we should want them to be able to do it using any tool available to them.  Locking students into using one tool could serve to stop them from properly citing in the future.  If Purdue Owl happens to go the way of EasyBib, students should be able to locate and use another tool that will help them easily and competently credit their sources.

Citation should be easy and enhance all of our work - not get in the way of it.

Hope that this helps...

--

David St.Germain
Supervisor for Media Services and Instructional Technology
Milford Public Schools
70 West River Street
Milford, CT  06460
(203)783-3412<tel:%28203%29783-3412>

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--

Jennifer Rocca
BHS Library Media Specialist
203-775-7725 x-7775
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