Citations and Other Grumbles

[Karen Schriver <ks0e+ -at- ANDREW -dot- CMU -dot- EDU>]

Jason Willebeeek-LeMair and Kim Keegan asked about the format of
citations used in Technical Communication. Jason mentioned going back to
my book Dynamics in Document Design to check to see how I formatted the
bibliography. He notes that he found that I too used lower case after
init caps for titles. The reason you found a discrepancy between what I
did and the style you seem to prefer is that I DID NOT USE the Chicago
Manual of Style. (BTW, the Chicago manual 13th ed. says either style is
fine, p. 439. I think Technical Communication is using the 14th ed. and
I haven't seen it but suspect it says the same. The upper and lower case
version is typically used in literature, history, and art. The lower
case version is typically used in the natural and social sciences.)

In my book I used instead the 4th ed. of the Publications Manual of the
American Psychological Association, commonly referred to as APA style, a
format I prefer (with some exceptions). I chose APA because it fits my
content better than the Chicago Style. An important thing to note is
that what seemed to bother you most was seeing the name Technical
communication in a full sentence with the lowercase after the init cap
on the first word. I too am bothered by this format and is one of the
reasons I prefer APA. In my book, you'll see that all in-text references
to books and titles and such are in upper and lower case, e.g., "The
advice for problem solving laid out by graphic designers such as Craig
and Bevington (1989) in Working with Graphic Designers seems overly
focused on the craft of design, the routine tasks, making it seem as
though anyone could do this" (p. 87). But in my references you'll find:
Craig & Bevington, blah blah, Working with graphic designers. I think
this makes a difference. In a sentence I am disturbed by the lower case
because its format seems to run into the next word (even when
italicized, IMHO). But in a reference, it feels fine and I'm not
bothered by it at all. And BTW, it saves space, those upper case letters
are typically a little wider than their lower case cousins.

My big gripe with APA format is that they changed their recommended
layout of the references to indent references rather than outdent them.
Research shows that outdenting references speeds scanning and retrieval
by a significant amount. Thus, instead of

Keegan, K. (1997). Citations that make me crazy. TECH-WR List. Oklahoma
State
    University, OK.

Willebeek-LeMair. (1997) Cognitive dissonance caused by crazy citation
style.TECH-WR
    List. Oklahoma State University, OK.

They recommend:

    Keegan, K. (1997). Citations that make me crazy. TECH-WR List.
Oklahoma State
University, OK.

    Willebeek-LeMair. (1997) Cognitive dissonance caused by crazy
citation style.TECH-WR List. Oklahoma State University, OK.

A recent study that compared three styles (the two above plus a
plain--non indented flush left version) found the first type (outdented)
to be much quicker!! Thus, I purposely broke the rules and formatted my
bib to outdent not indent.

A format that drives me mad is the one used by the Modern Language
Association (MLA). I just hate that format. Why? Because it junks up the
text with partial names of the articles for which there are more than
two references by the same author in the bib. Thus, the opening sentence
of a 1995 article in Technical Communication Quarterly I was just
looking at says:

    Scholars in professional communication are vigorously debating
    the nature of research (Debs; Doheny-Farina; Herndl, "Teaching";
    Limaye; Smeltzer, "Emerging Questions," "Relevance" Sullivan and
    Porter, "On Theory"; Thralls and Blyler).

Okay, you tell me, who had the first word on the nature of research? Who
had the most recent word? Were these writers over a decade? Over a
month? Over a year? WE DON'T KNOW and the READER has to do all the work
to figure these issues out. This is simply  unacceptable. As you can
see, MLA style omits CRUCIAL historical information in the text, that
is, the date!!! When I read an argument and people cite somebody, I want
to know when that person spoke AS I READ it and not at the end. To me
the date is absolutely essential. How can we make sense of who said what
to whom and when if the date is conveniently hidden in the reference
list. I'm appalled that people who design these ARBITRARY rules would
ignore something so important as the date. Especially people who see
themselves as the curators of culture. Give me a break! I think our
field should abandon the MLA format altogether. It is ugly,
reader-insenstive, and ahistorical.

Now that I'm on my soapbox, let me go on. I am also irritated by ALL of
the styles which say that authors should truncate all in-text cites of
works with 4 or more people to "et al." So if you are the fourth person
on a project you worked your butt off on, guess what, your name is
ERASED and depending on the editor, you can even get cut out of the
references, where et al. can be used if they decide they need the space.
As a person who has been 5th or 6th on a number of publications, I have
felt badly to see "et al." instead of all of the names of those of those
who worked on the project. Suddenly we don't exist when it comes time to
get some credit. Our field talks out of both sides of our mouth on
collaboration when journals in our field use this arbitrary rule. I can
see truncating the cite to et al. AFTER a full mention of all authors,
but to truncate it on first cite is mean spirited and totally against
promoting collaborative research. Yes, I know they don't want to "junk"
up the text with a long list of names, but IMHO, that is not junking it
up. It's giving people who worked hard their due. Whether it's a manual
or a major book, if you did the work you should get the credit. Period.

Okay, coming off soapbox. Morning tirade finished. Sorry.

karen schriver
KSA, Document Design and Research

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