My Apologies RE: Citations and Other Grumbles

[Jason Willebeek-LeMair <jlemair -at- ITEXCHSRV2 -dot- PHX -dot- MCD -dot- MOT -dot- COM>]

Karen,

I certainly did not mean to attack the style used in your book.  Looking
over my original e-mail, I realize that I dragged your publication in
without the proper context.

What I meant to do was to use your book as the basis for stating that,
"yes, this appears to be a standard and I have not yet seen it." (E-mail
can be a blessing and a curse of rapid communication).

And, the reason I have not seen it is because my APA style book is
sitting unopened on my bookshelf. (Mea culpa).

The main thrust of my e-mail, which I inadequately expressed, was that I
found the down-style within the body text (which you did NOT do in your
book -- a fact I should have stated) of TC to be distracting and
disruptive to the flow of reading.  It did not bother me in the
citations.

My apologies.

Jason

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Jason T. Willebeek-LeMair
Technical Writer/Editor
Product Information and
Publication Services
Motorola Computer Group
Ph. (602) 438-3135
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


>----------
>From:  Karen Schriver
>Reply To:      Karen Schriver
>Sent:  Tuesday, September 30, 1997 8:01 AM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Citations and Other Grumbles
>
>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
>
> TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
>to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
>   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
>  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
>browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
>

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html