The Devilments of Style

[Eugene Garfield]

This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education
(http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu

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The following message was enclosed:
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  From the issue dated November 9, 2001



  The Devilments of Style

  By M. GARRETT BAUMAN

   Recently I received a complimentary copy of a textbook
  devoted to teaching the research paper. Oh, there was a
  perfunctory section on how to compose the paper, but most of
  the 420 pages focused on differences among citation formats:
  MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological
  Association), CM (Chicago Manual of Style), and CBE (Council
  of Biology Editors). As the author of a textbook on writing, I
  have to keep up with my field, so I thumbed through to see if
  there was anything worth stealing for my next edition.

  I regret (as my readers must regret) that I can offer so few
  samples of the hundreds of variations. The text patiently
  explained that an author's first name should be spelled out
  (MLA and CM), reduced to initials with a period after each
  initial (APA), or reduced to initials with no period or space
  after each one (CBE). It told which format requires "and,"
  which requires "&," and which avoids conjunctions; it
  explained when to use "pp" or "p" with page numbers and the
  three ways to indicate discontinuous pagination. The
  guidelines are more complex than they first appear. For
  instance, one group never uses "p," while others use it here
  but not there, and one uses it with no period, "unless it is
  the last item in an entry." This went on for hundreds of
  pages, and the text had "easy access" tabs so students could
  get lost faster.

  After 15 minutes, the book fell from my hands and I sat back
  -- appalled. Was it possible that I had published a textbook
  with only 16 pages on citation formats? The shame! I had
  simplified Rubik's Cube to a sugar cube and was spending hours
  in class teaching students how to evaluate sources and to
  reason, when I could have filled the time with date-placement
  and capitalization issues. I envision a new future for myself
  now.

  But I'm worried. I've heard rumors that some professors hope
  the MLA, APA, CBE, and CM will agree to create one format for
  all academic research. They think such a change will alleviate
  student and faculty anxieties, encourage professors and
  journal referees to focus on content rather than form, and
  demonstrate that academics are sane and consistent. These
  folks are well intentioned, but a unified, simplified format
  will violate three of academe's most sacred principles:
  culture, control, and confusion.

  Variety in format maintains academic cultures. Each group
  patriotically believes its format is superior. APA proudly
  emphasizes dates in citations like real scientists; MLA sniffs
  that only barbarians would omit quotation marks around article
  titles; CBE thumbs its nose at grammarians by eliminating
  punctuation; CM editors stand for traditionalism by allowing
  footnotes. We ought to relish this gallimaufry. We have
  learned to celebrate diversity in content; why not in citation
  formats?

  A reference list does not simply announce where materials come
  from; it expresses cultural values. The APA's history of its
  documentation guidelines is particularly touching. The
  editors, with subdued pride, relate how APA guidelines began
  in 1929 -- a mere seven pages long (born in a log cabin
  perhaps) -- and now have grown to well over 400 pages. Without
  years of nurturing this document, the APA says, "clear
  communication [would be] harder to achieve."

  This is rich cultural ground. One senses in the APA's
  rejection of capital letters in titles a latent rebellion
  against the MLA's early fatherly dominance. The CBE's
  scientific culture rejects linguistic paradigms when it
  rejects punctuation. "Just the nouns," the subtext suggests.
  "Damn the frilly connective tissue." The MLA, cast aside like
  a relic of a dead age, has lately made a subtle, poetic move
  toward modernism by dropping commas in citations. These
  living, indigenous cultures should be respected.

  Second, variations in format help professors control academic
  turf, signaling to the cognoscenti who is of us and who is
  not. Format flubs assist a journal referee to spot a junior
  professor's work: e.g., someone who, if rejected, will have no
  power to retaliate. More important, complex format variations
  keep students in their places. In an age when students run
  rings around most professors on computers and discover things
  we hoped to reveal in a puff of smoke during the next class,
  our rococo citation formats give us arcane knowledge. We can
  exasperate students the way grammar did before grammarcheck or
  math did before calculators. What wonders this does for
  sagging faculty morale! The APA has shown leadership in
  control issues -- offering two or three options for many
  situations and then suggesting students "ask their professors
  which form they prefer." That tactic shifts control to the
  local professor and interposes another challenging layer
  between the student and correctness.

  Third, the variety of formats fosters confusion, although
  students, in their simple way, never seem to appreciate why
  this must be. They do not see the philosophical implications.
  Modern documentation practice re-creates the world of Kafka's
  The Trial, in which rules seem to change arbitrarily. Like the
  beleaguered hero, students suspect the rules are simply
  rumors. In a few years, wrong will be right and right wrong --
  and all deliciously justified in the name of common sense.
  This is the soul of our age! Our bureaucracy and elections! We
  live in virtual reality. Were documentation absolute and
  simple, we would risk creating cultural dissonance and
  alienation. But we have little to fear. The MLA says you
  should indent quotations 10 spaces if they are four lines or
  longer. The APA says indent five spaces if they are 40 words
  or longer. Such fearful asymmetry! If only Kafka had lived to
  see it.

  The logic of four systems with 617 variations will become
  clear if we take a short tour of the history of documentation.
  In the Age of Scrolls and Papyrus, there were no complex
  citations. Since only 37 books existed, when you referred to
  an author, scholars knew what you meant. But writing in Greek
  and Latin did plant the seeds of culture, control, and
  confusion.

  After a few intervening historical events, we come to my
  undergraduate days, in the late 1960s -- the Classical Age of
  Documentation. There were secret Latin passwords like op.
  cit., loc. cit., and ibid. Misjudging footnote space at the
  bottom of the page meant you had to retype. As a typical
  undergraduate, I achieved the proper level of confusion just
  trying to identify the publisher and the place of publication.
  However, after much hair-pulling and kissing up to professors,
  by the time I finished graduate school I could fill 6 of the
  required 15 pages for a paper with footnotes and bibliography.
  I was part of the club.

  But just as I learned the secret formula, footnotes were
  replaced with brief parenthetical citations, and we plunged
  into the Dark Age of Documentation. Op. cit., loc. cit., and
  ibid. vanished (except in CM, where ibid. lives like a furtive
  monk). Without a padding of footnotes, a 15-page paper now had
  to contain 12 or more pages of content.

  Only the Internet Renaissance spared higher education. Today,
  items in a reference list routinely extend three to four lines
  each. Entries bulk up by listing original sources, Web
  sources, service providers, search engines, and Web addresses.
  A Web address is wonderfully hieroglyphic. Those of us who are
  bored with the same old 26 letters and 10 numerals find
  hitting the exotic keyboard symbols liberating. This rich new
  language creates new culture. Who could ever have imagined
  typing "prettyboy#-- at .org" in a serious work? Latin was mere
  baby babble. And remember, each line filled with this exotica
  is one line less that you need to fill with data and insight.
  Today, publication dates are lovely labyrinths. There is no
  such thing as unchanging text when Web sites vanish behind
  you. So we list the date we viewed the site, the posting date,
  and the date the material was originally published. Checking
  sources is becoming impossible. Do you realize the potential
  here? The MLA, APA, CM, and CBE have led us to the gates of
  existential emptiness. Will we have the nerve to enter?

  As for the future, I believe the Posthuman Age of
  Documentation will be even more wonderful than our Modern Age,
  if we focus on the principles of culture, control, and
  confusion that have served us so well. Let me make a few
  proposals to point the way.

  First, create three levels of documentation: one for community
  colleges, one for four-year colleges, and one for
  universities.

  Second, all clearly defined cultural subgroups such as
  artists, physical-education instructors, and administrators
  should develop their own research formats.

  Third, we've been too tame. Computers allow us to box
  citations in the center of the page or around the edges in
  magenta ink. Online publications mean we can create hot links
  that update sources perpetually. The MLA and APA now have Web
  sites for the latest format changes between published editions
  of their guidelines. A noble first step! When the gatekeepers
  can manage daily changes in what is right and wrong, the
  Golden Age of Research will begin.

  M. Garrett Bauman is a professor of English at Monroe
  Community College (N.Y.) and the author of Ideas and Details
  (fourth edition, Harcourt, 2001).


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 Copyright 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education