Academic Citations: Why So Complicated?

The reasons for citing one’s sources in an academic paper are easy to understand: to give credit where it is due for your research, to direct readers to other sources of information, and to allow readers to judge the validity and relevance of your sources and how well you have represented them in your paper.  The reasons why citation has to be so complicated are much less clear. Why does it matter if you type (Johnson 1997) or (Johnson, 1997)? Who cares whether you use single- or double-spacing, or a hanging indentation, in your list of references? Who decided that some titles should be italicized, others “placed in quotes,” and still others underlined?  The requirements for where you put a comma can seem sadistically arbitrary, as though there were some shadowy league of professors who have nothing better to do than set up hoops for you to jump through, and judge you when you fail – if you cite a source incorrectly, you’re open to accusations of plagiarism.

Parentheses and Footnotes

In-text citations make perhaps the most sense, because each citation style is used by different academic fields, which value different information about a source. First, the three most commonly used styles in undergrad studies: APA, MLA, and Chicago or CMS. These styles are used in disciplines which emphasize analysis and interpretation of others’ writing and research.

 APA-style citation includes the date, e.g. (Johnson 1997), because it is used in the social sciences, research-based fields where the currency of information and developments in the field are of high importance.  MLA includes page number, e.g. (Johnson 263), as it is used for arts and humanities: fields which focus on authorship and in-depth analysis of specific passages. Chicago/CMS uses footnotes instead of parenthetical citations because the author needs to give more information about each source without cluttering up the page, or provide commentary on a source in the footnote.

Then there are separate styles for many of the physical sciences – math, physics, medicine, etc. – where the focus is more on the current research than on analyzing prior works. Most of these fields use a very minimal type of citation, a simple number in superscript or in brackets with a key at the end of the article that has the full bibliographic information for each source.

Finally, legal style (Bluebook) makes heavy use of citations, because law is so dependent on precedents and court cases; this style combines inline and footnote citations to give as much support to a legal argument as possible.

The Reference/Works Cited/Bibliography Page

Again, some of the differences make sense. IEEE, used by engineers, has guidelines for how to cite technical handbooks and patents; MLA has rules for citing plays and classical literature. Different disciplines, different needs. The ranking of information again comes into play, too; APA style places the date even before the title, where most formats put it at the end, and CSE (used in medicine) abbreviates journal titles because certain words are so common.

The devil is in the details. Align flush left (CSE) or hanging indent (APA)? Spell out authors’ first names (CMS) or first initial only (IEEE)? Italicize journal titles and issue numbers (APA), titles only (MLA), or no italics at all (CSE)? How about citing works that have been translated? There are at least five ways. And is it called a Works Cited, References, Cited Literature, or Bibliography?

Every discipline likes to format this list of sources a little differently, even though they all include the same basic information: author, title, date, page numbers, journal number, and possibly a web address. There are a dozen options, depending on what field you write for. This is where the miniscule differences between citation styles become truly arbitrary – and yet, professors and publishers alike may mark you down if you don’t have every comma, colon, indentation, and parenthesis in place.

Why Is It So Complicated?

Citation formats are inconsistent because most of them originated at different times and places, and for different purposes, and no one has successfully gotten them all co-ordinated into a single, standard style. CMS was developed in 1906 for the University of Chicago, not for writers, but for the typesetters who printed university materials. APA originated in 1928 for similar purposes. MLA wasn’t conceived until 1985, supposedly as a simplification of Chicago. Many other humanities use formats that are based on Chicago, and nearly identical – but not quite. The physical sciences had slightly better luck with consistency, as they share a similar origin (a scientific style manual published c. 1925). But across the board, they all went about it slightly differently.

More importantly, most of these guides were very limited in their original vision. They planned for citing books and journals, the typical study material at the time. Most of the rest was tacked on as the need arose: citing translated editions, specific chapters, personal communications, primary sources, etc., which is why those references are so unwieldy. And, of course, none of them foresaw the internet. The surge of online information, both as a way to archive traditional journals and as a source of new kinds of information from multimedia archives to blogs and wikis, was rapid, complex, and ever-changing, and frankly, the dusty style manual editors have largely failed to keep up.

There is one comprehensive guide to citing online sources: the Columbia Guide to Online Style, which covers lots of variations for both the humanities and the sciences. It is still not widely adopted, possibly because professors prefer not to have to learn a new set of rules. If you use online sources heavily, launch a campaign for this to be used in your class.

The final reason is: Yes, you actually are being made to jump through hoops. These nitpicking rule sets are still in place because your ability to learn and abide by them is seen as a measure of your professionalism, adaptability, and attention to detail, both in the classroom and the publishing office. Like spelling mistakes on a resume, publishers use citation errors as a screening process to rule out huge numbers of submissions without reading them. It’s not fair, but a good editor can help you beat the system.