Picking up John's gaunlet:
I think that Walker & Taylor have presented a useful set of
principles that serve to underpin all referencing styles in
the West:
1. The principle of Intellectual Property:
Western concepts of plagiarism are based on an economic model of
capitalism and the notion that someone can own an idea
if the idea has been presented in work, e.g. a 'fixed' way,
published or presented into the public domain;
2. The principle of Access: to help readers quickly locate
original documents referred to in a text;
3.The principle of Economy: the references should include
as much information as necessary to help readers locate
them. But they should also be presented in such a way as to
reduce the need for lengthy explanations in the text and
speed up the process of reading;
4. The principle of Standardization: referencing should be
presented in a way that allows everyone to understand the
meaning (this is the tricky one!)
5.The principle of Transparency: referencing should include
easily understood abbreviations that are recognizable to
many people, for example, the use of ed. for 'editor'.
On the fourth principle above, the MLA make an interesting
point in their handbook about different referencing styles.
On this argument, the handbook produced by the MLA makes an
interesting comment on the adoption of particular
referencing styles by disciplines. It makes the point that
referencing styles are shaped by the kinds of research and
scholarship undertaken. In the sciences (and business
disciplines), the author-date referencing style is often
used to given prominence to the year and general timeliness
and currency of the research; whereas with the humanities
in is often more important to guide the reader to exactly
the right author and page, so a telling detail can more
easily and speedily be found. Numerical- footnotes and the
author-page (MLA) style has tended to be adopted for these
reasons.
The numerical related styles of referencing are often also
favoured by visual disciplines, such as art and design and
architecture, because they are more subtle, less intrusive
and better pleasing aesthetically on the page, compared to
the relative 'clutter' produced by the Harvard, APA and MLA
styles. The numbers don't count in the word counts for
assignments, unlike the author date citations, which is
making numerical styles more popular again with students.
However, part of the problem is also in the lack of a real
benchmark for using Harvard and both numerical styles in
Britain. Although a benchmark for using these styles are
the British Standard (BS) guides, these are not as detailed
as the style guides issued by APA and MLA, and are limited
in the range of source examples they give. British Standard
recommendations are compiled initially by a committee,
and it shows: the writing style & general presentation is
dessicated and appear not to be aimed at a student
readership, and present examples better suited to Oxbridge
than your average uni. So BS guidelines have been
interpreted and rewritten by students by learner support
staff at universities, usually librarians, to make them
more accessible.
This can result, however, in a lack of consistency in
referencing guides produced by institutions across Britain
on the application of these styles, particularly in
relation to electronic sources, and particularly in
relation to the author-date: Harvard style, which appears
from my research earlier this year, to be the predominant
style within UK/HE.
Conversely, this may be also one of the main reasons for
the author-date (Harvard) style popularity: in the relative
flexibility of interpretation it allows, compared to the
detailed prescription of APA and MLA style referencing
guides.
But it also encourages the idiosyncrasies and
eccentricities of staff who feel they have the academic
freedom to insist on little twists and flourishes of their
own to the relatively unprescribed world of BS-led Harvard
and numerical referencing styles in Britain and maybe
because the institutional guides are produced by learner
support colleagues, rather than professorial chums.
There is very little difference between Harvard & APA
styles (the differences are mainly in electronic
referencing), which has produced neither fish nor fowl
hybrids of the two. But the words 'American' and
'Psychological' in the abbreviation appear to prevent APA
becoming the benchmark for author-date styles in Britain.
The attention is certainly on referencing in UK/HE, as
issues around plagiarism often boil down to poor
referencing, rather than cheating by students. That's
certainly been my experience at Bradford.
Colin Neville
LearnHigher Referencing Learning Area Co-ordinator
Ref: WALKER, J.R. and T. TAYLOR (1998). The Columbia guide
to online style. New York: Columbia University Press.
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:19:05 +0100 John Hilsdon
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Nothing like a bit of enlightenment about academic referencing
> conventions to set the list alight, I thought (;-)) - so I'm forwarding
> Jan's erudite mail below from the ISL list, to set in the context of our
> own previous conversations .... about, for e.g. whether there are
> correct ways or 'rules' of referencing we can teach our students, versus
> a learning-and-following (or deliberately flouting!) the 'conventions'
> of your academic community/discipline approach!
> John
>
> Jan Parker [[log in to unmask]] wrote:
> FW: Impact of higher education research
> Malcolm Tight has presented mutual citation clusters and citation
> avoiders
> to divide us into tribes..... Academic Literacies research meanwhile has
>
> highlighted how different disciplines use citation differently - from
> the
> Humanities kind of nodding reference to the giants who went before us on
>
> whose shoulders we wish to stand/ to straw men who we conveniently wish
> to
> argue against, to some 'hard' science who wish to scrupulously document
> where their 'brick in the wall' fits in the evidence- and research-base
> of
> the discipline.
> I come from Classics, which has only one model of citation -
> tactful,
> veiled, oh so deadly 'killing the father' - the subtle acknowledging of
> debt
> while slipping the rapier in with a smile. I hasten to say, that is why
> I
> came as a gypsy to Education, a domain of people from all kinds of
> intellectual background that seems both more proper and more valid in
> using
> citation to outline the sort of paradigms/patterns of thought we are
> trying
> to work with not for their own sake but with a higher end in view -
> improving student learning.
>
>
>
>
> John Hilsdon
> Co-ordinator, Learning Development
> University of Plymouth
> Drake Circus
> Plymouth
> PL4 8AA
>
> 01752 232276
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/learn
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Improving Student Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Jan Parker
> Sent: 27 September 2006 04:58
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Impact of higher education research
>
> Malcolm Tight has presented mutual citation clusters and citation
> avoiders
> to divide us into tribes..... Academic Literacies research meanwhile has
>
> highlighted how different disciplines use citation differently - from
> the
> Humanities kind of nodding reference to the giants who went before us on
>
> whose shoulders we wish to stand/ to straw men who we conveniently wish
> to
> argue against, to some 'hard' science who wish to scrupulously document
> where their 'brick in the wall' fits in the evidence- and research-base
> of
> the discipline.
> I come from Classics, which has only one model of citation -
> tactful,
> veiled, oh so deadly 'killing the father' - the subtle acknowledging of
> debt
> while slipping the rapier in with a smile. I hasten to say, that is why
> I
> came as a gypsy to Education, a domain of people from all kinds of
> intellectual background that seems both more proper and more valid in
> using
> citation to outline the sort of paradigms/patterns of thought we are
> trying
> to work with not for their own sake but with a higher end in view -
> improving student learning.
> Jan
> Dr Jan Parker,
> Chair, Humanities Higher Education Research Group,
> Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Educational Technology, UKOU;
> Editor-in-Chief, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education:an
> international
> journal of theory, research and practice;
> Executive Editor, Teaching in Higher Education.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ray Land" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 2:10 AM
> Subject: Re: Impact of higher education research
>
>
> >Aye, but we cite when we seek to endorse with our readership what we
> have
> >written - not >necessarily just to acknowledge those who have
> influenced
> >us.
>
> Given that Bourdieu referred to this game as 'citology', perhaps the
> phenomenon John describes here might best be characterised as
> 'para-citology'? ;-)
>
> Ray
>
> ************************************************************************
> *****
> Professor Ray Land
> Director, Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement
> University of Strathclyde
> Graham Hills Building
> 50 George Street
> Glasgow G1 1QE
>
> t: 0141 548 2636
> f: 0141 553 2053
> e: [log in to unmask]
> w: http://personal.strath.ac.uk/ray.land
>
> ICE3 Symposium: 'Digital difference'. Loch Lomond, Scotland 21-23 March
> 2007
> http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/ice3 <http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/ice3>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Improving Student Learning on behalf of Cowan, John
> Sent: Mon 25/09/2006 10:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Impact of higher education research
>
>
> Aye, but we cite when we seek to endorse with our readership what we
> have
> written - not necessarily just to acknowledge those who have influenced
> us.
>
> John
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Improving Student Learning on behalf of Peter Kandlbinder
> Sent: Mon 25/09/2006 10:15
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Impact of higher education research
>
>
>
> For those interested the list looks very different if one uses Google
> Scholar. The top 5 for the search "higher education teaching and
> learning" ranked by citations are:
>
> P Ramsden
> D Laurillard
> EL Boyer
> JB Biggs
> LM Harasim, SR Hiltz, L Teles, M Turoff
>
> regards
>
> Peter
>
> ---
> Institute for Interactive Media and Learning
> University of Technology, Sydney
> PO Box 123
> BROADWAY NSW 2007
>
> Ph 02 9514 2314
> Fax 02 9514 1666
> URL http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/assessment/
---------------------------------
C Neville
[log in to unmask]
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