Pauline
whatever the merits of your proposals, these are conventions of
publishers. Adopt a different style and you won't get published.
That's the key point for students' engagement in the practices (as
legitimate peripheral participation, in Lave and Wenger's terms).
Wrt wordprocessing overcoming the problems of reformatting, well
why not go further - Bibliographic software overcomes the whole
'problem' of getting the style right. Well you do have to select the
right output style or create a new /modify an existing style - but
even in word processing you may need to do more that 'press a
key'.
Of course, the whole area of publishing is changing with the
development of the web, so I presume we are looking at how we
help students to engage in web publishing (or do they help us?).
time for home
Len
On 3 Feb 2006, at 16:44, Pauline Ridley wrote:
> While we're on the subject - and with thanks to all the people who've
> helped to demystify Harvard and its current hegemony - I think it's
> time to celebrate the merits of numeric footnoting.
>
> I can't be the only reader who finds bracketed author/date references
> (any version) distracting. It breaks up the flow of a sentence,
> especially when there are several references, whereas you can choose
> to ignore footnotes until you get to the end of that section. It's
> also much easier to drop your eyes to the bottom of the page to get
> the reference details rather than having to turn to the back of the
> book or end of the article. (I'd also prefer to omit shorthand forms
> like ibid. or op. cit. in favour of a more immediately
> intelligible/fuller citation)
>
> I also like the fact that footnotes can incorporate additional
> commentary that doesn't quite belong in the main text, but provides a
> worthwhile or enlivening optional extra. (Before the days of sidebars
> and hyperlinks, footnotes were about the only way you could do this)
>
> The one disadvantage of footnotes (rather than endnotes) when I was a
> student was the fiddle of getting page layout right - or of having to
> retype and renumber everything if you made changes. But wordprocessing
> packages have removed that problem - so why do so many
> people/disciplines still prefer bracketed intext references??
>
> Now back to that paper I'm supposed to be writing....
> -----Original Message-----
> From: learning development in higher education network
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Margo Blythman
> Sent: 03 February 2006 15:39
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Academic Referencing Conventions
>
>
> Good point - it never occured to me that Harvard University was also
> called after John Harvard!
>
> However, what led me to my inital position was that no American
> academics I know have ever heard of 'Harvard referencing' therefore
> any relationship it has to Harvard university must be lost in the
> mists of history.
>
> Re which system science uses/used, in my initial posting some months
> ago asking what system(s) people used, Lewis Elton pointed out that
> Medicine uses a numeric system - so I used that to claim 'poshness'
> for the numeric as well - Medicine at UCL is almost Harvard !!!!!
>
> Margo
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Wilson <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: Fri, 3 Feb 2006 14:48:33 +0000
> Subject: Re: Academic Referencing Conventions
>
> I attach the latest (developing) blast in my concerns about the
> dispute that will run and run...
>
> Peter
>
> Peter Wilson
> University Teaching Fellow
> Academic Writing and Study Skills Adviser
> Study Advice Services
> University of Hull
>
> Dr Margo Blythman
> LCC Director of Teaching and Learning
> London College of Communication
> University of the Arts London
Dr Leonard Holmes
Principal Lecturer in Human Resource Management
Luton Business School, Putteridge Bury Campus,
Hitchin Road, Luton LU2 8LE
tel. 01582 743111 ext 5014
email [log in to unmask]
websites: http://www.re-skill.org.uk
http://www.odysseygroup.org.uk
email: [log in to unmask]
websites: www.re-skill.org.uk
www.odysseygroup.org.uk
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