What’s your style?

Every so often, I have thought about the raison d’etre of citation styles. They contribute much to the overall health of scholarship in all fields of study by saving the time of readers who want find the sources from which an author developed their ideas, and by reducing the likelihood of plagiarism. Strangely, some citation styles fall short of saving the time of the reader; on more than one occasion, I helped students track down citations that omitted titles and page numbers. Yes, I’d like to believe that my memory has started playing tricks on me since leaving my last job, but I don’t think I could have made that up. The fact that articles could get through the editing process with such minimal information just amazes me, considering that I’m used to seeing more comprehensive citation styles, such as MLA, Turabian, Chicago Manual of Style, and so on. But then, the editors of these journals (mainly in engineering) must have some rationale that makes sense in their respective areas of study, or just for their specific publications.

More likely, a larger number of library personnel have encountered mismatches involving numbers within citations. Most of the information may be correct, but an incorrect volume number, year, or even page numbers can waste the time of faculty and students. If process of elimination doesn’t work, a well-structured Google search can come to the rescue of all involved.

To me, the essence of a good citation boils down to providing sufficient and accurate information in a consistent format that allows anyone to find the original work easily. I don’t think anyone can argue with such a simple rule. However, as we all know, the world of citation styles can get rather complicated, and they can cause much gnashing of teeth for anyone writing a bibliography. Bibliographic managers (such as RefWorks) may ameliorate the pain of churning out properly-formatted papers, articles, and so on, but only if one uses them prior to the initial stages of research. As the designated RefWorks contact at my last place of employment, I had to give the bad news to some people who had already started writing their papers that they couldn’t use RefWorks retroactively. One could still enter references manually, or even import citations if they ran the same searches again, but that would likely defeat the time-saving purpose of RefWorks.

Although RefWorks can help those who know how to use it prior to starting research, it still has a few bugs that need worked out with regards to punctuation. While giving a session about RefWorks a few years ago, I received a question from someone doubting its usefulness since RefWorks still let a few errors get by. The way I saw it (and still do), a few minutes double-checking a RefWorks-generated bibliography for accuracy seemed a lot less wasteful than typing by hand and fretting over one “manually” generated.

Now that I have discussed some challenges involving citation styles and the bibliographic managers designed to make them seem less painful, it behooves me to discuss what prompted this posting. A few months ago, someone asked Diane to contribute a chapter to a book. After a few rounds of proofreading from the editor, who liked the ideas in Diane’s chapter, all seemed well. In the meantime, the editor kept asking the publisher what citation style they required for the book. Finally, a few weeks after Diane finished her chapter, the publisher said that they wanted it in Chicago Manual of Style. Naturally, Diane used another style, so she needs to go back in and fuss over the picayune details of CMS. Diane also asked the editor for examples of CMS, but they actually varied in appearance, likely due to the variations that exist within CMS itself. She gave up trying to make sense of what she needed to do, so we went to Barnes & Noble on Monday to pick up a copy of CMS. They only had it in hardcover for $55, which may be a good investment in the long run if future editors or publishers want Diane to format articles in that style.

Diane’s situation made me wonder about all the fuss made over citation style formats. As I mentioned before, good citations are an essential part of scholarly research. However, I have also noticed how some people go overboard with citation styles. All of us have probably heard of professors who drop papers a whole letter grade due to improper formatting in a few citations. They justify it as a form of conditioning to make sure that students know how to cite properly in a specific format when they go forth into the world as professionals in whatever field. Such an outlook doesn’t help someone in Diane’s situation, who has to learn an entirely new format anyway due to the whims of a publisher. I have also heard about individuals who develop an almost unhealthy attachment to a specific citation style, and who will debate the merits of it with someone who feels just as strongly about another style format.

All this pickiness over citation style formats misses the point of having them in the first place: saving the time of the reader and preventing plagiarism. Otherwise, citation styles start to become objects of resentment and fear on the part of those who have to turn in bibliographies that satisfy the arbitrary preferences of those who have something for a specific style. Does it really matter whether a paper is cited in MLA, Turabian, APA, or whatever style? Does it affect the paper’s quality? Does a difference in styles really confuse people used to the style used in a certain discipline (especially with interdisciplinarity becoming more prominent)? I have yet to hear a convincing argument that they do, and I think such concerns seem like empty exercises that stray from the true value of scholarly research.

Job Seeking and Opera

Job seeking may sometimes seem like an opera, but I will actually discuss both separately. As my regular readers know, I am in the process of finding a job in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. Since Diane and I moved recently, I have managed to keep busy with household matters, including organization, cleaning, laundry, and lawn care. Most rooms currently have a minimal amount of unsorted stuff, much of which has ended up in the guest room after sitting for weeks in what has now become our exercise room. On Friday, we got a treadmill, whose box (which I call The Monolith) still sits in the office. For the yard, I have done very little due to the drought and unusually high temperatures for the area. I at least concentrate on taming weeds, just to keep our friendly neighborhood home owner’s association from pestering us with finger-wagging letters.

Depending on their requirements, several places have received a cover letter, resume, and/or application, which may be electronic or printed. The combinations and permutations of the aforementioned documents I have sent nearly equal the number of positions for which I have tried. I also visited a temporary employment place last week, and a few employers have started to contact me for interviews. More as the search progresses…

As one who listens to opera, it seems appropriate for me to comment on last week’s passing of Luciano Pavarotti. Oddly enough, I would be hard-pressed to find a recording of Pavarotti in my collection. Considering my tastes, it seems not quite so strange since I have a strong preference for German opera. Still, in his youth, Pavarotti sang the small role of the Italian tenor in a recording of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. That version was conducted by Sir Georg Solti, who (coincidentally enough) passed away on 5 September 1997… almost exactly 10 years before Pavarotti.

Although classical and opera fans know of Solti and his fiery approach, I learned of his death while flipping through a back issue of Time a few weeks later. Not unusual for anyone in the classical/opera world, unless they’re a Leonard Bernstein, a Beverly Sills, or a Pavarotti, whose deaths received appropriate coverage in the media. However, Solti had the misfortune of passing away around the same time as Princess Diana and Mother Teresa. In addition, unlike Bernstein, Sills, and Pavarotti, Solti somehow didn’t manage to infiltrate American middlebrow culture (a phenomenon discussed more broadly in a recent article by Terry Teachout), although he tried with the help of Dudley Moore in the delightful PBS series Orchestra!.

As I already mentioned, I don’t have many recordings of Pavarotti, with the exception of the Puccini excerpt album Tu, Tu, Amore. On the day of Pavarotti’s passing, I unearthed a U2 CD of Diane’s that contains “Miss Sarajevo,” a wistful song with the tenor making his grand entrance in the song’s second half. Not surprisingly, Bono wrote a moving tribute to Pavarotti on the band’s website. Such collaborations underscore Pavarotti’s appeal to audiences who generally think of opera as large women in horned helmets singing in German, or large men in tuxedos singing in Italian. Nevertheless, opera purists consider Pavarotti’s work outside of opera (and even his performances in the Three Tenors concerts) as sellouts that ruined his integrity as an artist. Still, who’s to say that such crossover work in itself is inherently bad? People who have high standards about musicianship might know or care whether someone’s voice is past its prime, while many others simply might not notice the difference. I must admit, when I attended a Pavarotti concert with a library school friend at Dallas’ American Airlines Center in 2002, I didn’t think of his singing in technical terms. I found it quite exciting to at least see Pavarotti in person, even though he looked tiny from my nosebleed seat… almost like an infant as he stretched out his arms to the audience and waved his handkerchief. But then, unlike me, Alex Ross could assess Pavarotti’s decline over time (and probably from a more technical perspective) by comparing his later work with recordings made back in the 1970s.

I stand by my contention that Placido Domingo remains the best of “The Three Tenors” due to his wider range of operatic roles. As a highly subjective bonus, he’s the only one who has done a substantial amount of Wagner. Nevertheless, the other tragedy in music from the past week makes less-than-great Pavarotti transcend the problems discussed by critics. Even if he came across as some kind of one-trick pony, Pavarotti at least gave everything he had to his audiences. Now, one can imagine him lending his voice to the chorus of the universe, maybe joining in duets with Maria Callas and Elvis Presley 30 years after their own passings from this world.

Quantifying Nerdiness

Via Jennifer’s blog, I found the NerdTest. This helps anyone taking it determine what type of nerd they are, based on five factors. Here are my results:

Actually, my five scores do not surprise me much. My heart is in history and literature, but I also know quite a bit about science fiction and just enough about comic books to BS my way at a SciFiComCon (or whatever it’s called). Remembering some science facts, as well as my admiration for Carl Sagan, probably helped boost my score as a Science/Math nerd, but it still wasn’t enough to get a sufficiently high score. My score is pretty low in Technology/Computer, mainly because a lot of the questions relate to things I never needed to do at work or in my spare time (such as taking things apart and coding). It might also explain my own cautious attitude towards technology. As for Dumb/Dork/Awkward, I’m not sure that counts because such people could only be considered nerds if they have an interest in at least one of the other four fields of nerddom. Or is it Nerddom? Or Nerdom? Well, if none of them is a word, one of them should be!

I don’t understand my overall labelling as an Uber (actually, Ueber) Cool High Nerd, however. Based on my score, I wonder it it may have to do with being “cool” (or having sang froid) towards various aspects of Nerdom. Whatever it is, I would be interested in finding out.

(Ach! Ended sentence in preposition. There goes my H/L score.)

Me on 2.0

Despite the title, don’t expect a narcissistic post. Rather, in response to the “infamous posting” by Annoyed Librarian last week about Web 2.0’s “Twopointopians,” I list below some of my previous postings on Web 2.0. I do so (a) in the interest of saving time, (b) because my past writings should show my level of agreement/disagreement with AL, and (c) others have already written their own responses… at least one of which (mentioned below) dissects AL’s concerns more eloquently than I could. I meant to comment on the posting shortly after its appearance, but I have kept plenty busy with job searching, helping Diane’s parents get acquainted with Durham, going through junk we should have pitched back in Texas, and so on.

It would be difficult to determine objectively the degree to which prominent advocates of Web 2.0 conform neatly to the Twopointiopian caricature. Generally, I believe they do not. Nevertheless, I found myself agreeing with what AL wrote regarding those who have developed an almost evangelistic zeal about Web 2.0 (or “Twopointopians” from this point on). This in itself wouldn’t be bad if some of them didn’t demonstrate an air of smug superiority over those who “don’t get it,” the favorite strawpeople of Twopointopians. And, no, I will not name names, either. I’m too nice, and I cannot know what’s in the hearts of those serious advocates of Web 2.0. The way I see it, Web 2.0 advocates can get so wrapped up in the excitement they find in the phenomenon that they know not what they do. As a result, they become the AL’s “Twopointopians,” and they inadvertently alienate those who might need to “see the light” the most. Lecturing at them won’t help, but understanding skepticism and using some friendly persuasion could help further the cause of Web 2.0 in Libraryland.

For a more balanced examination of these issues, Meredith Farkas wrote an excellent response that dissects AL’s concerns from a not-so-literal perspective. Naturally, I found the use of various forms of “pragmatic” heartening, and I agree that a more balanced advocacy of Web 2.0 in libraries would help ameliorate the schism that appears to have developed within Libraryland. I can understand the concerns of those who try to advocate new ideas in hostile environments. Still, bragging about being “a bitch and a half with a cherry on top” doesn’t seem like the best way to get people on board with one’s cause. Also, as I mentioned earlier, not trying to understand the concerns of skeptics certainly won’t help, either.

Anyway, since I’ve already written several postings on Web 2.0 in greater detail, here’s a list for those who wish to read more on my opinions:

For the Health of It (latter portion of posting)

TLA Presentations: Library 2.0

Anonymity in the Blogosphere

Feed Me!

Ready for Their Close-Up

Blogs and Finding Serenity (Now)

So, there you have it; some select (or maybe just selected) postings that seem appropriate in relation to AL’s posting. Also, for once, a professional posting to balance out all the personal ones that have dominated recently, and that have appeared on an irregular basis. I’ll be back with that soon, however, perhaps on the job search and the recent passing of Luciano Pavarotti.