Most of us who have taught college-age students for any length of time, or who are lucky enough to remember being college-aged ourselves, are well aware of students’ aversion to some things that resemble work. This is especially true when that work does not appear to make sense or does not appear to have any application (and this is also true for most of us). Knowing this challenge exists makes Kurt Schick’s article “Citation Obsession? Get Over It,” which suggests that instructors need to rethink our “obsession” with citation, that much more puzzling.
Although I understand that Schick, writing here for the Chronicle of Higher Education, is not advocating for the complete dissolution of any kind of documentation guideline (that would be akin to encouraging academic dishonesty, after all), the notion that those of us who are still nit-picky about citation formats need to “get over it” is problematic on several levels.
To start with, Schick’s assertion that, “More than anything, source attribution enables students—who, by virtue of being students, don't yet know much about a subject—to borrow knowledge and ethos from those who do. It's just about that simple” is a point well taken. However, two paragraphs later he goes on to state that citation format is also “simple.” Presumably any of us who ask students to write try to focus on attribution and ethos, if not necessarily using those terms, in addition to all of the other important facets of writing, such as using evidence to support positions taken and ensuring that the construction of the argument itself is logical. Specific attention and weight to these components, however, does not eliminate the need for correct citations because it is through the citations that we can see “borrowed ethos” demonstrated. Furthermore, if citation format is that simple, why then is it asking too much of our students to follow a particular format? The implication is that thought development is paramount and that format has nothing to do with the conveyance of the overall idea, and therefore is not something that students should pay much attention to. Although good argumentation, support, and thought development are crucial, that fact does not make format of citations any less important. Instead, correct format should be considered one of the facets of a well-written paper.
Furthermore, I personally resent the charge that instructors who focus on the details of a particular format are sacrificing substance. Is there not room enough for attention to both substance and format? Beyond this obvious question, even those of us that are particular about our documentation style formats usually also only include them as a component of the overall assessment of a research assignment, rather than the primary focus. However, even if they were the primary focus of a specific assignment, maybe that assignment’s intent was only to assess the students’ acuity at following directions, which is a skill in itself, rather than any specific writing skill. After all, if students cannot or will not follow basic instructions, such as assignment details, do they not deserve to fail? If you assign a paper about the Milligram experiments and their ethical questions, and you instead receive a paper about Civil War, even if the paper about the Civil War is the best paper you’ve ever read, and is flawless in its thought development, grammar, and source use, does it not still fail to meet the assignment requirements? All of that notwithstanding, students will also have to learn how to follow directions at some point, and hopefully sooner rather than later. It’s not as though their boss will give them a project with specific guidelines and due dates and all kinds of other administrative tasks and not expect them to be adhered to. Part of what we are teaching our students with the insistence on paying attention to those nit-picky details are that details are important, as is following directions. To paraphrase Schick, asking students to follow a particular documentation format is that simple.
Requiring students to follow a particular citation format does not sacrifice substance, which consequently means that it citation nit-picking is not used as a crutch to eliminate responding to the student writing itself. In addition, the idea that students should not be tasked with learning things that are not part of their vocational plan is contrary to the very purpose of a liberal arts based education. Since most of us are not really debating the merits of general education requirements, we should also not be debating whether or not adherence to a particular citation format is necessary – it is.
