website of interest

[Katherine Acheson]

Dear Sharpists,

I'm not sure, actually, if it will be of interest...but I've just completed
an instructional website called "Research Skills in English Studies" which
has about 50 pages of text, lots of pictures, some videos of researchers
talking about projects, and some flash-based demos of resources that
undergraduates can use for doing research in English studies. It also has a
set of exercises that teachers could use in class. It's a little
over-centred on my own institution, but perhaps that's bearable.

The address is

http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~rses/RSEShome.html

If you're interested in using it for a class, I don't have any problem with
that. I wouldn't mind, however, if you had the class fill out a survey
before they use it, and after, as the grant I had to make the site requires
that I do some research on its effectiveness. So let me know, off-list, if
you would like to use it.

Kathy Acheson
U Waterloo

[Jonathan E. Rose]

Kathy Acheson's website is quite an achievement, and it put an idea in my head. I imagine that a number of SHARPists have developed their own web-based resources for the use of their students in book history courses. It might consist of digitized bookbindings or library records or ephemera collections or whatever, but in any case something that would introduce undergraduates to book history research. Could links to these resources be posted in special section of the SHARP Web Page, to be freely used by the rest of us in our own courses? There is already a section of SHARP Web titled "Teaching Resources", but these seem to be all course syllabi. I'm thinking of something that undergraduates could use as an academic exercise.

Just a thought,

Jonathan Rose

[Paul Tankard]

Dear Learned List,

Does anyone know if there has been work done which explains the creep
of social-science citation and referencing methods into humane
discourse, the hegemony of "MLA-style", and/or discusses the
implications for writing (and reading) of such systems -- or even
just laments the limitations (and ugliness) of in-text references?

Cheers,
Paul Tankard

[Mary Ann O'Donnell]

Paul Tankard raises a most important question, one I have long mused
about. (Important disclosure: I worked with MLA on the early editions
of the new style, even then not much liking it. I also was among the
many who reviewed and proofed at least the first two editions,
possibly three--memory being a bit fuzzy right now).

I think it perverse that just at the time computers began to give us
the ease of situating footnotes or endnotes by pressing a button, we
ended up with the embedded parentetical. I just taught a section of
College Writing last semester for the first time in thirteen years,
and wept along with my students trying to make sure we were citing
correctly--especially with the new bane of our existence, URLs. Many
years ago, we adopted the MLA style for the School of Arts, and I am
beginning to urge my colleagues to return to Turabian or to the
alternate footnote/bibliography style that MLA offers briefly in the
back of the Handbook. I even would recommend the MHRA style over MLA.

Paul Tankard is right: MLA style is ugly. And what confuses students
even more is that MLA does not follow its own style in the MLA
Bibliography.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent.

Mary Ann O'Donnell
Professor of Egnlish and
Dean, School of Arts
Manhattan College
Bronx, NY






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[Betsy Martens]

You might find the late Robert Connors's two essays in Rhetoric Review on the rhetoric of citation systems of
interest, particularly the second one:

"The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part II: Competing Epistemic Values in Citation"
Robert J. Connors
Rhetoric Review, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Spring, 1999), pp. 219-245.

Betsy Van der Veer Martens, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Oklahoma
Schusterman Center
4502 East 41st Street
Tulsa, OK 74135-2512


----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Tankard <***@STONEBOW.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Date: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 11:08 pm
Subject: MLA-style hegemony

Post by Paul Tankard
Dear Learned List,
Does anyone know if there has been work done which explains the
creep
of social-science citation and referencing methods into humane
discourse, the hegemony of "MLA-style", and/or discusses the
implications for writing (and reading) of such systems -- or even
just laments the limitations (and ugliness) of in-text references?
Cheers,
Paul Tankard
--
Dr Paul Tankard
Lecturer, Department of English
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand
Ph. BH. + 64 3 479 7724
Ph. AH. + 64 3 479 2869 (this is now correct!)

[m***@mindspring.com]

I strongly agree with all the postings against the hegemony of parenthetical documentation. My institution requires that students use APA style for all documentation needs--even in literature classes. Imagine that! It is very difficult to justify using APA in lit papers. I would prefer CMS (Chicago) with the option to use footnotes or endnotes if an institution wants a uniform citation practice. As was pointed out in earlier postings, with the computer and the many formatting commands, using footnotes and/or endnotes is very simple--it is simple for printers, too. Although CMS requires the usual attention to detail, it is easily used in both the social sciences and the humanities.
From your posting I gather that you are looking for published material on the issue, but I think that you could get even more "real" reaction from the "trenches."
Best,
Mary Rose Kasraie

-----Original Message-----

Sent: Aug 17, 2006 12:08 AM
Subject: MLA-style hegemony
Dear Learned List,
Does anyone know if there has been work done which explains the creep
of social-science citation and referencing methods into humane
discourse, the hegemony of "MLA-style", and/or discusses the
implications for writing (and reading) of such systems -- or even
just laments the limitations (and ugliness) of in-text references?
Cheers,
Paul Tankard
--
Dr Paul Tankard
Lecturer, Department of English
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand
Ph. BH. + 64 3 479 7724
Ph. AH. + 64 3 479 2869 (this is now correct!)