The citation generators that came out of online note-taking software like Zotero and Evernote were a revelation. They removed much of the mystery regarding the placement of colons in reference notes, or the order in which authors should be listed. They cut down significantly on the time and effort spent wrestling with the picayune details of writing about research and allowed authors to really focus on refining their work.
One of the odd side effects of these tools ten years on, however, is that I frequently see confusion in the general application of the style guide rules. The source of this confusion seems to be that, while the note-taking tool may generate your citations in APA format, it can’t always tell you how these citations fit within the overall approach of the APA 7 manual. This tends to introduce inconsistencies in formatting and within the text, both of which can slow down your approval for publication. In many ways, this confusion is understandable. After all, most style guides are narrowly tailored to specific fields, and most scholars learn a single style guide primarily for the purpose of citation.
Style guides, however, are a far more powerful tool than just a reference system. If you choose the right style guide, it can provide support for building your outline, formatting your paper, and much more. In this series, I want to look at some of the key differences between the major style guides, why they matter, and the specific ways in which the right style guide can form an integral part of the writing process. The list below includes some of the highlights I plan to touch on for the next few weeks:
- The Big Four
- Strengths of Different Guides
- Beyond Citations
- Style Guides in Writing
- Choosing a Style Guide
Whether you are a Chicago purist or an APA partisan, I hope you will find something new or useful out of this exploration over the next few weeks.
