Here I am again. This time I want to write something about the often annoying experience of writing references at the end of a text, be it an essay, a dissertation or anything else. In all honesty, I find the whole thing of reference styles kind of boring. I can't actually explain why, maybe it's just a matter of laziness. As a matter of fact, when one has to write a reference list, one needs to be very precise and pay attention to a lot of details. First of all, once one has chosen the most suitable style to them, it is important that they are coherent and don't change it all the time. What I find most frustrating about writing references is that, regardless of the style one chooses, there are specific rules to follow and it's often difficult to put them into practice. I think this is due to the fact that there are so many different types of sources that it's almost impossible to class all of them. So, it happens quite frequently that there isn't a specific rule to follow and one has to guess and try to understand which specific type the source at issue belongs to. Personally speaking, I really find it difficult to quote articles in journals or periodicals. There's so many details to include, and each piece of information follows its own criteria that it's very easy to go mental!
I think it's very important to try and look beyond the difficulties involved in writing references, and think about the importance of learning how to quote sources properly. I'm specifically referring to academic writing where everything is given great weight, not only the content. This might sound weird to us Italian students because, generally speaking, we aren't used to paying so much attention to details. I guess this is not the case of American students given the great number of websites on referencing styles provided by American universities. Well, I think the only solution is to tuck up our sleeves and start working hard! SOMEBODY HELP US !!!!
Serena
Hi Serena! Are you ready for the big debate of tomorrow??
ReplyDeleteYour post is really well written: your English is very fluent, one can see you just came back from Ireland!
I totally agree with you: writing references seems to have been invented to make us go crazy..but think about this: if we go crazy now and learn how to do it, we won't need to go crazy when we'll bw writing our thesis! One problem solved!
Graphically speaking, I think maybe you could do something like separating paragraphs in order to avoid the effect 'punch in one's eyes' that long posts have.
A few suggestions:
-'I can't actually explain why' sounds a bit strange to me..isn't it better to write 'I can't really explain why' or 'Actually, I can't explain why'?
-'First of all, once one has chosen the most suitable style to them, it is important that they are coherent and don't change it all the time'....the last part of the sentence is not very clear..especially that 'it'..maybe you meant something like 'and don't keep changing'
-'I really find it difficult to quote articles..'..I'm not sure, but isn't it better to write 'I find it really difficult'?
-'I'm specifically referring to academic writing where everything is given great weight, not only the content'..I would add a comma after academic writing!
That's it for the moment, good job!
See you tomorrow!