this is your college student moment of the day

[bedlamsbard]

You know what I hate? I hate motherfucking citations. (Actually, I usually like citations, but that's beside the point.)

I'm used to doing MLA format, because that's what they taught us in high school and that's what English papers use. Last year for my Victorianism class we did something with footnotes -- Chicago. I was writing my Arab-Israeli Conflict paper last night and this morning, and I could have sworn he told us to use APA, so I was doing APA as I went.

...he wanted us to use Chicago, as I saw when I checked my notes. So I then had to go back and change all my citations. (APA does not use footnotes, by the way. I love footnotes. So much.) GAH. (It was only a three page paper with three sources, so there weren't that many citations, but still. It's the principle of the thing.)

Just pick one and stick to it, will you, academia? Don't have the English department use MLA and the history department use Chicago and I don't even know who uses APA.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

Social sciences, says my English textbook--they're the American Psychological Association's rules.

Which invites the question of why my research paper for English class requires APA, not MLA.

[bedlamsbard]

...the Psych department is probably just trying to figure out what we do when they screw with us. *kicks all citations everywhere* They all say the same information, just in different ways!

Hmm...

[angel_negra]

This might help? http://www.bibme.org/

Re: Hmm...

[bedlamsbard]

Oooh... I actually don't mind doing bibliographies, it's just that I realized it mere hours before the paper was due.

Re: Hmm...

[angel_negra]

Gotcha. *shares coffee*

Re: Hmm...

[bedlamsbard]

To be fair, I also wrote most of the paper on the day it was due.

Re: Hmm...

[angel_negra]

Been there. *shares chocolate too*

Re: Hmm...

[bedlamsbard]

Chocolate! *pounces, offering tea and cookies in return*

I would have written it the day before, but I'd already been staring at the computer screen so long I couldn't look at the thing without wincing...so I handwrote about half of it.