bangersandmash

Getting it wrong

The APA and MLA have both released new style guides this year. The purpose behind both updates is (partly) to update how electronic resources are handled in reference lists and bibliographies. The APA, tragically, has gotten it completely wrong — especially for journal articles.

The APA has chosen to include the doi as the preferred way of locating an electronic article. The journal’s homepage is the fallback position for articles that do not have a doi.

For example:

Bar-Ilan, J., Keenoy, K., Levene, M., & Yaari, E. (2009).       
    Presentation bias is significant in determining user 
    preference for search results-A user study.  *Journal 
    of the American Society for Information  Science and 
    Technology*, 60(1), 135–149. doi:0.1002/asi.20941

This, in itself is fine. The reader is directed to a specific version of the article. The fallback, however, is to direct a reader to the homepage of the journal. For example:

Bar-Ilan, J., Keenoy, K., Levene, M., & Yaari, E. (2009).       
    Presentation bias is significant in determining user 
    preference for search results-A user study.  *Journal 
    of the American Society for Information  Science and 
    Technology*, 60(1), Retrieved from
     http://www.asis.org/jasist.html

This points the reader back to the homepage of the journal, but not necessarily to

1. a point where the article can be retrieved from
2. a point where the author actually retrieved the articles from
3. a copy of the article in the same format as the author accessed. For example, the author could have used a re-keyed HTML version.

The APA style, on the one hand demands specificity by using the doi, but quickly abandons this specificity by recommending that the journal’s website be used even if the journal’s website was not the source of the article.

I am being pedantic here. I am aware of that. But consider how elegantly the MLA handles the same issue:

Bar-Ilan, Judit, Keenoy, Kevin, Levene, Mark, and Yaari, Eti. 
    "Presentation bias is significant in determining user 
    preference for search results-A user study."     *Journal
    of the American Society for Information Science and 
    Technology*, 60 (2009): 135—149. Wiley InterScience. 
    Web 09 September 2009.

Notice the differences? The MLA:

1. allows you to focus on where the article was downloaded from. Not a cryptic number. Not a website that may or may not actually link to the article.
2. makes an author explicitly state the medium of publication: print, web, film, email, etc. All documentary forms are equal
3. moves away from URLs (which can change) to simply acknowledging the medium of publication.

Neither of these systems is guaranteed to lead a reader back to a copy of the article. Links may have changed, the article may be behind a paywall or a server might be down but the MLA doesn’t pretend. It removes the confusion for the author because the author can cite based on how they obtained and used the article rather than on some provenance that is removed from their research process.

It has been a long time since I’ve written using the MLA style. For years I have preferred the APA style because I found it more logical and easier to use. Now I’m left trying to decide whether I want to stick with what I’ve been doing for years or if I want to begin using a system that seems to recognize the realities of online publishing and provide sensible solutions to documenting online sources.

Talented people have trouble writing comedy this good:

Editors had hoped to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover of a special issue, focusing on China, of the MaxPlanckForschung journal, but instead of poetry they ran a text effectively proclaiming “Hot Housewives in action!” on the front of the third-quarter edition. source: independant.co.uk

Don’t blame me if this disappears from your local library.