Turabian MLA Format Software?

Learning or using?

If one is taking a class where the professor is teaching how to do citations, it would be unethical to use software for one's work. IMHO, one ought to master the citation system first and then use software to automate the task when working for productivity. Work in school is for learning but work in the real world is geared toward productivity. This is just one man's opinion but I do have experience in teaching, writing and researching. What do you think?

 

The professor should be teaching the students how to use the software as opposed to the old method which leaves many pulling their hair out trying to figure out the rules and regulations that are subject to various and sundry interpretations.

 

By what logic?

Isn't this rather like saying that the professor should be teaching the students how to use word processing rather than teaching composition? What is the course content? How to use software or how to do citations?

Or, this may be like the student, whom I knew, that copied his sources verbatim and used paraphrase software to write his paper. duh?

 

If one uses Microsoft Word 2007 it is quite easy to use the references button to develop citations, footnotes, and a Bibliography or References section in any paper.

In MS Word 2007 there is a choice of 10 different formats that one may use.

However, it is imperative that the student know how to properly list the required information. When I teach this sort of thing, I always teach the students to properly format the material correctly then tell them about the templates that are available in their software.

 

Been there...

I am currently in graduate school. I can remember doing papers on a typewriter back in high school. I can also remember doing papers on an old Apple II computer in college. Now I am glad for programs like Notabene. I save an unbelievable amount of time using Notabene. Check it out at www.notabene.com I used EndNote for a while at the recommendation of a professor who used it for a book that he wrote. I found the program to be marginal at best and required a lot of tweaking to get it in Turabian format...

 

I hope I'm not too late, such goodly responses so far...:thumbs:

I use Endnote for my papers and articles and have since my days at the seminary. Honestly I have no desire to ever learn a particular format outside of the page delimitations. There are too many variables. If you are getting a PhD or EdD in Library Science you might need to learn them out of sheer necessity for your written examinations.

There are just too many things to learn and our students' times are better spent working on content and not worrying about construction. I mean think of ole Kate Turabian's style guide, she has fifty thousand (an exaggeration) different citations given the kind of book and how you have used it.

Before I used Endnote I would invariably spend an additional two to three hours working on citations and formatting at the end of my paper. This is time I could have been using for other research or, I don't know, sleeping. Citation systems, their complexity and inexhaustibility, are too difficult to try to remember all the jots and tittles.

None whatsoever. Actually if you knew how many of my colleagues used these software programs and what they were producing this question would quickly becom moot, in my opnion.

Additionally, and this is a much better point, most scholars who are writing a ton of stuff that is noteworthy and good (which is not as hard to come by in conservative circles as it once was) usually farm out research, formatting, and proofing to an assistant or post-graduate student working with them. Some even use, wait for it, ghost-writers to pull their stuff together...the men that I've ghosted for...I tell ya, its quite the list.

None of the conservative scholars who have a sound reputation have issues with the software use at all. In fact they often encourage students to use it.

Great point here. Besides if your professor is grading more on construction than content you need to leave their class. If a professor (or TA) can't reasonably engage with content they need to sell the farm and move somewhere else because they can't cut it.

I love my documentation software, it is a God send. I can carry around an entire library (or access to an entire library) of content on my laptop and create a complete journal article with all the citations and formatting while flying between New York and London. What a great thing! I don't understand people who think it is an integrity issue, I really don't. Imagine the scholarship that could have been produced twenty years ago if vibrant scholars had this kind of information and software available. Wow.

BTW, (last point my apologies on length) I just submitted a journal article to three different journals. Each one used a different citation system. Using Endnote all I had to do was open the document, open Endnote, switch the format from (for example) Turbanian to APA or APA to MLA and I resubmitted it moments later. No worries whatsoever.

 

Do you have any idea how much "research" is being done by grad assistants and the professor gets the credit?