(DOWNLOAD) "Database Citation Generators: Generating What, Exactly?" by Writing Lab Newsletter " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Database Citation Generators: Generating What, Exactly?
- Author : Writing Lab Newsletter
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Education,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 62 KB
Description
Like ours, your writing center has probably seen this scenario many times: the timid freshman (or harried junior) brings in her research paper for review. She is concerned about the usual issues (e.g., correctness, evidence), but when you get to the References or the Works Cited page, you are stopped cold. The citation page before you is incomprehensible. The pieces are there, but they are in such strange order and with such an odd assortment of extraneous elements that you wonder what this student might have been thinking. You politely ask about these entries, and then comes another shock: "Oh, I got the citation from EBSCO with the article. Isn't it great?" Students see EBSCO citation generators as an easy, mechanical way to create References or Works Cited pages. While they are correct about both the ease and the mechanical nature of the process, they are wrong to assume that the result will be an error-free page. Often, the citation is clearly wrong and doesn't respect the formatting conventions of the discipline, any discipline. However, this database-generated citation also provides an opportunity--a teaching moment, if you will--to guide the student into looking carefully at the citation, to suggest revision strategies that accord with appropriate documentation practices, and to illustrate that computers don't absolve humans from the need for critical thinking. In order to do that, though, our tutors themselves must be able to view documentation critically and to understand that they must know why a documentation style works as it does in order to apply its rules correctly. This article will examine some samples from database citation generators, note how they do or do not align with documentation styles, and then consider how a tutor might approach this with the student/writer.