Yes Sir...

Ok, so I have a grudge. Not against a prof (I really enjoy what I am learning and I think that LBST has top notch professors, they are all great...REALLY) but against our system. It is a small microcosm that explains so much of how America works, inefficiently.

As a budding author, I think that it is VERY important to give credit where credit is due, to cite our sources, and show who was the author of the thoughts you compiled. I'm a big supporter of stricter penalties for plagiarism. If you took the thought from someone, tell us! Author's don't mind being quoted (in fact it is generally a good because it shows that someone read our work, and we like that, or we wouldn't publish!).

That said, WHY can't we have 1 method for citing sources and formatting papers? So far in my post-secondary career I have had to use: MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian (yes those two have slight differences) and ACS. And within each of those the way you do things changes with the years, even since I started college in 2001.

The way I approach life I think that as long as the paper looks professional, it gives all the necessary information and I make sure to give credit every time credit is due, does it really matter how I do it. If I use parenthetical citations in my paper, does it matter if I put the author's last name, or the title of book? Because all the pertinent information will be included in Bibliography ( aka: works cited, reference, whatever) at the end!

It is just ludicrous to my mind! So when I become Queen this is going to be a pet project of mine- to standardize citations across the disciplines.

So for now I'm a stuck doing what the certain professors require, and I will do it and I will smile (maybe not totally deep down). I will do it, because I truly do like and respect my professors (and it is asinine to lose points on an argument I won't win. In this life we pick our battles and until I'm queen I will sound off on this, but not fight it to the death). Just pray that I can continue to keep the formats straight and remember which class requires which format.

Thank you! And feel free to sound off as well (on this or any other post).

-JLK/PRT-