Jan

4

A Defense of Bibliographies

January 4, 2006 |

Seth Godin has decided to take on bibliographies as an evil entity. And at first sight, his argument makes sense.

If your goal as a reader (or someone checking for plagiarism or quality of research) is to get to the books that the writer used, you need exactly one piece of data: the ISBN.

Seems to make sense, but why add another step in to the process? Create a webpage for students to post their biblipgraphies? That means I need to be online to make sense out of my students’ papers. And, by the way, I read a lot of old books - no ISBN to be found in those. Oh, and the ISBN won’t do you any good for most papers anywhere, where 90% of the research comes from papers, not books.

Here is what Seth proposes: A new piece of software that does the following:

1. a bibliography based on looking up the data onlline and
2. a web page that would allow the reader/teacher to see the books, their covers, links to Amazon, libraries, online references, etc.

I agree with #1. However, #2 seems unncessesary, though I can see that it could be useful for some people - yet not in academia. I prefer to have a Library of Congress number so I can just walk up to the book in the library. ISBN would involve another step (unless your library is organized by ISBN).

But here is something I never understood: why are bibliographies supposed to be so difficult for students. The format (I typically use the MLA or a version of it preferred by a publisher) is simple. The punctuation is straightforward. When I look at the end of a paper, I know the quality of research right away.

Now what Seth describes is nothing special. It doesn’t even break the traditon - it just adds a layer on top of it. Bibliographies have great, intrisic values.

Even today, I can find a book cited in a 1870 publication because the bibliography allows me to do so. That’s why I need the place of the publisher (and what about two publishers with the same name - that’s where the place realy comes in handy).

Point is: bibliographies are some of the most useful tools to the academic - they are not stuck systems. They are perfectly functioning systems. What our educational system has failed to instill in its students is that they are part of this academic system. But they don’t feel that way because they are bogged down with required general education courses and basically just see the academy as a way to get a job. The guilty ones here are definitely the professors and administrators who don’t instill these ideas in students. Students consume education - they don’t feel connected to it. If they did they would see the purpose of a good bibliogrpahy. It is what allows academic work to happen - but students don’t feel like they do academic work. They are only doing homework.

Now a program that would help students write consisten bibliographies - I agree - that would be great. They exist: EasyBib, NoodleBib and others. None as sophisticated as Seth describes, but hey - you can type in the author’s name and publisher. Not that tough.

Okay - that was a rant, but I hope you get the point.

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1 Comment so far

  1. Mark Grimshaw on February 17, 2006 4:38 am

    Re. your last point about helping students write consistent bibliographies (and why not consistently cited papers while you’re at it), take a look at WIKINDX (http://wikindx.sourceforge.net).

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