Freestyle Referencing for the African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies: Exactly why not?

Dear Editor, After experiencing the disappointment of a rejection letter from a journal editor regarding a submission, an author will often immediately start searching for another journal in which to publish his or her work. A major consideration in this search will be the referencing style specified by the journal concerned. The range of possible format requirements is almost infinite, but fortunately, most journals follow acknowledged styles, such as those of the American Psychological Association, the Modern Language Association or the Chicago/Turabian style. Transforming a text from one referencing style to another is a cumbersome task – though some librarians may disregard this concern, declaring that software such as Mendeley and Endnotes is able to convert ‘appropriately captured’ references seamlessly from one style to another. A problem central to this approach relates to the ‘appropriate capturing’ of such references, a task that requires extreme diligence. For example, the capturing of an author’s first names might be unnecessary when using style A, but could be required by style B – a detail further complicated by the fact that some sources record only the author’s initials. Another problem posed by conversion is the fact that many journals profess to use a standard, acknowledged referencing style, but then impose idiosyncratic house style rules, where they deviate from the norm. Clearly, converting from one referencing style to another is an intricate, time-consuming endeavour and most authors would prefer to select a journal that uses the same referencing style as the one they originally selected. Why, then, does the African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies (AJIMS) not adopt a policy of free referencing styles? Free referencing refers to the journal considering and reviewing articles irrespective of the referencing style used – subject to the style being specified and then applied consistently throughout the article. As most reviewers are exposed to a variety of referencing styles, this should not impact negatively on the review process. I believe that adopting freestyle referencing would attract more authors to AJIMS, thus enlarging the pool of submissions from which the editor can select. Particularly as AJIMS is a progressive journal, and as inter- and multidisciplinary studies require an embracement of diversity, AJIMS is well-positioned to follow a policy of freestyle referencing. Freestyle referencing is not a new concept. Indeed, it has been widely advocated and is accepted by many respectable journals, such as the 350 titles with Taylor & Francis and Routledge, as well as the 92 Wiley journals that allow it. I am firmly of the opinion that the adoption of freestyle referencing would reduce unnecessary labour expended in efforts to disseminate knowledge and would also allow researchers to focus on researching, all without adding to the load carried by AJIMS’s editorial staff. Indeed, I believe that such a move might well enlarge the pool of submissions to AJIMS, providing the publication with an additional competitive advantage.

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Constructing citations: reviewing chat transcripts to improve citation assistance as a service

Reference Services Review ◽

10.1108/rsr-03-2021-0007 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Jaci Wilkinson ◽

Alyssa Denneler ◽

Leanne Nay ◽

Anna Marie Johnson

Keyword(s):

American Psychological Association ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Indiana University ◽

Data Set ◽

Content Type ◽

Modern Language ◽

Government Documents ◽

Online Resource ◽

Magazine Articles ◽

Management Expert

PurposeUsing chat transcripts from Indiana University Libraries, the authors examined a subset of transcripts involving citations. From this analysis, they propose improvements for citation assistance as a holistic service.Design/methodology/approachTwo years of chat transcripts were examined and questions containing citation-related keywords were segregated for further examination. The authors used a test data set to create a coding scheme for the questions and responses. This scheme was then applied to all the citation-related transcripts.Findings390 of 11,553 transcripts included interactions about citations. In 42% of the transcripts, no specific citation style was mentioned. American Psychological Association and Modern Language Association were the most frequently mentioned citation styles by chat users. Business reports (company data and market research), periodicals (journal, newspaper or magazine articles), websites and government documents were the most often asked about formats, but there was a wide variety of other unusual formats. Questions about EndNote were more common than other types of citation management software. Chat staff utilized a variety of responses including guiding the student by example, directing to an online resource for more information (85% of the responses) or referring to a citation management expert. An unexpected amount of hedging words in the responses indicates the presence of anxiety on the part of chat staff in responding to these types of questions.Originality/valueThis paper goes beyond most existing studies of chat transcripts by using chat transcripts as data to guide service improvements for a commonly asked but not typically discussed set of questions.

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Approaches to Teaching the Middle English Pearl, ed. Jane Beal and Mark Bradshaw Busbee. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2018, xi, 262 pp., 5 b/w ill.

Mediaevistik ◽

10.3726/med012018_423 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (1) ◽

pp. 423-423

Author(s):

Albrecht Classen

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

High School Students ◽

Middle English ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Approaches To Teaching ◽

Relevant Research ◽

School Students ◽

Modern Language ◽

School Teaching ◽

The One

This well established series, AApproaches to Teaching …@ by the Modern Language Association of America enjoys great respect because it has successfully built important bridges between, on the one hand, research in the field of the Humanities, and school teaching on the other. There is no reason to assume that high school students would not be competent enough to study not only the primary texts examined in this series, but also some of the relevant research. Moreover, having such a pedagogically oriented volume available, this can easily facilitate the rediscovery of some of the heretofore rather neglected texts that have fallen out of general popularity.

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Guest Column No Bias, No Merit: The Case against Blind Submission

PMLA ◽

10.1632/s0030812900136363 ◽

1988 ◽

Vol 103 (5) ◽

pp. 739-748 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stanley Fish

Keyword(s):

Executive Director ◽

Fundamental Principle ◽

Status Quo ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Primary Concern ◽

Social Scientists ◽

Absolute Value ◽

Modern Language ◽

The Status ◽

The One

WHEN members of an institution debate, it may seem that they are arguing about fundamental principles, but it is more often the case that the truly fundamental principle is the one that makes possible the terms of the disagreement and is therefore not in dispute at all. I am thinking in particular of the arguments recently marshaled for and against blind submission to the journal of the Modern Language Association. Blind submission is the practice whereby an author's name is not revealed to the reviewer who evaluates his or her work. It is an attempt, as William Schaefer explained in the MLA Newsletter, “to ensure that in making their evaluations readers are not influenced by factors other than the intrinsic merits of the article” (4). In his report to the members, Schaefer, then executive director of the association, declared that he himself was opposed to blind submission because the impersonality of the practice would erode the humanistic values that are supposedly at the heart of our enterprise. Predictably, Schaefer's statement provoked a lively exchange in which the lines of battle were firmly, and, as I will argue, narrowly, drawn. On the one hand those who agreed with Schaefer feared that a policy of anonymous review would involve a surrender “to the spurious notions about objectivity and absolute value that … scientists and social scientists banter about”; on the other hand those whose primary concern was with the fairness of the procedure believed that “[j]ustice should be blind” (“Correspondence” 4). Each side concedes the force of the opposing argument—the proponents of anonymous review admit that impersonality brings its dangers, and the defenders of the status quo acknowledge that it is important to prevent “extraneous considerations” from interfering with the identification of true merit (5).

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PRACTICAL GUIDE TO AVOIDING PITFALLS IN RESEARCH PAPER WRITING

10.47760/cognizance.2021.v01i03.001 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Matthew O. Iwuchukwu

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

American Psychological Association ◽

Research Work ◽

Research Paper ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

Scholarly Journals ◽

Postgraduate Students ◽

Modern Language ◽

Donor Agencies ◽

Research Grant

Pitfalls in research paper writing is a very important subject matter in academia, especially in research in arts and social sciences, but there is a dearth of literature focusing exclusively on the issue of pitfalls in scholarly research. Thus, the objective of this descriptive study is to examine the major pitfalls in research paper writing and how to avoid them. The study elucidates several pitfalls in the writing of a research paper, a Master’s or Ph.D thesis/dissertation, that is, the inadequacies observed in the following components of a typical research work: research title, abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, data presentation and discussion. Others are incomplete and improper referencing as well as inadequate use of language and conclusion. The paper also highlights some research tips to avoid the pitfalls and enhance research originality, capacity and acceptability at the local and international levels of readership. Based on the above, the study encourages postgraduate students and young researchers to adhere strictly to the rules of approved referencing styles such as the American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA), while observing also the editorial guidelines of reputable scholarly journals, research institutions or research grant donor agencies.

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Folklore and Literature

PMLA ◽

10.2307/458747 ◽

1940 ◽

Vol 55 (3) ◽

pp. 866-874 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stith Thompson

Keyword(s):

The Other ◽

Modern Language Association ◽

American Anthropological Association ◽

Modern Language ◽

Wide Range ◽

The World ◽

English Speaking ◽

The One ◽

Take All

The meeting of the American Folk-Lore Society with the Modern Language Association of America on the one hand and with the American Anthropological Association on the other in 1938 illustrates very clearly the wide range of interests covered by the term folklore. A century ago no such term existed, but the need for one was greatly felt. Students of the popular ballad, of popular antiquities, and of superstitions all recognized that they had something in common, and, as soon as the word folklore was proposed in the 1840's, it was adopted, not only by the English-speaking public, but by the whole world. It is now as ubiquitous as the Ford car and moves uneasily in Russian or Hungarian texts, not to speak of such familiar literatures as French or German. During the ninety years in which this word has been spreading over the world, it has extended its meaning until no man today can take all folklore for his province.

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Proceedings of The Modern Language Association of America

PMLA ◽

10.1017/s0030812900130470 ◽

1935 ◽

Vol 50 (4) ◽

pp. 1343-1343

Keyword(s):

Modern Language Association ◽

Modern Language ◽

Local Committee ◽

Tuesday Morning ◽

University Of Cincinnati ◽

The University ◽

Plaza Hotel

The fifty-second meeting of the Modern Language Associationof America was held, on the invitation of the University of Cincinnati, at Cincinnati, Ohio, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, December 30 and 31, 1935, and January 1, 1936. The Association headquarters were in the Netherland Plaza Hotel, where all meetings were held except those of Tuesday morning and afternoon. These took place at the University of Cincinnati. Registration cards at headquarters were signed by about 900, though a considerably larger number of members were in attendance. The Local Committee estimated the attendance at not less than 1400. This Committee consisted of Professor Frank W. Chandler, Chairman; Professor Edwin H. Zeydel; Professor Phillip Ogden; Mr. John J. Rowe (for the Directors); and Mr. Joseph S. Graydon (for the Alumni).

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