When preparing to write an academic paper, the question arises of which citation style to use.

In principle almost any method that clearly establishes basic academic citation requirements would work. If citations establish the following details, they will have provided adequate scholarly citation information regardless of the style in which it is given (Merriam-Webster 219-20).

1. The author's name (lastname, firstname.)
2. The title of the work, and
3. The publication data (the city [and sometimes state and country] where the publisher is located, the name of the publisher, and the year of publication)

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   (and, where relevant, the)
4. Editor, compiler or translator; the
5. Edition, volume number or number of volumes; the
6. Name of the series (if it is a 'serialized' publication), and the
7. Portion of the work which was used [add the relevant page numbers if only part of a book was used, such as one chapter from an anthology; or the volume number if only one volume in a series was used, etc.].

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8. (Electronic sources may require additional "locator" or "identity" data)

Often only three of the above categories are needed — numbers 1, 2, and 3 — as in the sample MLA "Works Cited" listing below for a book by a single author. The in-text citation for this book would simply be (Brown xx), with "xx" indicating the page number of the reference. (See In-Text Citation Punctuation Format for other examples.)

• Brown, John. How to Cite Things. Tampere: Enlightenment Press, 2003.

Additional categories would be used if the citation was for an article in an anthology, or it was a translated work, or if only certain pages from the complete work had been consulted.

Styles for Different Languages, and Different University Departments

University departments often have an established style their students are expected to use. These provide consistency and easier comparability for papers written within the department. PK6 will focus on the MLA style, as used by English Translation, with mention of selected other 'standard' styles.

These include the APA style of the American Psychological Association (see How Do They Differ?), and the British "Harvard Referencing System" (see PDF overview).

Harvard Style is used in the Tampere Journalism Department, and, as one of the "author/date" citation styles, is similar to the Finnish SFS-5342 citation standard(s). There are also many other profession-specific or "generic" styles, including the International Organization For Standardization's ISO 690 (1987) (general text citation) and ISO 690-2 (1997) (electronic citations) recommendations, which are also part of SFS-5342.

"Professional" Styles vs "House Styles"

The MLA Style might be thought of as a "professional" style, since it was designed particularly for the needs of academic professionals in the Humanities. Likewise APA was designed for academic professionals in the Social Sciences.

There are also so-called "house styles," which are used to provide consistency within a university department, or publishing house, or corporation, for instance. The English Section Text Layout and Usage Guidelines, along with the English Section Modified Style suggestions, are an example of a "house style." The objective of the "house style" is to simplify student and staff work by providing guidelines which meet scholarly requirements in a fashion that is clear, consistent, and easily comparable.

So Which Style Should I Use?

For papers written in English within the Department of Translation Studies, the conventions of the MLA in its current published version will always be the "authoritative" style.

However, English Section students may also use the "Modified-MLA house style" (cf. What's the Difference?). As the modified procedure results in a quicker, simpler and clearer layout, it may be used for all English Section papers (unless the instructor specifies otherwise) even if it differs slightly from MLA conventions.

Papers Written for Other Departments, Organizations, Publishers ...

When writing papers outside the English Section, or if there is any question even within the English Section whether some other style should be used for the paper in question, it would be prudent to inquire about which style (and which version of that style) is expected before starting your paper, as the type of citation detail you will need to collect in your research may differ according to the style which is used.

With any "citation style," including MLA, there are several potential problematics:

1. No citation style is an absolute, unchanging "standard": all published style guides are regularly revised, as frequently as every 3-5 years, to bring the guidelines up-to-date with changing technologies of how research is being produced and published.

   The objectives include both covering new modes of how scholarly research material has been published (in recent years web and PDF files, or archive databases which have been published in CD-ROM or DVD format, as well as MP3 and streaming audio formats for interviews, etc., are all examples of such new modes), and making it easier for scholars to produce "standard" citations via newer word-processing capabilities or with an eye toward the need to convert a digital text from its original format into other publication modes.

   Thus, one must determine which edition of which citation style is expected for the paper in question. If there is a "house style," use that. If one of the professional style guides, such as MLA or APA, has been recommended, use its current published version.

2. There are different "standards" of citation style within different languages as well. This is a common problem within multilingual environments such as the Department of Translation Studies. Translation students, for example, may be studying several different languages, each of which may have its own "standard" citation styles which differ from those used in English. Thus it may happen that an instructor expects papers to be written according to the conventions of his or her own language, and not necessarily be aware that the citation style would differ in another language. It is up to the student in such cases to determine the appropriate citation procedure for each language, just as one must distinguish otherwise between the conventions of different languages.

3. One must also be prepared for the possibility that an instructor may not realize that a certain "standard" style has changed from what (s)he had once learned or last used. In other words, an instructor may "expect" students to use a citation style that is now obsolete according to the currently-published guide for that style. Conversely, sometimes there could be a reason to use an older version that the style publishers themselves no longer consider current.

   In any case, if an instructor requests a student to use a style other than the current "house style" or current published "standard" English-language (MLA, APA, etc.) style, the student should ask the instructor why an older or differing style must be used, and the instructor should be able to justify the reason(s) to the student's satisfaction. Further, if an "older" standard style is expected that can no longer easily be found in current bookstore or library editions of a particular style guide, it should be the responsibility of the instructor to supply the student with the relevant details of the expected style. However, it is the responsibility of the student to clarify all the background details concerning the paper before beginning to research it.

   Obviously, discussions between student and instructor in such a situation may require tact. The point is not that awkward situations would often arise, but rather that the nature of changing standards over different languages may easily produce confusion even with the best of intentions, and it is important in a scholarly undertaking that both student and instructor are fully aware and agreed at the outset on the "hows and whys" of citation procedure for the student's paper.

A Definition of "House Style"

The following three paragraphs have been paraphrased from the entry on "House style" in the Oxford Companion to the English Language (484-85):

"House style" is a term for rules adopted to bring uniformity and consistency to printed material coming from one source, such as a government department, publishing house, newspaper, professional association, or commercial company. Such organizations usually find it necessary to have a policy for points of style and usage that arise in writing and printng, and occasionally in speaking.

House style will usually establish consistency in spelling, naming, grammatical, punctuation, and other issues. Spelling examples would include whether inquire or enquire, judgement or judgment, or for example British or American variants should be used. Naming issues include whether one refers to Moslem or Muslim, Beijing or Peking, Holland or The Netherlands, or whether the forms Myanmar and Yangoon have superseded the previous Burma and Rangoon.

In such cases, individual writers may have their own preferred solutions, but the house style rules establish a consistency of usage for all writing associated with it. This makes quality assessment easier, at the same time as it simplifies the writing and evaluation work of students and instructors, respectively.

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Works Cited   (for a single-author book, an edited book, and a book where no 'author' is identified)

• Brown, John. How to Cite Things. Tampere: Enlightenment Press, 2003.
• McArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford U.P., 1992.
• Merriam-Webster Concise Handbook for Writers. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1991.