In my first-year writing class we are doing a copyediting workshop. My students have exchanged papers and I have asked them to do the following:
- Make sure all Direct Quotations have been introduced properly.
- Check to make sure the in-text citations have been done according to MLA format.
- Check each entry in the Works Cited page to make sure it has been formatted according to MLA.
I have also asked them to bring their handbooks. This year we are using The Little Penguin Handbook. As my students work I circulate. “If you have any questions let me know,” I say. We are at the point in the semester where I feel a bit useless in class. I set my students to work—writing, peer reviewing, copyediting—and they spend the class working. At the beginning of the semester they seemed to have a lot of questions, but now that we are near the end and they know what they are doing, they have fewer and fewer questions.
But today someone raises her hand and like the good teacher I am I rush right over. “Should this be in quotations or in italics?” she asks pointing to the title of a journal article.
“In quotation marks,” I say. “Titles of articles are in quotation marks and titles of journals and books are in italics.”
“Thanks,” the student says.
I start to circulate again. I’m happy to be of use! Another student raises his hand. Again, like the good teacher I am, I rush right over.
“Should there be a comma here?” he asks pointing to the in-text citation.
“No,” I say. “No comma between the author’s name and the page name.”
“Thanks,” he says.
Another student raises his hand. Again I rush right over. I’m actually teaching! “Is this right?” he asks pointing to an in-text citation. “She is quoting from an article that has no author. But don’t you have to put the author’s name in the citation?”
“If there is no author you put the name of the article in the citation. What you are doing is pointing the reader to the Works Cited page so they can easily find the source.”
“Thanks,” my student says.
Once again I begin making my rounds around the class. But this time I notice something. My students, being the good students that they are, have brought their Little Penguins to class. But not one student has opened the handbook. Everyone is checking the in-text citations and Works Cited page from memory.
“Remember,” I say. “You need to use your Penguins to check the in-text citations. Use your handbook to check the Works Cited page.”
A couple of students look up at me and open their handbooks. The rest just keep reading.
And then I realize I’m not the great teacher I think I am.
At the beginning of the semester when I introduced the handbook I told my students that handbooks are not meant to be read from cover to cover, but are meant to serve as a reference. “Use your handbook to look things up. If you are unsure about how to use a semi-colon look it up.”
When we started our unit about documenting sources I stressed to my students that I am not going to teach them MLA. “What you want to remember is that every field requires a particular style format. What you need to do is to determine from your audience what style format is required and then know how to use your handbook to look up the conventions of that particular style. You don’t need to commit any of this to memory. You just need to know how to use your handbook.”
Why am I modeling to my class exactly what I don’t want them to do? Why do I do this?
I think there are a couple of reasons. One is that through years of teaching first-year writing and years of writing academic papers I have memorized some of the finer points of MLA documentation. I’m not sure I’m completely proud of this fact, but it has happened. I do know what is supposed to be in italics, what is supposed to be in quotation marks, and the order of all the publication information. So when a student asks me a question it is easy for me to tell him/her what the answer is.
But there is a danger here. Due to the increasing availability of sources online, all style formats are changing. A few years ago it was required to put the online source’s web address as part of the publication information. MLA no longer requires the web address; rather MLA requires that you indicate whether the source is “Print” or “Web.” Things are changing and the finer points of MLA that I have committed to memory may no longer be accurate. In other words I should be using my Penguin too.
And, I hate to admit it, but sometimes I fall into the trap of proving that I do actually know something. As a writing teacher I usually don’t give a lot of straight answers. When a student asks, “Can we use ‘I’ in this paper?” I will say, “What do you think your audience expects? What would be the effect of using ‘I’ in this paper?” When a student asks me what something means in an essay we are reading I will say, “What do you think it means?” So when a student asks me if a title needs to be in italics or quotation marks, I sometimes jump at the chance to give a straight answer.
But is this helping the students learn what they really need to learn?
So when another student raises her hand, I rush right over. “Is this how you do a block quote?” I rush right over. But rather than pointing out that block quotations don’t use quotation marks, I say, “I don’t know. Let’s see what our Penguin handbook says.” And then together we turn to the section on block quotations.