"What do I do if..." Style Guide Edition
Ah, style guides... the hard and fast rules we've come to know and love... or hate. (Hey, some style guides just aren't for everybody. I'm looking at you, Harvard!) You might run into a few common questions or concerns about style guides as a Kibin editor. Here's what to do if...
... a user asks us to change their citations from one style guide to another.
A complete style guide overhaul is definitely outside the scope of Kibin's services. We can always fix up attempts at citations and provide a few examples if there are no citations at all, but we can't switch an entire document from one style guide to another. Not only is this time consuming, but it can also be considered plagiarism.
In these cases, you might link the author to the style guide they need and maybe do one bibliography entry as an example to get them started. You might then leave something like this in your closing comments:
Your note asked that we convert your paper from MLA to APA, which is unfortunately outside the scope of our services because we can't create new content for you. That being said, I provided links to some great APA resources in my comments in the document, and I changed your first entry from MLA to APA to show you how it's done. This will help you fix up the rest on your own. :)
... the citations in the document are different from the selected style guide.
Sometimes the citations don't match up with the style guide on the dashboard, and the user hasn't directly asked you to change the citations for them. It's possible they selected the wrong guide on accident or just selected the first one from the list (APA).
If it's very apparent which style guide they're following, edit the document based on that style guide instead of the one selected. Just remember to leave a note saying you noticed they might have selected the wrong guide but you had their back. :)
If it's not clear (APA and Chicago author-date can start looking verrrry similar if the citations are thrown together haphazardly), simply point out any major inconsistencies and leave a note describing the issue. If you're not sure what to say, you can use a variation of the following:
Your document notes selected [style guide], but I noticed that your citations/reference list generally don't follow the rules for that guide. I didn't change the citations to match with [style guide] to avoid creating more work for you if the guide was selected by mistake, and changing a document from one guide to another is outside the scope of our services. However, I did point out any inconsistencies in your referencing for you to review to make sure that your document formatting is as consistent as possible.
... the document is missing a specific element of a style guide's formatting requirements.
It's best to, at the very least, leave a note or comment if a required element of formatting is missing. If it's something simple and easy to fix (an MLA paper is missing the introductory information, an APA paper doesn't have a running head, the page numbers aren't included, etc.), please add it for them. If it's something bigger, like an entire title page or reference list, pointing this out in a comment is just fine.
On the other hand, not every document requires all elements of a style guide. For example, we sometimes get papers that only need APA in-text citations and don't need a title page or works cited. This is why it's important to check the supplemental document (if it's included) and understand what the instructor/assignment is looking for. No need to spend time inserting an APA title page if the assignment doesn't require one! This is also quite common for docs submitted to academic journals. If you're not sure or they didn't include a supplemental document/rubric, you can always direct them to double-check their assignment guidelines.
... the user didn't select a style guide but the document contains citations of some kind.
Sometimes, users do not indicate which style guide they've followed. You'll see "N/A" next to the document on your dashboard if that's the case. It's possible that the user isn't too concerned with citations or doesn't expect that you'll fix them up, but it's still nice to do so if we can.
You often can tell at a glance that the page formatting, citations, reference page, and so forth very clearly look like Chicago, or APA, or MLA. In these instances, you can edit as such. You might leave a comment like this:
It appears that you're using MLA/APA/Harvard, but your notes didn't select a style guide. I've made the necessary changes to ensure your document complies with that style guide. Feel free to reject these changes if style guide choices are not important to your final work.
Other times, the citations and referencing look completely foreign to you or don't match up with a commonly used guide. For instance, you might encounter a document that has citations that look like [1], [2], [3], etc. In this case, the user probably doesn't expect us to bother with their citations and referencing because they'll do it on their own later (you'll see this with a lot of academic journal submissions). It's best practice to simply ensure consistency within the citation and reference formatting when there are citations with no selected guide.
Remember: In some cases, a style guide isn't really necessary -- letters, personal statements, etc. don't usually have references, and the style doesn't usually matter much as long as the document is consistent. You can default to Chicago in matters of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc. -- but you don't need to overhaul the entire document to conform with Chicago-style formatting.
Click here to see a list of helpful online resources for the guides commonly used by Kibin clients.
A note about regional English conventions and style guides: Something tricky that's come up at Kibin is how to handle regional English conventions in conjunction with style guide rules; e.g., when to use single vs. double quotation marks, oxford commas, and punctuation inside or outside quotation marks if a user has selected a specific style guide and a non-US English option. The research (read: lots of googling) we've done hasn't turned up any definitive or authoritative results from the APA, MLA, or CMOS on the subject.
Since we haven't been able to find much authority on the matter, the best advice is taking cues from the regional conventions the writer has included and ensuring consistency throughout the document.
Let's say you've picked up a document marked APA with Australian English, for example. The writer has included single quotation marks around all but a few of their direct quotations, they've got some missing Oxford commas, and use Australian spelling conventions. In this case, you might add the Oxford commas (since APA requires them), change the few double quotation marks to single, and ensure Australian English spelling conventions are used throughout since that will give the writer the most consistency within the document.
If it's not fully clear which preference the user is leaning toward (sometimes they write "colour" but also write "favorite"), its fine to simply address this in a comment or change the document to the style of English the user selected. It's very rare to see user complaints about the intersection of style guides and regional language preferences, and remember that we've got your back.
The TL;DR? Consistency is key, follow the author's lead, and use your best professional judgment. :)