Thoughts on Digital References

As I was finishing up the reading for this week, I was really put off by Kern's (2011) opening comment that today's researchers do not care about reference style, and are not intimately familiar with their citation handbook. Kern asserted that much of this was due to the wealth of information and articles available on the Internet that are easily searchable and found. This opening remark tainted the rest of the article and I had difficulty giving weight to the statements because this framing so blatantly casts of researchers who utilize the tools around them.

I'd argue that because I have a reference manager and can engage in a wider, more diverse search of the literature, I know my citation style more intimately than I would if I was only searching within the limits of the Learning Sciences. Because I have ready access to articles and information for the varying specialized fields in education and to education and learning-related materials in other fields, I am becoming familiar with many different citation styles, and learning the nuances of the one I use.

This statement, placed right in the beginning of the article, reminded me of people who start conversations with statements like "Kids these days don't understand ..." or "The youth today have it so easy..." I often think it is the people who make these statements that don't have a clear understanding of the kind of work that is being done with the advanced tools they are referencing.

This was of particular note as it stood in contrast with the two presenters' discussions in class on Tuesday. Both Dr, Lubke and Dr. Varga discussed ways in which one can leverage particular technological tools to deepen their research process and put together a richer literature review. By utilizing the many features of Zotero or Mendeley, a researcher can have an abundant list of references that are easily searched, annotated, saved, shared, and inserted into the written document. Specific quotes and ideas can be accessed instantaneously, enabling the researcher to support their claims with more and more-specific evidence. Collaboration is made easy; references and drafts of passages can be shared in (almost) real time, de-isolating (if I can make up that word) the research process and taking the researcher out of their dark office into a collaborative space.

When writing anything, I generally try to avoid absolutes and sweeping statements because, while I may feel passionately about a particular topic or opinion, there is likely someone who disagrees with me, and who has evidence to support their counter-claim. If instead Kern took an air of trepidation in their opening paragraphs and cautioned researchers to be careful not to become lackadaisical in their referencing, I may not have reacted so strongly. It is all about framing; making forward arguments is important, but slighting a whole group with a few statements does not help to make that argument. It seems to detract from it.