creekland Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Those of you with college students taking science courses, my school would like to know what format they use for citing in their science papers and/or projects - MLA or APA. We're working to train the next group of college students and have been teaching APA for science, but... some with students in college are finding that they are using MLA. I told them I had a wider audience we could poll and they said "Go For It!" If you have a student in college taking SCIENCE courses (or research) and doing papers or reports - which format are they using? We'd love your help. Do we stick with APA or teach both or is MLA actually used more? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Girls' Mom Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 My Biology class is using APA. (community college) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivey Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 My son's psychology, neuroscience and biology courses use APA. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 CSE Off to google... What type of college is this used in? Seriously, we want to be preparing our students for what they will see. My son tells me where he is it's the prof's preference and he can get 10% off a grade if citations are done improperly, so it's best to teach both. He also suggests NEVER using an online system to do the citations as they are often incorrect. At this point we teach kids to use online assistance. We may have to change. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 At this point we teach kids to use online assistance. We may have to change. I strongly encourage online systems. Proof it because it is your responsibility not the systems, but they are huge time savers. DH did all his grad school papers using online assistants with excellent results. Ds's AP English teacher recommended them too. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 I emailed my oldest. She is sophomore in electrical engineering/computer science. She showed the question to her professors in the engineering/sciences building as well as telling me her experience. So far she hasn't done a lot of "research" paper as she is only a sophomore. But anything that has to be in a paper format, she's been told in the syllabus what to use. And it is not a department decision, but individual professor decision. Lab classes - the professors are giving them templates to follow. The EE prof with most seniority just wants to see the reference and he doesn't really care between mla or apa in his undergraduates. He just wants them to write well and see the reference. and he is the one with the reputation in the university that our science and engineering students will learn to break the stereotype that engineers can't write!. (so he's way more focus on content and references are noted rather than mla vs apa) another engineering/science prof said READ MY Syllabus. (my daughter said it was not either mla or apa) You may not like the answer that 2 of the full professors gave but I will share it for the sake of discussion: formatting at that level only matters if you are trying to submit something for publication, and anywhere you would get published will tell you what format to use. in the English composition classes required of all freshman (regardless of major) they used MLA and then said "always check with your individual professor if they prefer another format". So my dd tends to use MLA. sorry that it wasn't a clear cut answer or one way only kind of thing. This is a "regional" university (in top tier rankings) and not a "national research" university. Hope it helps with the bigger discussion in your school. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 sorry that it wasn't a clear cut answer or one way only kind of thing. This is a "regional" university (in top tier rankings) and not a "national research" university. Hope it helps with the bigger discussion in your school. It does help and is very useful. Thank you for sharing. I'm thinking we need to be sure our school teaches both - and I'm wondering how many others use CSE too. I think the English dept teaches MLA, but others should know for sure. If they do that and we (science) stick with APA while reminding kids to always look at their syllabus to see if their prof has preferences, that seems ideal at the moment. However, if there are more out there with info to add, including about the online web assistant sites, we'd appreciate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Geek Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 I've been out of school for many years and I majored in engineering. We used either MLA or APA in classes like literature or history. In classes like Chem, Physics, or any of the other classes with labs we did lab reports and didn't use MLA or APA, just what ever the lab instructor wanted. Mostly we weren't citing sources, we were discussing test procedures and results from the labs. I did do a senior research project and probably used MLA in that class. I had a paperback copy of a book that had lots of examples of either MLA or APA that was a great reference for the classes that I needed it for. I had a basic understanding of citing references from high school and the examples were all I really needed for college. Hope that helps some. Edited to fix spelling. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbollin Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 me again.. My oldest dropped me another note. This might be relevant to your discussions at your school. These answers seemed more of what the professors do with their own papers versus what they are asking undergrads to do. "Dr. Physics" said that it depends not only on the discipline, but on the journal. Most journals will tell you how to format. Most professional orgs have their own format. AMS, ACS, even IEEE. "Dr. Chemistry" said the same thing. "Dr. Physics" also said that LaTeX is very useful, and I agree. It's a language for writing equations. (me: that might be something to teach in the school, but I don't have a link ready to share. ) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 Try the Purdue Owl https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/585/2/ Which lists by discipline. Imho Learning one style in high school is fine, as they get the idea and can quickly convert to the one in their field or the one the prof wants used. You can also search 'citing sources+school name' to find what is preferred at the colleges most students will be going on to. What they need to know more than a particular citation style is how to write a lab report. We use Purdue Owl already. ;) I totally agree with you about lab reports. Those were some of the first things I had to grade here in my long term assignment - and I wasn't even here for that lab. But still... :glare: YUCK! I asked if we could do more with lab reports and was told that we really couldn't (in Bio) due to having to rush to get all the material covered by state testing dates. They supposedly will do more (learn more hopefully!) in Chem and Physics later on. Honestly? I haven't been impressed by Chem Lab Reports I've seen in the past either... BUT, I will bring up the subject as a concern when I discuss the results of this regarding citations. ;) Our school is all about WRITING (essays, research, projects, etc) across all subjects now (even math), so we're lining up what we "should" do to keep up with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renaissance Mom Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Dd is taking an earth science course dual enrollment for which all of their written work (essays, lab reports, written discussion material) must be in APA format. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 In physics, both MLA and APA are irrelevant: every physics journal has its own required citation style. If you want to publish in a certain journal, you look up how they want it and do it like that. Any "writing assignment" for a physics student would be a paper to be prepared for publication; the style depends entirely on the journal, and the journal depends on the subfield and how prestigious the publication should be. ETA: I don't think it matters on little bit how high schoolers learn to cite. You can always easily look up the requirements of the other style. the important thing is THAT they learn to cite properly and understand what constitutes paraphrasing and plagiarism. The details are easily looked up when you need them. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 In physics, both MLA and APA are irrelevant: every physics journal has its own required citation style. If you want to publish in a certain journal, you look up how they want it and do it like that. Any "writing assignment" for a physics student would be a paper to be prepared for publication; the style depends entirely on the journal, and the journal depends on the subfield and how prestigious the publication should be. ETA: I don't think it matters on little bit how high schoolers learn to cite. You can always easily look up the requirements of the other style. the important thing is THAT they learn to cite properly and understand what constitutes paraphrasing and plagiarism. The details are easily looked up when you need them. When I was in graduate school, it was the IEEE standard. Then when I was actively publishing research, it depended on the journal. I did most of my own citing and such, but everything always went through my supervisor who was a great reviewer and then on to an editor. I still remember one paper that I ended up arguing about with my editor. And then I realized that she was my retired AP English teacher who was on her second career. I was given a message to call "Patricia" with a number and had no idea until we started really digging into it! She's in her 90's now, and didn't full retire until her late 80's. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted October 16, 2015 Author Share Posted October 16, 2015 In physics, both MLA and APA are irrelevant: every physics journal has its own required citation style. If you want to publish in a certain journal, you look up how they want it and do it like that. Any "writing assignment" for a physics student would be a paper to be prepared for publication; the style depends entirely on the journal, and the journal depends on the subfield and how prestigious the publication should be. ETA: I don't think it matters on little bit how high schoolers learn to cite. You can always easily look up the requirements of the other style. the important thing is THAT they learn to cite properly and understand what constitutes paraphrasing and plagiarism. The details are easily looked up when you need them. I'm thinking that this is how I'm going to sum up my results of this thread... that and the rabbit trail of being able to actually write decent lab reports being as important to consider. Our next conversation on the issue is Tuesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie of KY Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 At this point we teach kids to use online assistance. We may have to change. What do you mean by online assistance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian (a lady) Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 What do you mean by online assistance? I think they mean places like EasyBib, where you put in an ISBN and it pulls up a formatted citation. These sites can be really good, or they can have faulty info, like badly formatted author info. (I do think they are a handy tool, but one that doesn't excuse not knowing how to do citations.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted October 17, 2015 Author Share Posted October 17, 2015 What do you mean by online assistance? Yes, our school teaches kids to use Easy Bib. Middle son, who has done tons of citations at his school both for himself and for his mentors in research, has told me it's not wise due to too many errors. I imagine if one were to use Easy Bib to start, then correct the errors it would be ok, but it's probably just easier to do the whole thing without it. I checked with my students yesterday. Our English Dept teaches MLA, so I'm thinking it's best if we keep Science with APA. That way they get exposure to both. Then I told my Plant & Animal Science students (who have an independent lab report due in two weeks) that I have high expectations with their formatting. ;) All but two plan on heading to college, so should need the skill. Of the other two, one will be joining his family's dairy farm operation and the other helps raise and train military/police dogs already, so will head into a special training program to continue doing that as a lead rather than a helper. They're along for the ride I guess. Education is never really wasted. At the very least it keeps the brain active and working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lolly Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Whatever professors ask for. Usually that is APA. Dc have learned to flip flop as needed without any problem. All they need to know is which way to go, and profs are usually quite verbal about which they want. My dc don't use autofill programs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted October 19, 2015 Share Posted October 19, 2015 nm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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