Technical Writing: The Notorious Debacle of Citation Styles

You probably remember learning the importance of citing your work in grade school when you first heard the word plagiarism defined. After all, it makes sense that if someone created a work of art, published an academic paper, or invented something new, that they want attribution and recognition. A citation, simply put, exists both embedded in the text and at the end of the document in a list of sources known as a bibliography. In-text citations are usually simple to facilitate easy reading while still providing cross-references to the author’s source materials. Bibliographic citations, on the other hand, are characterized by information that can guide readers to find the exact source and other peripheral information. In academia, students are taught that citing work properly is the best defense against accusations of plagiarism and properly crediting sources, but if this is the sole purpose of citations, then why have so many different ways of citing sources? And why are they formatted so specifically?

Figure 1: A student finding printed source material [1].

Historical Background

The origin of citation styles is directly linked to their purpose: offering a connection from the literature to a credible, original source. Thanks to a boom of interest in the classics in the Renaissance and Enlightenment combined with the religious implications of the protestant reformation, a societal emphasis on literary authority grew. While citations in copies (both printed and handwritten) of classical works were really just footnotes from translators on the possible meanings of words, budding protestantism relied on what Christians viewed as the source of all truth for ultimate credibility: the Bible. Wanting to categorize their doctrines and bring in converts, diverse groups compiled Biblical glosses which functioned much like an annotated bibliography [2].

Figure 2: A biblical gloss and commentary on Hosea [3].

Citations were further compounded by the invention of the printing press and an accompanying revolution in information dissemination that provided scholars with greater source material. For diligent scholars in the enlightenment, this meant an increased need to keep meticulous notes of information they came across. In that era of information, citation styles were important not as much due to concern for proper attribution as the need to categorize information in case they needed to revisit the material later. This often meant that books were indexed only in the personal libraries of people who could afford to keep a lot of printed material at hand. 

As books and journals became steadily more available in the nineteenth century, publishers found it increasingly difficult to ensure uniformity in material. Every publisher did things their own way until the University of Chicago Press formatted a sheet with specific guidelines for typesetting [4]. Before the era of word processors, articles were almost always handwritten and sent to the publisher via mail so the job of preparing written works for print involved multiple steps from proofreading to finally laying out the moveable type on a printing press. During that process, there are multiple opportunities for members of a publishing team to lay out a paper according to their own preferences. Establishing a set of rules to keep article design within a journal consistent was a massive step forward in academia because it initiated a culture of identifying papers as authoritative based on format. Included in the “academic appearance culture” were uniformity in citation styles. The Chicago Manual of Style went beyond regulating typesetting and appearance to creating a system by which readers could cross reference between publications. With the backing of an actively publishing organization, citations went from the realm of independent think tanks of academics to becoming a style: a particular manner or technique [5].

Figure 3: Old University of Chicago [6].

What Citation Styles Have Become

Since their debut with the University of Chicago Press, style guides and their associated citation styles have grown to encompass all academic communities. A few decades after the University of Chicago’s literary renovation, the American Psychological Association (APA) created a style for their own publications, which, like Chicago style, was intended to bring uniformity and enforce accreditation to other researchers. According to the APA style guide website, this guide is particularly tailored for “writing in psychology, nursing, business, communications, engineering, and related fields.” [7]. The Modern Language Association (MLA) on the other hand has specialized their style guide for the humanities and literary arts [8]. As time went on, other academic organizations involved in publishing came out with their own regulations for typesetting and connecting previous research to publications including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) whose style guide is widely adopted by other engineering fields for its specific instruction on the formatting of equations and even uses the Chicago Manual of Style as a reference for formatting not specified in their style guides [9]. 

As an added layer of complication to the citation styles, many universities set specific expectations of how to use the various style guides or have branded their own without continuing to update a dedicated manual. As academic communities have grown and the intersections between fields increased in complexity, style guides have adapted to define the topical classification of a paper. For this reason, the citing methods have gone from a straightforward system of authors, work, and location within work to italics, parenthesis and exact punctuation. While the uniformity looks visually appealing in print, for anyone new to formatting academic papers this raises the question of the purpose in such specific formatting. The idea is that as a researcher becomes familiar with the style (or styles, as it may be) associated with publishing in their field, they learn to use these seemingly minute changes in formatting to quickly identify the type of information they see in a citation and its order in the accrediting hierarchy [10]. 

We also live in an age where information can be shared in larger amounts and much faster than ever before because of the internet and citation styles have obviously adapted to the innovative digital environment. Now what most researchers look for in a citation is the link that will take them to the exact information they are looking for, often without needing to consider the authors. It is possible that easy hyperlinks that lead directly to the source with author information and anything else a researcher could ask for replace the need for other details often included in a citation.

Figure 4: A list of common citation managers used to deal with the slew of styles and their corresponding formats [11].

Conclusion

From their beginning, citation styles were rather simple. In fact, style guides have not existed nearly as long as writing itself has and throughout the thousands of years of this vital communication technology, the best way to write something was getting it written down at all. As for credibility, few people bothered to find out what anyone else had said about a topic because time and distance often separated the great thinkers and authors. As the need for religious authority grew during the Middle Ages, however, so did the need to understand where to find important doctrines. This need exploded with the growth of both literacy and movable type until the modern era where technology has exponentiated the spread of scholarly information. The development of citation styles, while creating a standard for proper attribution, has ultimately led to a phenomena similar to scope creep which is essentially adding new features to an idea or project without taking into account all of the possible effects [12]. In the case of citation styles, the original intent was to ensure giving credit where it is due, but has now come to include strict, often nuanced rules, resulting in a formatting headache.

References

[1] “Geez, Why So Many Citation Styles?” UW Tacoma Library, 6 Mar. 2019, sites.uw.edu/uwtacomalibrary/2019/03/06/geez-why-so-many-citation-styles/.

[2] Connors, Robert J. “The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part II: Competing Epistemic Values in Citation.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 17, no. 2, 1999, pp. 219-45. Taylor & Francis Online, https://doi.org/10.1080/07350199809359230.

[3] “Reading Between and Around the Lines: An Introduction to Glosses and Commentaries.” Manuscript Studies, University of Notre Dame, 17 Sept. 2015, sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/09/17/reading-between-and-around-the-lines-an-introduction-to-glosses-and-commentaries/.

[4] “About The Chicago Manual of Style.” The Chicago Manual of Style Online, University of Chicago, www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/help-tools/about.html.

[5] “Style.” Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/style. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.

[6] “Old University of Chicago, 34th St. and Cottage Grove Ave.” The University of Chicago Photographic Archive, photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?one=apf2-05353.xml.

[7] “About APA Style.” APA Style, American Psychological Association, apastyle.apa.org/about-apa-style.

[8] “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The Clean Copy, 6 July 2025, www.thecleancopy.com/453/.

[9] IEEE Editorial Style Manual for Authors. IEEE Author Center, journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/your-role-in-article-production/ieee-editorial-style-manual/.

[10] “Citation Styles.” Plagiarism.org, 7 June 2017, www.plagiarism.org/article/citation-styles.

[11] “Managing Citations.” Ysearch - BYU, Brigham Young University, 2 Feb. 2026, ysearch.lib.byu.edu/managing-citations.

[12] Larson, Richard, and Elizabeth Larson. “Top Five Causes of Scope Creep.” Project Management Institute, 12 Oct. 2009, www.pmi.org/learning/library/top-five-causes-scope-creep-6675.

To cite this article:
Bowler, William. “Technical Writing: The Notorious Debacle of Citation Styles.” The BYU Design Review, 15 April 2026, https://www.designreview.byu.edu/collections/technical-writing-the-notorious-debacle-of-citation-styles.