# Bizarre citation method-- teachers/profs, ever seen this? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 16, 2007, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376 "2007-04-16T19:33:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376/21 "2007-04-17T04:32:11Z")
Odd - do you use parentheses instead of square brackets? All the stuff I’m familiar with uses square brackets, which is more distinct. Before laser printers doing superscripts was a pain, and cause an extra half space between lines. The IEEE magazines that use superscripts are re-typeset, and are edited by a real editor. Conference articles aren’t. Actually, hard copy of conference proceedings are disappearing, which allows authors to use color. I suppose links will be there soon. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376/22 "2007-04-17T05:08:21Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I find this amusing, considering the incomprehensible mess that passes for English in most business communications. [/QUOTE] I find this amusing, considering the incomprehensible mess that passes for English in most English communications. [/tech writing grad] One of my rhetoric professors said she once had a paper rejected from a English conference because it was too readable, so it didn’t sound impressive enough. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376/23 "2007-04-17T09:29:44Z")
On preview, what **asterion** said. OTOH, I had no idea what the heck MLA and Turabian meant. Or APA. Whenever I was submitting or copy-editing a submission for a journal, I’d check their specific rules. **Voyager** , the fact that it’s superscript is distinctive enough. Many international typewriters (the method of choice until not so long ago) did not have or {}; those citation rules are older than MSOffice. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376/24 "2007-04-17T09:35:50Z")
> [@](#): > > the incomprehensible mess that passes for English in most business communications Cite? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2007, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376/25 "2007-04-17T13:07:36Z")
All scientific papers I’ve looked at have used the superscript or [1] citation style; it’s certainly very common in physics and computer science. I’d seen MLA being used, but never heard the terms MLA or Turabian until I opened this thread - learn something new every day and all that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bizarre-citation-method-teachers-profs-ever-seen-this/400376.md?page=1)