Me: "It's the place where we get to see all the intertextual pieces of other texts an author used to build a new text. It is textual DNA."
Me: "It's actual a way for scholars & researchers across the world to share information w each other because they can't meet & discuss their ideas & research regularly."
Me: "I feel your pain. But each style has a rhetorical purpose. For example, why does APA start w the date?"
Students: "Why?"
Me: "The sciences value the date of research."
Me: "Of course they do, but an article abt localized cancer treatment from 1999 is not going to provide the most current research on cancer treatment, but an article abt Shakespeare from 1900 might still be 1 of the best."
Me: "Yes. Citations are a rhetorical pathway the same way the title of the article tells us something abt the accessibility of the information in that article."
Me: "The title tells us how dense the info is inside the text. For ex: the article title, "Combination gefitinib and methotrexate to treat ectopic pregnancy" tells me I need to back up & find a broader text"
Me: "Neither do I, but that's knowledge. We're not dumb. We now know we need to back up & start w something broader that we can access & work our way to the denser articles."
Me: