[stylist] Block quotes and writing styles

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Lynda,

You have great advice here. I recommend college-bound students
familiarize themselves with the commonly-used writing styles. During my
college years, I wrote in several styles. I have had to use MLA, which
as you mention is the most common especially among English, literature
and the humanities, APA, Chicago Manual and AP for my PR classes. A few
of my writing instructors preferred Chicago Manual, which was surprising
to me. MLA seems to be the most straight forward to me, but depending on
the class, you may need to write in a different style. In most my
history classes, we used either APA or Chicago Manual. In my philosophiy
classes, we actually used APA. As I said, in my PR writing classes, we
used AP. Of course in my English and lit classes, we used MLA, although
I had one instructor who preferred Chicago Manual as did a couple of my
writing instructors, as I already mentioned.

So no one style is necessarily used.

Bridgit
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 19:01:49 -0400
From: "Lynda Lambert" <llambert at zoominternet.net>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Block quotes
Message-ID: <98E5424CCC2D4A339B7B28D452BB452B at Lambert>
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	reply-type=original

Bridget,

That is a good suggestion.

Here's a tip:
Whatever  style you choose, be sure you are consistent and do your
entire 
piece using that style. Students learn it in their first year of 
undergraduate work - in basic Intro. to Writing  (English Composition) 
courses because they will be using it in everything they write during
the 
rest of their life.  This is a course that is mandatory for all majors 
during their first year, normally, their first semester in college. It 
provides the basis and structure on which everything you do in your
classes 
will depend.

MLA style is usually used in literary  and academic writing in the 
humanities -
Everything you would ever need to know, you can find in the MLA
handbook. 
All freshmen students were required to have a copy of it along with our
text 
for the course.

Other styles are used by various  kinds of writings, dependent on the 
department.
(ie science;  business, education, etc.)

MLA was  required  in all of the courses I taught. Over the years, I
taught 
in three different  disciplines/departments: Art History, Humanities,
and 
English.
All  academic courses  in those disciplines require use of MLA.

Another good non-academic source for learning the elements of writing
would 
be the Writer's Digest - each issue features various articles on the
forms 
and styles of writing. You can subscribe to it on-line for free! This
might 
be a good place to begin to learn about writing.







Lynda