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MLA Rules: Academic TYRANNY

So I’ve been looking at academic papers lately and I don’t know what the fuck is going on with citation rules. Has academia gone mad? The RULES have this bizarre inertia that has only RESISTED technology with MORE FUCKING RULES rather than used technology to apply OCCAM’S FUCKING RAZOR.

The MLA, or the FUCKING MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION has BLOCKED the MOST FUCKING IMPORTANT development in MODERN LANGUAGE for DECADES!!!! I’d tell you it’s all an insane conspiracy, ORWELLIAN to the farthest EXTREME, but it’s got to be complacency or something. Someone out there HAS to have seen this. It couldn’t be more OBVIOUS.

Actual text using the crazy new form of citation known as HTML, or HYPERTEXT:

When writing an MLA formatted document, an academic must create a list of sources, contextualize recommendations of other sources with footnotes, and use numeric reference to their own list of sources. This worked perfectly back in the archaic days of paper, but nowadays it seems like the inertia of power has persisted in bizarre ways that only hampers the quick access of information. There is an entirely new realm of discourse known as hypertext, definitively better than traditional text. According to the MLA rules, italics are only to be used for extreme emphasis and certain titles. Never all-caps. Never HYPERTEXT. Son, those ain’t no complete sentence. F [Imagine this like the last sentence is the teacher writing in bloody red ink after CROSSING OUT your whole fucking sentence like it doesn’t mean SHIT AND FAILING YOU for not following some arbitrary insane rules cooked up by an evil Orwellian-named conspiracy. IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME!]

Remember, folks, it makes your paper SO MUCH MORE RELIABLE when you use DIFFERENT SOURCES that all tell you the same thing about a nearly static set of pointless authoritarian rules. Just hover over the links there for a second, if you’re still not sure this can work. YOU’LL SEE THE MLA DOCUMENTATION POP UP LIKE FUCKING MAGIC! You’ll see THE FOOTNOTES!!! My god, I wonder how many 60 year old folks on the MLA board of rulemakers have no idea that this kind of thing EVEN EXISTED UNTIL JUST NOW![pullquote]”Oh, those off-color underlined things, so fucking ugly. What the fuck is that? Not part of MY modern language! No SIR!” ~MLA Autocrat Olds Oldington V[/pullquote]

This is probably the reason why most academics despise Wikipedia. Wikipedia has told the MLA to take their rules and fuck ’em! Hypertext will slash your “Modern Language” rules down to a simple set of guidelines that ANY IDIOT can figure out. BUT WE DON’T WANT THEM GETTING TOO SMART, DO WE?

Hypertext is a SIMPLE thing to learn. It’s certainly simpler than the MLA rules. Oh yeah, did I mention it gets rid of all that BILE in brackets AND at the bottom of the page?

FUCK OFF MLA!!!!!

*I know we still need you, partially, for the remainder of time before all written text ever is digitized and freely available in a global public library FOR THE PEOPLE!

May Jesus forgive us of our sins, so that we may spend more of our time with substantive learning, rather than obsessing over antiquated and confusing systems of contextualization.

Amen.

9 replies on “MLA Rules: Academic TYRANNY”

I’ve cooled off a little bit and realized a small error. When printing out one of these hypertext documents, a computer program would be fully capable of interpreting any properly documented hypertext into a properly formatted MLA document. That is the only proper place for the MLA now: Creating computer programs to do the work for us. Hire some programmers.

Nah man. Most scholars agree: MLA is used ONLY to fuck with college students. Chicago is simple and most closely resembles Wikipedia markup, with the exception that it’s actually cleaner and asks less of the average writer than any other citation format in existence. In fact, MLA has become so widely recognized as the shittiest thing since the Oxford comma, anybody outside of high school now has the option to abandon both things altogether.

Also, who cares if they’re gay. It’s still an entertaining show.

Think about this… I’m 60 and I’m reading your website.
Hmmm … must have lost my brain matter on the way to my computer!
Profiling someone because of their age isn’t right…
Just like profiling someone for their opinions isn’t either.
If you are going to be raw… at least be honest.
Do you even know anyone who is 60?
Paleeeze!

I’m really sorry to offend you, Avril. Except for I’m not. I have plenty of 60 year old friends (just one) so don’t you go profiling ME, either! But wtf does this has to do with teh MLA?

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