I hate the Harvard citation system
I hate the Harvard citation system. It irritated the hell out of me when I was studying and so I’m going to unleash some of that irritation here (it’s what my blog is for, after all, at least in part). Of course, you are familiar with it: when you refer to a book or article in the body of your text like this: [Smith 2007] – and then put the full reference in a Works Cited list at the back of the book. In the numeric system you refer with a superscript after a name or quotation which is linked to a footnote (or an endnote – another abomination, beloved of editors who think it is tidier but is actually so awkward to use as to be virtually useless in many cases) containing the complete reference.
Now there is nothing wrong with the Harvard system in itself. It was introduced, I believe, in medical papers and it is perfectly useful and effective in a scientific context. That is because science papers tend to be short, the papers they refer to tend to be static (ie there is one definitive version published in one place), and the use which is made of those referrals tends to be somewhat limited. But then the system began to be used by sociology and related subjects, no doubt in the vain attempt to convince us that if they ape the form of science we might be misled into thinking the contents are scientific. Now, over the last few decades, the practice has spread to the humanities and is becoming well-nigh universal. From what I can gather most universities these days demand that students cite their references using the Harvard system in their essays.
The Harvard system is quite inadequate for the humanities, however. Let me illustrate with my own field. It is common to come across such references as [Nietzsche, 1974] or [Nietzsche, 1995]. What are they referring to? Nietzsche died in 1900 and has not published post mortem. Obviously the citation has been taken from a particular edition of Nietzsche’s works. Philosophical works are not static in the way scientific papers are. No one refers to the first editions of Nietzsche’s writings – there aren’t even that many in existence – and in any case they lack the additions and other changes that Nietzsche made to later editions. So, to what do they refer? There are multiple editions in German, all of which have been widely used – the Oehler Gesammelte Werke, the Schlechta Werke in drei Bänden, the Colli-Montinari Kritische Gesamtausgabe among others. There are various editions in English (and French and Italian and a multitude of other languages) – the Levy Complete Works, the Kaufmann translations, the Cambridge University Press translations and so on. Although, shamefully, we do not have a complete translation of the Colli-Montinari. The latter, in its German original, is to be considered definitive for the present and for a while to come and ideally is the edition that should be referred to nowadays. However, it wasn’t possible to refer to it in texts published many years ago (which are still considered useful); nor is it convenient to refer solely to it (unless you want to confine Nietzsche studies to those with immediate access to a well-stocked university library).
So, what happens when you come across your citation reference to [Nietzsche 1974]? Perhaps you’ll guess straightway from the date that it’s probably one of the Kaufmann translations but you’ll need to look up which one in the Works Cited list at the back. Yes, you discover the citation is to page 181 of Kaufmann’s translation of Nietzsche’s The Gay Science as published by Random House in 1974. So, if you happen to have that particular book at hand you can look up the citation in full and decide for yourself, say, whether or not the madman who announces the death of god is speaking with Nietzsche’s voice. Of course, if you’re sitting in a library with hundreds of pounds worth of Colli-Montinari surrounding you or some other edition of the work you’re not going to be able to look up the citation at all. My example is exaggerated – any Nietzsche scholar will recognise the quotation immediately – but the principle stands. Nobody will recognise every quotation – and even when you do you’re going to have to plough through pages searching for it because the citation you’ve been given is useless unless you have the specific volume cited.
The custom has grown of referring to Nietzsche’s writings using a short code. Similar systems are used for other philosophers. So, The Gay Science, for instance is referred to as GS or FW (for the German Die Frohliche Wissenschaft). Since the book is divided into short numbered sections that number is appended to the abbreviation. The passage referred to above is thus cited as GS125 either in the body of the text or as a footnote. At the back of the book one lists the particular editions used and, ideally, cross references to Colli-Montinari. What this means is that it doesn’t matter what edition you are using of Nietzsche’s works, whether it is English or German, outdated or revised, you can quickly and easily find every citation.
There is another advantage. A philosophy such as Nietzsche’s is not interpreted solely on the basis of works officially published as his philosophy. There are letters, juvenilia, Nachgelassene, occasional writings, academic philologica and so on. The status of these works and the use made of them is obviously problematic. Many interpretations of Nietzsche’s epistemology and theory of language rely to a very great extent on an essay entitled Truth and Nontruth in a Nonmoral Sense even though the essay was left unfinished and unpublished by Nietzsche himself. And notoriously his sister and her editors compiled a tendentious collection of late notes as Nietzsche’s masterwork The Will to Power. Using the Harvard citation system that volume simply sits in the list of Works Cited gaining spurious authority and passes unnoticed in the body of the text as [Nietzsche 1981] or whatever. Using abbreviations and footnotes in the old-fashioned way one could see at a glance that any reference to it, and any interpretation built on that reference, must be handled with care.
One more point. Use of the Harvard system has transformed the back of the book bibliography into a list of Works Cited. That is fair enough with science. But no book in the humanities, such as one on a figure like that of Nietzsche, is written only with the help of works one has specifically cited in the text. There is much background reading as well. To mention those to whom one owes a debt of education and understanding is surely the correct thing? What are you supposed to do, though? Add a second bibliography? I have seen it done – but I refuse to believe anyone finds that satisfactory.
First posted in May 2007
