Academic Citation Style Guide V1.0_
by Richard Finnegan
Coquitlam, British Columbia
contact: revelation18@home.com
copyright 2000.

Disclaimer: Use this software at your own risk. As far as I can tell it works
fine, but you may want to confirm your bibliography/works cited list with your professor 
before handing in your paper. If you surf the net looking at the various college and 
university citation guides you will notice that they are not always the same (strange). 
There appears to be a very loose interpretation of these styles although there shouldn't 
be. I have tried to make the citations as accurate as possible. If you notice any mistakes 
or bugs, or if you have any suggestions please feel free to contact me at the email address 
above.

Installation: Just run the setup file and away you go. Should run fine on any Windows based 
computer with at least 16 megs of memory. It was created on a 350MhZ Intel Pentium II with 
64megs of memory.

Description: Academic Citation Style Guide V1.0 is a program for college and university 
students as well as other academics. By entering the relevant data this program will 
convert information taken from book, journal, and other sources into Bibliography (works 
cited) format. Currently it supports only Chicago/Turabian and MLA formats. A useful essay 
tool for poor students everywhere. 

This program is absolutely free to use and distribute as you like with one exception; it 
cannot be sold or included in any software package that is sold to the public (with the 
exception of Simtel Net Collections and Walnut Creek CDRoms). You can post it on your 
webpage or school page, but if you do please let me know. If you find the program useful 
and you have some spare money I certainly would not object to a kindly donation. Being a 
student, extra cash can never hurt. So if you want to send me a dollar or two (or more) 
contact me at my email address and I'll give you an address to send your money; if you are 
a multi-millionaire and want to pay my way through university please feel free to do so (I 
am history/political science major, not a programmer). Or, if you prefer, send me nothing. 
I didn't create the program to make money; in fact, I created it because I looked at a 
couple of grotesquely over-priced commercial versions and (being the penniless student 
I am) became so mad I decided to write a free program. 

History: I created this program to help college and university students with citing sources 
in their essays and other academic projects__ that require sourcing. Originally I intended 
this release to include the three most popular citation formats; namely, Chicago/Turabian, 
MLA, and APA. However, I do my programming between semesters and, quite frankly, ran out of 
time after creating support for Chicago/Turabian and MLA support. Despite this I did not 
see any good reason not to release the program at this time. In future releases I will add 
APA style support, and perhaps some others as well; I will also provide an option to store 
entries and create entire Bibliography/Works Cited pages (rather than pasting them into 
your document as you go). But these updates will have to wait at least another semester 
break or two.

Chicago/Turabian is, in my opinion, by far the best citation format. It uses separate 
bibliography and footnote styles, and this program generates both. MLA style uses the 
ever-lame parenthetical references instead of footnotes. I didn't bother building in the 
parenthetical conversion yet because it is so simple it doesn't require software; for 
example, (Mears 203-204). But, of course, this software will generate bibliography styles 
for MLA. It is my humble opinion that Chicago Style should become the international 
standard for all arts related (arts, humanities, history, etc. etc.) disciplines. I 
installed a quick example button in case you don't want to enter all the data and just 
want to see the proper style.

Directions: Use of this program should be painfully obvious. Just point, click, type, and 
follow the on-screen directions EXACTLY as they appear. Following the directions and 
examples given is essential for this software to work. Pay careful attention to how you 
enter the names. Look at the example entries (when given) and follow the format exactly. 
In some cases you will be asked to enter last names first (for example, Finnegan, Richard; 
in which case you MUST use the comma), and in others you will be asked to enter the last 
name last (Richard Finnegan). Dates are also important; the example will usually request 
you enter a date as follows: 6 July 1999. When examples are given use the format given 
exactly. Other than that it is painfully easy to use. When the program generates a 
citation it automatically copies it to the clipboard ... the only reason I put a clipboard 
button in the program is for people who don't bother to read the README files.

Future: As I have said, the program currently only supports Chicago/Turabian and MLA 
styles, but I will later build in APA and perhaps other formats as well. I may change on 
the on screen layout and data entry format as well. I most certainly will be adding an 
option to store your generated citations for future reference or for generating a complete 
bibliography. Maybe in a year or two I can create a program that is as good as the 
professional programs but FREE (if they didn't charge so bloody much I wouldn't be doing 
this)!

Please report bugs or problems to my email address.

revelation18@home.com
