A Study On The Evolution Of Citation Norms And Its Mechanism

With the development of the academy in China,the relevant problems of academic norms are increasingly emphasized.We have made gread progress in citation norms since when we introduced the modern academic citation norms from the West directly in 1910 s.Howerver,we lack a sufficient understanding of the internal mechanism and historical accumulation on citation norms although we learned a lot from the West.Therefore,we should consolidate the theoretical base of citation norms,and find out why the citation norms come into being and develop,what are the factors which promote their evolution and what is the interaction mechanism in the evolution.Aiming at the above problems,and adopting the research methods of literature review,double evidence,comparative research,case analysis,historical research and abstract thinking,this paper makes a study on the evolution of citation norms and its mechanism from three dimensions: descriptional citation norms,formal citation norms and institutional citation norms,and tries to explain the mechanism in the evolution.There is a long tradition of citing description in China and the West.The philosophers in preQin Dynasty,ancient Greek and ancient Rome laid the foundation of descriptional citation norms in China and the West.Both of the citation norms were relatively simple at the beginning.After the Renaissance,footnotes system was developed in the West.Since the 20 th century,there have been developed to various styles in different displines under three reference systems: Oxford referencing styles,Harvard stytem and Vancouver styles.From the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty,descriptional citation norms in China was in its infancy,and became tougher in the Qing Dynasty.In the 1910 s,Chinese scholars began to introduce and imitate the western descriptional citation norms,and they were completed the localization transformation in the 1950 s.Since the reform and opening up,the national standard GB/T 7714 has achieved great success,and its promotion has also been hindered.The evolution of formal citation norms in the West is continuous.Three elements run through it.Firstly,the location,the early interlinear notes developed into the text notes,endnotes,margin notes,footnotes and hypertext notes;secondly,the symbol “dipple” in ancient Greek evolved into the modern quotation mark and promoted the formation of the reference mark system;thirdly,direction,the the western scholars in ancient Rome and Renaissance completed two epistemological changes,which resulted in the writings directed to self-writings.The formal citation norms in China were totally different before and after the 1910 s.In ancient times,double line annotation style and outline-content style were adopted.After 1910 s,western footnotes,endnotes,horizontal arrangement,punctuation and other modern formal elements were introduced into China,then the citations and notes in documents presented a mix or chaos of the Chinese and the Western.After the founding of the People's Republic of China,the standardization of formal citation forms completed the Western style transformation,towards unification and integration into the world.There are always the institutional citation norms in China since ancient times,and there are also corresponding anomies behaviors.The main body and gene of the institutinal citation norms in China are the consciousness accumulated by ancient scholars for a long time.After 1910 s,Chinese scholars introduced some new norms from the West,such as the concepts of that all citations must be referenced,no indiscriminate citations,no false citations,and that carefully citing from digital resources,in addition to the modern academic system and modern copyright system,they gradually completed the integration of the local institutional citation norms and the international after the reform and opening up.With the promotion of national documents and the scholars' appeal,the institutional citation norms are becoming better,and the awareness of citation nomes is becoming more and more popular.But there are still two problems,one is the quantitative standard of appropriate citation,the other is the quantitative standard of citation manipulation.Based on the historical review on the evolution of the citation norms,this study analyzes its mechanism and made four conclusions.Firtsly,descriptional citation norms changes due to discipline differentiation,and remains stable due to the cultural inertia.Publishing standardization is the intermediary which shapes the innovative achievements produced by discipline differentiation into the new cultural inertia,while international communication determines the direction of descriptional citation norms' evolution.Secondly,formal citation norms changes with the change of literature medium,and the concrete content of the change is determined by the game between the author's writing needs and the reader's reading needs.Thirdly,norm and anomie constantly breed new institutional citation norms and anomie behaviors between their conflicts and confrontations;meanwhile,the change of scholar professions creates new types of citation behaviors,the change of copyright system creates new definitions of some normative behaviors and anomie behaviors,and these two factors also contribute to the evolution of institutional citation norms.Fourthly,as a whole,once the new descriptional citation norm and the new formal citation norm is invented,the two will keep running into the best match,which must be tested by the institutional citation norms then.After a long-term interaction,the best match can serve for the academic communication and dissemination.The mechanism in evolution of citation norms has some insights into the improvement and development of current citation norms in China.Therefore,this study suggests that we should accelerate the process of standardization of the descriptional citation norms,improve the the formal citation norms of digital resources,and promote the reform of academic system and the improvement of copyright system.