What's the Point of Academic Writing Styles?

The most popular academic writing styles are APA, MLA and Chicago. Still there are many more which, depending on your field of study, will be necessary for you to learn. In theological/biblical studies the style of choice is SBL. Writing styles do set format, but their primary purpose is in dictating how sources get cited. But what's the point? Who cares? Hopefully, we can grant that it's important to cite references, but does it really matter how you do it? Does it need to be standardized?

Virtues of a Standardized Style

• Publishers within the field have a ready template for the works they will receive (and getting published is pretty important)
  
• Demonstrates an ability to operate within a particular field of study (see below for implicit communications)
  
• Demonstrates that the writer, by using a particular style, is competent to choose and check other reputable sources in the field since they are using the same form of research
  
• Puts content at the forefront of the readers'/researchers' minds by removing a layer of aesthetic judgement. As most academic writing is for research purposes, it wouldn't be appropriate for a particular writer to be given more credibility or circulation simply because he or she choose a font that was pretty to look at or arranged citations in a convenient way while someone who did more quality research was cast aside because it was hard to check sources.
  
• In conjunction with the point above, it creates a level playing field for scholars

The Implicit Communication of Writing Styles

Each writing style is geared to a specific field. By looking at the differences between the fields, one can better ascertain what is of prime importance to a specific group of scholars. Let us look at APA and SBL. APA is designed for use in the social sciences while SBL is for "ancient near eastern, biblical and early Christian studies." The most immediate difference between the two styles is the citations within the text. APA favors in text citation whereas SBL is all about the footnotes. The other distinction is what information and in what order references get cited.

APA Example:
Blah blah blah blah blah (Hays 1989) blah blah blah

SBL Example
Blah blah blah blah blah1 (this is a footnote)

1Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 3-29.

What can we deduce from these simple observations?

• Social sciences are more concerned with the cost of publication (it's more expensive to have footnotes) and therefore, the accessibility of the research. SBL is more comfortable gearing itself to a wealthier and/or more elite community.
• APA is concerned with current-ness and new research whereas SBL is concerned with publishers and who has given the stamp of approval to your research
• SBL encourages commentary on how and why research was selected or used (the footnote accomodates these kinds of comments). APA, not so much.
• APA carries the sense of building on others' research in the sense of a continuation in a field of study. SBL, by divorcing citations from the body of a text, seems to favor bringing something brand new to the table.

Closing Comments

Whatever style you choose, I hope you are able to adopt the discipline to do proper research and represent your work so that it can be shared with a wider audience in a palatable manner. There is a safety in having to cite reputable sources and by so doing one avoids the danger of over zealous, unresponsible espousing of pure opinion. There is a humility in being forced to wrestle with others' research which is good for everyone.