Now that we have entered an age of “post-truth,” a time in which facts and personal opinions are one and the same, the standard formatting guides of days past no longer apply. MLA and Chicago style may have worked well when you could “fact-check” a peer’s work, but now a new standardized guide has been developed: the “Correct” style (or C-style). Here are a few helpful guidelines and tips for C-style citations.
- When citing a book with one author, make sure to use only that book and author in your argument. Presenting works by more than one author is weak and pathetic.
- No need to cite a page number; simply state “I think I read in [Author]’s book somewhere that…” and that’s probably good enough.
- When citing a book by more than one author, try to find an disreputable blog that argues something similar, but without the same logical reasoning. Something with “.info” or “TRUTH” in the URL is always a safe bet. Computers don’t lie, whereas books can be written by literally anyone.
- WHEN CITING A BLOG, USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. SOMETIMES YOU CAN EVEN USE BOLD LETTERS TO MAKE A POINT EXTRA-IMPORTANT.
- When citing an interview, skew, redact, and misrepresent the talking points you record so that they fit your personal agenda. Writing is a weapon.
- Use lots of italics for added gravitas.
- When citing a website, copy and paste directly. If someone accuses you of plagiarism, say that you could have sworn that you came up with it yourself. Don’t apologize, however. Apologizing is almost as weak as citing multiple books. Never apologize for bringing the TRUTH.
- Punch people who disagree with you.
- Tweets are to be treated the same way as books. They are the new literature.
Now that you know the style guidelines for C-style writing, you’re ready to go out into the world and spout your opinions…or are they facts? Who cares — as long as you’re loud, you’re right.
