Summarizes studies examining citation errors and illustrates errors resulting from a lack of standardization, misunderstanding of foreign languages, failure to examine the document cited, and general lack of training in citation norms. It is argued that the failure to detect and correct citation errors is due to diffusion of responsibility in the…

It is impractical, unproductive, and unfair to persist in harsh criticism of spelling errors in French taught as a second language. It is more useful to reflect, with students, on the extremes of orthography in the language with the objective of learning from this exercise. (MSE)