Citation questions are the ultimate “imposed” questions.  As Kurt Schick writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Citation style remains the most arbitrary, formulaic, and prescriptive element of academic writing taught in American high schools and colleges. Now a sacred academic shibboleth, citation persists despite the incredibly high cost-benefit ratio of trying to teach students something they (and we should also) recognize as relatively useless to them as developing writers.

Nonetheless, the reality is that grades are at stake, so the best that librarians can do is attempt to make proper citation and formatting as painless as possible.  To this end, I have created my “Nutshell” Brochures.

Because APA is the citation style most used at TRU, I have also created a much more detailed 
APA citation guide, as well as a mini guide to APA for Users of MLA.  In addition, I have created a very detailed online guide that includes hyperlinked definitions of potentially confusing terms such as hanging indent and corporate author.