The absurdity of trying to break a reference page of a document into its respective elements (is that the name of a foreign city? An author?) shows the shortcomings of the current major citation systems – including APA. In an age of private publishing systems that may outsource the actual printing to a foreign printer, what’s the role of the City of Publication in modern references? The current form showcases an incredibly Western-centric point of view: “If the city is not well-known or could be confused with another city, follow the city name with a comma, a space, and the state. Use the postal state abbreviations (two capital letters, no periods.)” Let’s move forward. A web-enabled and interconnected world means that publication city will play a less important role in that publication.

Adapt a machine-readable format that can also be easily read by humans. Store each component of the reference in appropriate fields that can then be easily retrieved or at least searched. Stored as XML data, this information could then be easily transmitted without fear of losing embedded formatting (italics to specify certain aspects of a reference does not degrade well.)

If the inclusion of a reference page is meant to at least partly lend credibility to a paper, those references should be easily searched and verified. We’re well past due for a citation revolution. APA and other citation standards have been slow to adapt to emerging technologies. For too long, there were no adequate means to accurately cite a quote from film footage on DVD.

Also, Merriam-Webster doesn’t think ‘parsable’ is a word. Dammit.