For years, we added necessary citations to our work as footnotes, either at the bottom of the page, or at the end of the chapter, or sometimes even at the end of the book. But now the fad is "in-text citations". For goodness sakes, WHY???

Why clutter the text with reams of citations that totally trash the flow of words, thoughts and ideas, with pointless clutter that have absolutely no relevance to the ideas and concepts that the author is attempting to impart?

While it is understandable that teachers are concerned about students plagiarizing source material, and thus insist on correct and appropriate citations, I can think of only one reason for teachers' insisting that students move the citations from the end of the book (where they belong!) and into the text itself .... simple laziness!!   

I'm getting the impression that in the desperate search to do something new, we end up doing something totally stupid. That to find an easier way to do one thing, we don't think it through and end up complicating something more important.