Rowan, italics are commonly used topside in North America. I didn't mention them because I was too lazy to look up how to post italics in html, although the recipe is easy to find in Mudcat because FAQ has instructions.

When preparing a paper for publication, a real bugbear is the Reference list. Different journals have different rules on abbreviations, order of items in a citation, etc., probably set by some editor in the dark ages, and which may not follow recommendations in any style manual. And of course magazine citations are different from book citations. Fitting to a publication's stone tablets can be a real headache.
This has little to do with a student's writing ability.