Most college students just complain about detailed bibliography formatting requirements for research papers.

Justin Searls did something about it.

Searls, a 2003 Saline High School graduate, created a Web site called KnightCite that automatically generates bibliographic information for research papers. The site, made specifically for Calvin College in Grand Rapids but available to anyone, is already gaining in popularity.

Since the site went online in November, it has generated more than 22,000 citations for countless research papers. His best estimate is that 2,000 people use the site (http://webapps.calvin.edu/knightcite/) every week.

"What it does is it gets rid of the need to memorize tedious syntactical styles that aren’t of any educational benefit in-and-of-themselves," Searls said. "The point of citing your sources is to create a map for anyone who’d want to find the same sources you used in your own research."

The site is designed to format citations into the three most common bibliographic styles – Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA) and Chicago Manual of Style (CMS).

Searls, 20, earned an affinity for all things digital at a young age. He credits his extensive computer programming knowledge to "my own wayward spurts of ambition," including reading free programming tutorials and learning by completing various computer exercises.

The son of Deanna and Fred Searls, Justin has quickly earned notoriety for the project. Calvin, a small Christian school, is promoting KnightCite through its media relations office, and his project has been profiled in the Grand Rapids Press.

Searls – a double major in computer science and Japanese – said he initially questioned whether he had the computer knowledge necessary to build KnightCite, which has more than 12,000 lines of code. He credited his employer, John Niedzielski, and librarian Greg Sennema for helping him to complete the project.

"I knew that if I pulled it off, people would enjoy and use it," Searls said. "I just didn’t think I knew enough about Web design, programming and – least of all – citations themselves to produce something half as useful as I hoped."

Niedzielski, who oversaw the project, told the Grand Rapids Press that Searls’ work has been a plus for the college.

"The nice thing about KnightCite is not only is it bringing people to our site," Niedzielski said, "it’s promoting Justin’s work as a Calvin student."

Searls, who also maintains a humorous blog at www.framedposter.net, said he is in the last stages of a new project involving online flash cards called Flexcards that can be used to review vocabulary. The program will be targeted at Calvin’s Japanese studies program.

After graduation in 2007, Searls wants to get a job in or start a company "translating technical specifications and program documentation to and from Japanese with international corporations."

Should that quote be cited?