Talk:MLA Style Manual

Works cited, italic or underline for book titles?

This page says the in the Works cited page that titles of books are in italic however every other handbook/website I have seen for MLA format seems to say that titles of books in the works cited page are underlined and not italic. I don't have a copy of the actual "The MLA Style Manual" 3rd edition (or any other edition) so it's possible they changed it and my information is just out of date as my handbooks are from roughly 5 or 6 years ago, however that seems unlikely. Could someone that has an actual current manual double check this? Then if neccessary change the page to reflect the accurate format. 70.156.236.7 (talk) 21:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

As of 2009, the official MLA standard is to italicize rather than underline.--Fez2005 (talk) 08:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Page needs work

The reference citations need to use a hanging indent. As it stands, those examples are incorrect. This is certainly not the kind of information stewardship that wikipedians should endorse.--143.88.86.146 18:40, 30 September 2005 (UTC) user:smallwhitelight

Agreed; this page needs a lot of work. For starters, I shortened the journal example so it will fit on one line (hopefully—I'm using a wide screen so I can't confirm that). --zenohockey 02:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Since the handbook is in the sixth edition, wouldn't it be nice for the image to be of the sixth edition? --Anon

Date of publication/retrieval

From current article:

"Note that MLA style calls for both the date of publication (or its latest update) and the date on which the information was retrieved."

This seems only applicable to online sources from the examples given, right? Shawnc 20:13, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, naturally. The date a paper publication is "accessed" (i.e. read) is irrelevant.

Actually, that it is not irrelevant. For example, lets say that you write a paper, and you use an online source, but in the time that it takes for you to hand the paper in,the website that you used gets editted or taken down, and then the teacher or professor goes to check that url, and what happens its not there, and they accuse you of making it up. That is why you use the both the Dates for accessed and publication.

Key word: "paper". NickelShoe (Talk) 01:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but the previous poster was referring to paper publications.. not online ones.

Citations

As a reader of this article, it would be easier if in addition to the examples of citations, there would also be forms. For example,

Book: Last name, First name. Title of Book. City of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication.

--Mkop 20:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Just an opionion here: This so-called 'style guide' is rather horrific and limiting. As a student of British education, I've never had to use it - but looking at the usage restrictions it places on a student's writing, neither my teachers nor myself would ever endorse such a system. Just my two pence. AKismet 17:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the style guide I used in high school by compulsion, and in college by choice. The intent of the style is not to be limiting, but rather to standardize. As a professor reviewing students' research papers or an editor of a journal reviewing sumbissions, I would find it valuable to have all submissions in some standard form. The writer may be creative in the content of their writing, but creativity simply has no place in, say, a works cited list or how a sentence should be punctuated. May I ask what guides to style are frequently used in the UK? Stubblyhead 20:58, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Although I find the citations section very helpful, I'm not sure but what if it violates the policy at WP:NOT by being instructional? We might should limit ourselves to the external links... NickelShoe (Talk) 04:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I get what you're getting at, but the citation style is more or less the essence of the style manual, no? Plus, the article doesn't really discuss paper size, plagiarism guidelines, and all the other goodies in the manual; let's not remove the little that's here. --zenohockey 04:30, 27 June 2006 (UTC) heh...added almost exactly a quarter-year afterwords.

Question: By online sources where one uses more than one page, do we cite the website or each individual page?

I believe the latter, especially if each page has its own pagination/paragraph numbering, author, etc.; it's always better to overcite than to undercite. But cross-referencing can make things easier in that you can cite the site's name just once. For example:

• Blind, Mathilde. Shelley's View of Nature Contrasted With Darwin's. 1886. Victorian Women Writers Project. <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/blind/shelley.html>.
• Victorian Women Writers Project. Ed. Perry Willett. 24 Apr. 2003. Indiana U. 4 Oct. 2006 <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/>.
• Wilde, Lady Jane. "Foreshadowings." Poems. 2d ed. Glasgow, ca. 1871. 17-19. Carolyn C. Sherayko and Perry Willett, eds. Victorian Women Writers Project. <http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/wilde/speranza.html>.

Note that in the Wilde entry, I listed the editors because one of them is not listed in the main Victorian Women Writers Project entry; in the Blind entry, by contrast, the only editor on that page is Willett.

But don't take my word for any of this; be sure to ask your teacher if you're doing something for school. --zenohockey 02:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Indenting

I'm pretty sure that when indenting you use five spaces rather than hitting tab, but i'm not quite sure if five spaces is universal, or somthing my teachers would require. --Lawlor421

When indenting, you are supposed to use five (5) spaces, NOT hitting tab once. This is according to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6th Edition.

Of course, hitting tab might give you the spacing of 5 spaces.... So ... Besides whats the freaking big deal? 5 spaces.. 5.5 spaces.. 7 spaces for godsake! Will the world of grading english papers collapse if people all use different tab spacing ???? Get a damn life MLA. Fresheneesz 20:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The big freaking deal is when your paper gets to the publishing stage. Correct use of tab, line breaks (instead of hitting ENTER or even a soft return), spaces after periods, hyphens, en and em dashes, you name it -- formatting really matters when your paper is given to a publisher. Of course, there is no shortage of old editors who demand everything be done according to how they used to do it on a typewriter (2 spaces after periods, NO tab use, etc.). Mabsal (talk) 21:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Aw, c'mon. Academic journals take word submissions. They're not that picky about how formatting appears on paper--i.e., how long are the tabs.184.77.32.182 (talk) 14:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Easybib

Easybib is not a free service and does not belong with the services that are free. AgentSmith15 16:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Um, yes it is. Unless by "The Free Online Citation Service" it's participating in Opposite Day.--TheRaven7 00:40, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Easybib is free for simple use, but it charges yearly service to use any of the advanced features and to see how you would parathenitcally cite a source. You also must pay to have it generate ANY APA information. Aubray1741 14:05, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

disputed template

That first paragraph really does not seem accurate or NPOV. Please state WHO claims that MLA is the "most often used" style-guide in those areas (to make NPOV), and provide a citation to prove it (accuracy). It just doesn't seem to me that MLA would completely dominate all those areas. The links at the bottom might also be POV. Bayerischermann 03:44, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I read "it prescribes the style most often used in ..." to mean that the style is more often used in the areas listed than in other areas. It may be POV, but worse, it's unclear! Starwiz 00:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I changed it to "often," which is indubitably accurate and clear. --zenohockey 04:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. But a citation would also be welcome. Bayerischermann 23:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Importance in High School English classes

I'm a junior in High School and I've come to notice that my English teachers seem to care more about the proper use of MLA formatting than what we actually write. Should there be a section in the article about the pressing urgence teachers seem to put on getting this format down correctly? Does anybody know why it's such a big deal? It seems absurd to me to spend so much time on a simple formatting procedure instead of actually writing or doing literary analysis... -albrozdude 05:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I know what you mean. I'm a HS teacher myself, and have had this conversation with my colleagues in the English department, and they've chalked it up to a fear of plagarism found in colleges. Colleges are very wary of student plagarism, and will come down on it hard, but they never bother to tell you how to cite properly, they expect you to get it in High School, so HS's spend an inordinate amount of time on citations in MLA format. Of course, whether or not you use MLA format depends on which field you major in. I distinctly remember getting into an argument with a teacher whe I was in HS because I was using APA for a science paper, which is more standard. I was right, of course. oknazevad 04:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I ' ve gone through high school and almost all of college myself, and although both have been stringent about formatting, it has only mattered when it came to the Bibliography page. Honestly, nothing else as regards formatting will really matter as long as you implement some basic sense, such as printing only on one side. Who prints a paper for grading on both sides?? 75.180.19.73 08:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Whats wrong with two sided papers?? But i mean.. who has a printer that'll let you do that.. or the patience neccessary to flip the pages manually and feed them back in? I *definately* agree that there should be a section dealing with how, where, and *why* MLA is used today. Perhaps also a critisism section. Personally, I find it a social tragedy that teachers spend more time screwing around with MLA crap than trying to teach students how to write. Our schools are in poor shape folks. Fresheneesz 21:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite honestly, I've learned both APA and MLA style formats because it doesn't matter which department you have classes from in college, your always going to run into one professor who wants APA and another who wants MLA. They're set in their ways and there is no way you can change it. It sucks a lot. (Steve 21:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC))

I really don't see how this "sucks a lot"; the important thing about bibliographical citation formats is just to follow them consistently; if your high-school or college teacher requires APA format, he or she informs you of that requirement, and you follow that format consistently; if he or she requires MLA format, you follow that format consistently. Consistency is a hallmark of citation style formats. You need to consult the official organization's (APA, MLA) presentation of its format to know precisely what it is. Online guides are summaries of the official style guides; for absolute precision, one consults the actual style guide published by the organization originating it (APA, MLA official publications). In a way, it is useful to consider the online and printed handouts offered by college and university English and writing departments (writing centers, etc.) as helpful guides to interpreting the official style guides. You can use them to help you with understanding such official style guides (same is the case with ACS for the sciences). Introductory writing courses in colleges and universities try to familiarize their students with the various style guides that will be required in courses in the various disciplines that these students will encounter. If you can learn how to follow one format, you can learn how to follow any format. It is not a question of being "set in their ways"; teachers are trained in their own disciplines, which have style guide requirements for paper writing and publications. They are teaching you how to succeed in those disciplines (which it is their job to do). When students graduate from high school and college and go on to have jobs, they will find that they may have to write reports or even to publish documents according to the prevailing style guides for those jobs. High school and college writing is training for doing the work that may come later in their lives. If one wants to succeed not only in school but in work later, it is very useful to follow assignments as they are designed to teach you the basics for adapting to these later requirements. (This is what I have told thousands of college and university students over decades of teaching research-based writing. I consider it helpful to encourage such an attitude toward following instructors' requirements in writing assignments. It makes sense in "the real world" encountered after school; but it is also important to remember that school is also part of "real life.") -NYScholar (talk) 02:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not think that teachers pay more attention to the format of the paper than to its content; the problem of errors in format is that they detract and distract from the content. An error-free essay is much easier to read than an error-filled essay. Once the format is correct, it is non-distracting and a reader can simply focus on the content. Both form and content are important. For an essay or a paper or report to be "convincing" (if it is an argumentive essay or a research-based paper or report), its writer needs to show evidence that he or she knows what s/he is doing; correct format impresses a reader with the writer's ability to show command over the discipline about which he or she is writing. Incorrect format makes the reader less confident of the writer's command over the discipline. If notes and bibliography (works cited, references) are in the proper format for the discipline, the reader will find the essay/paper/report stronger (more convincing) than otherwise. (That is a kind of "rule of thumb" for persuasive expository writing. Learn the basics [e.g., style format] early on and it will become "second nature" the more experience that one has in writing in that discipline.) --NYScholar (talk) 03:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I work in one of the campus writing centers you describe. It is such a shame when nursing students are more freaked out about how to cite some obscure weirdity in their bibliography than the actual content and outline of their paper because the prof marks 5 points for every deviation. While I understand the need to correctly cite sources, the "point" of college, high school, whatever is NOT to make yourself SEEM convincing. Mostly, citing sources is a nicety to other researchers (Oh, by the way, I found that fact on page 9 in Smith's article called "Blatty Blah." You should check it out.). It is often presented as a way to keep the student from getting in trouble or from "making things up," but that's not necessarily the case. If there is a "point" to writing programs on campus, it should be how to create a clearly organized argument of synthesized data, not pointing out how well you follow a style manual.

For students perplexed at citing their sources, ask yourself, is this a good source? If you are having a hard time making the information of the source "fit" your citation guidelines (no author, obscure date, the author herself doesn't use citations . . .), you might want to pick a new source. And if you want to complain (esp. about formatting), I suggest looking at APA style, especially the formatting rules (Running heads and all that). MLA is quite arguably the simplest both in citation style and paper formatting. Mabsal (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Should the URL in the bibliography not refer to Wikipedia?

Not too knowledgable about the MLA, but apparently they say that Wikipedia is NOT a viable source. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gesiwuj (talk • contribs) 16:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

I guess I'm not exactly sure what you're asking. Are you saying that you're writing a paper write now and you want to know if you should cite Wikipedia? If so, that's something you'll have to take up with your instructor. However, you have to put Wikipedia in your in-text citations and works cited page if you use information or quotations from Wikipedia. When you're at the article you're using for information, click "cite this article" on the left hand side, and that'll give you what you need.

If you were asking a different question, post again and I'll try and help. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Why the hell does it exist?

Ok, first of all MLA needs to die. Second of all, this page should give some info at the alleged benefits of using its format - and perhaps a little history or society section on MLA's use in both acedemia and the real world. Do things like the position of your name and data, or the font size, or the margins, or any of the other specific bullshit, help "prevent plagiarism" or help "YOU in your research" [1] ????? NO. It doesn't. Its just nitpicky bullshit and needs to die. Fresheneesz 20:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple of benefits to uniformity in this somewhat trivial matters. One, no smartass will hand in a paper with 3-inch margins in 20-point font. Two, if the teacher can avert her eyes from the student's name until after she's read it, she won't be affected by her preconceptions about the author (one of my English teachers had us put our names on the last page for that reason).

Margins, text size, and text style are not specific to MLA.

Yes they are. Says the MLA Handbook, 6th ed.: "Choose a standard, easily readable typeface (e.g., Times Roman) and type size (e.g., 12 point)....Except for page numbers, leave margins of one inch at the top and bottom and on both sides of the text." --zenohockey 18:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Right, but it's not like MLA has the only style guide. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

No, but to obtain the uniformity benefits I outlined above, everyone in a class or every submitter to a journal should agree on margins and font. --zenohockey 07:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestions for the article are good ones. Does anyone know of any sources on that? Maybe someone at the MLA would know... --zenohockey 04:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Good point.. --NYScholar 00:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The MLA Style Manual

Re your edits to MLA Style Manual regarding a work's original date of publication (a relatively minor point, all things considered, but since there is substantive disagreement, I thought I'd spell out my case)—

I think there's some confusion here about what "original date of publication" means. Compare these two pairs of references:

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War. 1895. Ed. Fredson Bowers. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1975. [This one is taken right from the Handbook.]

---. The Red Badge of Courage. 1895. Ed. Donald Pizer. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1994.

Carson, Robert C., James N. Butcher, and Susan Mineka. Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life. 11th ed. Boston: Allyn, 2000.

Coleman, James C. Abnormal Psychology and Modern Life. 4th ed. Glenview: Scott, 1972.

The last two are two editions of the same textbook (Carson, Butcher, and Mineka xiii) but they certainly don't share the same "original publication date" in the way that the two editions of Red Badge of Courage do. The Crane volumes are nearly entirely comprised of text lifted directly from the 1895 publication of the book, while the connection between the 11th edition of a textbook and the 4th edition (or between the 6th edition of the Handbook and the 1st) is severely attenuated.

Also note that none of the examples in the Handbook's (I don't own the Manual) section 5.6.14 (A Book Published in a Second or Subsequent Edition) includes a previous date. For example:

Bondanella, Peter. Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present. 3rd ed. New York: Continuum, 2001.

--zenohockey 03:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Dates of first editions (first publication) are given when one wants readers to know the original date of publication: In a note it appears with the semi-colon preceding the place of publication (within parentheses); in a bibliographical entry it does appear set off by periods. See MLA Style Manual#Works cited, where I have added the relevant entries. It is important to know that the first edition of The MLA Style Manual has as its first listed author, Walter S. Achtert [also first listed co-author of earlier editions of The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers]. ... Revised and updated this comment. May add more later. --NYScholar 03:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)] [Corrected a link description in article. --NYScholar 01:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)] Gibaldi revised later editions and became listed as the sole author (otherwise Achtert would have received credit--perhaps he still should, since the first edition, which he co-wrote, is the basis for the revised 2nd ed) and the title expanded. [According to a comment posted on my talk page by Achtert's brother on 4 Dec. 2007, the MLA says that Achtert was "not involved" in the "preparation" of the 1998 ed. This comment was also posted as a reply to a user's comment in my own talk page and copied here.] By the way, I had an editorial interpolation in the "Works cited" (in MLA format it should be "Works Cited," but Wikipedia MoS headings don't capitalize all the words in a heading) stating that the "Works cited" illustrates how entries are constructed; that is what I meant. There actually was no "Works cited" section in that article at all until I added it. In order for it to include all the works cited (from the lead on), it needs the entries that I have added to it more recently. [I will be archiving this exchange in the near future. I am mostly logged off Wikipedia doing other work, and I really don't want to be distracted by minor editing issues.] I am moving the pertinent parts of this exchange to the talk page of the relevant article, where others need to consult it. Please scroll up and read my N.B. section [on my talk page]. Thanks. --NYScholar 07:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC) [Updated. --NYScholar (talk) 02:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC); --NYScholar (talk) 04:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)]

The changes that I have made to the "Works cited" ("Works Cited" in MLA style) section contain the pertinent editions of both books mentioned in the lead. These are simple ways to indicate the editions referred to in the lead and to distinguish among the first edition and the subsequent editions of the books pertinent to this subject (The MLA Style Manual). The examples given above are not as pertinent because the subject of this article is this book and the one based on it (The MLA Handbook for Writers ...). --NYScholar 07:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Since writing that comment, I created a new article on The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. All the examples and quotations presented in this article on The MLA Style Manual need to come from this book and not the other one. Some cleanup may be needed. I do not have the time to do more on this article; someone who has in hand the 2nd ed. needs to check the accuracy of what is presented in this article. If necessary, new parethetical citations need to be added (I've converted some). Section numbers are useful in referring to parts of this book. I have provided section numbers as well as page numbers in the parenthetical source citations. It is most effective if this article on MLA documentation style conforms to and illustrates this very style. Inaccuracies in citations and bibliography entries would be highly misleading for readers of this article; same comments pertain to The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, from which most if not all of the examples in this article appear to have been taken. That was very misleading, given the title of this article. --NYScholar 11:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent changes

I have created a separate article for The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. The examples used in this article on The MLA Style Manual need to come from this book (most recent ed.; [3rd ed.]), not the other one. Scroll up to earlier discussion; the "Document format" matter relates to formatting documents that are student-generated research papers being presented to teachers and professors for credit and grading in courses in schools, colleges, and universities. The MLA Style Manual is directed more to [graduate students and] scholars who are submitting articles and books for publication in peer-reviewed journals and presses. Students would do better to have the separate article on the Handbook to read and consult. This development and coordination of both articles is still in progress. Thank you. --NYScholar 08:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC) [updated --NYScholar 11:17, 7 October 2007 (UTC)] These articles are also cross-linked and both are accessible via the template in top right hand corner of each Style guide. (Updated.) --NYScholar 22:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC) [updated to 3rd ed., published in May 2008; to be used in MLA publications as of early 2009. --NYScholar (talk) 10:24, 25 April 2009 (UTC)]

From the MLA site's description of The MLA Style Manual: "Since its publication in 1985, the MLA Style Manual has been the standard guide for graduate students, teachers, and scholars in the humanities and for professional writers in many fields. . . ." The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is geared more toward undergraduate students and their teachers. --NYScholar 23:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Updated and reorganized

Updated and reorganized this article to account for publication of the 3rd edition of this book. --NYScholar (talk) 01:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Recent editing history

For contexts of some recent editing, please see User talk:NYScholar/Archive 25#MLA. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 05:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC) [Updated link after archiving my own talk page. --NYScholar (talk) 10:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)]

External links

The external link http://www.academicexperts.us/dl/mla12.pdf is outdated as all the examples there are underlined - no more underlining in the 7th edition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.44.196.146 (talk) 19:07, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Removed the redundant comment ("external links"), since it was posted twice; deleted the outdated pdf file EL as per the above comment. --66.66.17.59 (talk) 13:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 20 September 2015

The MLA Style Manual → MLA Style Manual – Per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:THE. The work does not use "The" in its title [2] (which would have been an exception under WP:THE).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:28, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

•  Done "The" is not on the cover of the manual and the article doesn't even use it as part of the title either. --Randykitty (talk) 09:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

MLA change

Did MLA remove the publisher from citing journal, I cited a journal month ago in citationmachine and now it is removed? Alexis Ivanov (talk) 05:52, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Merge from MLA Handbook

The MLA Handbook is just an abridged version of the MLA Style Manual, for students. We should have a combined article, like we do for the variants of [New] Hart's Rules / [New] Oxford Style Manual / Oxford Manual of Style / Oxford Dictionary for Writer's and Editors. This will help prevent any WP:CONTENTFORKing with regard to MLA style.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:00, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good! --Akhenaten0 (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes,the handbook and manual should be combine but have different sections on this page to avoid confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:387:6:80D:0:0:0:91 (talk) 23:10, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

This isn't straightforward, as the lede notes that the MLA announced in April 2016 MLA Handbook will henceforth be "the authoritative source for MLA style", and that the 2008 third edition of the MLA Style Manual would be the final edition of the larger work. So, can I suggest merging in the reverse direction, given that the Handbook is the definitive and ongoing publication going forward. Klbrain (talk) 07:02, 20 August 2019 (UTC)