Note that the city of publication is not needed, and the medium of publication is eliminated. In this version, only the most essential information is included (author’s name, book title, publisher, and date). The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. Note the differences in citing a print book with one author: When comparing works cited entries in the new eighth edition with the former seventh edition, see that differences in citation style are minimal punctuation is streamlined, volume and issue numbers are identified as such, and there is no excess information such as city of publication or media type. Since the eighth edition focuses on the principles of documenting sources, rather than on strict adherence to a particular format for each source, citations in this new edition vary only slightly from the old ways. If you have included these elements and assembled them in a way that makes sense to your readers, then your works cited entries will be consistent and thorough.įor more information, you can always consult the MLA Handbook (8 thedition) or visit the MLA Style Center. Therefore, the eighth edition offers a new model for entries in a works cited list, so that rather than consulting the handbook for the proper way to document a specific type of source, the writer creates entries by consulting MLA’s list of core elements and compiling them in the recommended order.Ĭore elements are those basic pieces of information that should be common to all sources, from books to articles, from lectures to tweets. In this new edition, MLA explains that this method is no longer practical, since types of sources are sometimes undefinable, or accessible in more than one way (for instance, a YouTube clip from a film is not the same as the original film itself). For example, if you needed to cite a film, you would consult the handbook to see the proper format for documenting film. In the past, writers would create an entry in a works cited list by looking at MLA’s instructions for how to cite a specific type of source. But what is different about the eighth edition is that it recommends a universal set of guidelines that writers can apply to any source, in any field. Like earlier editions, this handbook includes information on evaluating sources, avoiding plagiarism, using quotations, constructing abbreviations, and other topics important to the scholarly writer. The writer’s goal should be to provide a document and list of sources that is easy for readers to use, so that the reading experience is informative and enjoyable. Not all scholarly prose is the same, and writers should evaluate their readers and determine how to best engage them. Rather than insisting that writers follow strict citation formulas, this handbook outlines the principles of MLA documentation and explains how writers can use them in many different situations.įor this reason, the new edition focuses on the writer’s strategy and individual decisions. The logic here is basic: a style guide should offer a method that is widely applicable. While earlier editions emphasized the importance of following specific guidelines for formatting, the eighth edition focuses on the practice and process of scholarly documentation. Therefore, the new edition includes significant shifts in the approach to source documentation in academic writing. This updated version reflects the ways in which digital publication has changed how writers and researchers document sources. In April 2016, MLA replaced its seventh edition resources with a new eighth edition. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (8 th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page. MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities.
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