Writing Style Guide and MLA
MLA - an acronym of three words that will determine your success if you are a writer. And as we all know, success IS everything. Do not just try to be good, know you are the best.
Modern Language Association guide is the most widely used and accepted guide when writing, quoting, and proofreading academic as well as general papers. Since its first publication in 1985, the MLA Style Manual has been considered to be one of the major three guidelines along with the editions on style of the American Psychological Association and the University of Chicago Press. A writer who follows MLA can build a reputation and will not be accused of plagiarism, a threat which may ruin the writer’s credibility.
If you are asked to consult the MLA Style Manual, refer to MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (2nd edition). Author: Joseph Gibaldi, Pages: xxviii + 343, Published: 1998; ISBN: 9780873526999 (hardcover); ISBN: 9780873529778 (large print paperback.) If you are a scholar or a graduate student publishing you can also consult MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th edition). Author(s): Joseph Gibaldi, Pages: xvii + 361, Published: 2003; ISBN: 9780873529860 (paperback); ISBN: 9780873529877 (large print paperback.)
Today’s world is generated online, if we want to put it in an ugly way. I am the kind of person who sits in front of the computer with a pencil, rubber, and a notebook and get my hands dirty with graphite and rubbing before I actually start typing my ideas in a Word Doc, as they brusquely call it. I keep my torn-apart notes for later reference and any time I need to remember or look up something of my old self, I turn to these thin, yellow pages. Mind you, graphite on paper only stays for up to ten years, in my experience. Naturally, much depends on weather conditions, such as humidity, but as we all know, a “bookworm’s” office, or as I call it “hole” is not famous for summer breeze and Mojitos…
As the first article in my Style Guide, it is necessary that I address all of us who wish to publish anything online. And I do not only mean English language publication, as a professional linguist, I do urge you to look after your mother tongue. Do not let the good old common words as online, word document, ink jet, etc., to deluge your precious language. There are synonyms to be used in your own language for these technical and sometimes quoted as “easier to use” expressions. Let us put patriotism apart, after all we are on an international ground.
I want to give you some guide lines from MLA on how to publish web articles. The next reference will be given from the MLA Handbook for Writers. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2003 [REF LB2369.G53 2003]
The article I used for my reference is
“MLA Style: Paper and Online.” From the MLA Handbook for Writers. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2003 [REF LB2369.G53 2003]. Kingwood College Library, Kingwood.
“WEB SITES
[MLA 5.9.1. to 5.9.4] Use any of the information from the basic entry that you have.
Author. “Article Title.” Publication information for a print source. Site Name. Site Editor.
Electronic publication date. Subscription information for databases. Pages only
if numbered. Sponsoring Institution, City, ST or Country. Date site accessed
BASIC ENTRY MLA 5.9.1
Sutton, Bettye, et al. “1800-1810.” 19th Century Cultural History. Ed. Peggy Whitley. 2003.
Kingwood College Library, Kingwood, TX. 28 July 2005
NO AUTHOR MLA 5.9.2
Dutch Recipes. 9 Jun. 1998. 16 Sept. 2003
AUTHOR, NO DATE MLA 5.9.1
Dawe, James. The Jane Austen Page. 16 Sept. 2003
ONLINE PERIODICAL MLA 5.9.4. a-b
Bardwell, S. K.. “Sketch Released of McDonald’s Attacker .” Houston Chronicle 3 Aug. 2005. 8 Aug. 2005
ONLINE GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION MLA 5.9.3c
United States. Dept. of Justice. Natl. Inst. of Justice. Prosecuting Gangs: A National
Assessment. By Claire Johnson, Barbara Webster, and Edward Connors. Feb. 1995.
20 Oct. 2003
“PAPER REFERENCES
[Remember to double space and indent all but first lines]
BOOK, ONE AUTHOR MLA 5.6.1
Blackmore, Susan. Consciousness: An Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2004.
BOOK, TWO OR THREE AUTHORS MLA 5.6.4
Brown, Nathan, and Sheryle A. Proper. The Everything Paying for College Book. Avon, MA: Adams, 2005.
BOOK, MORE THAN THREE AUTHORS. MLA 5.6.4
Gilman, Sandra, et al. Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.
BOOK, NO AUTHOR MLA 5.6.11 and 5.7.9
Texas Almanac: 2004-2005. Dallas, TX: Dallas Morning News, 2004.
BOOK, AN EDITOR MLA 5.6.2
Lopate, Philip, ed. The Art of the Personal Essay: an Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present.
New York: Doubleday, 1994.
BOOK, CORPORATE AUTHOR MLA 5.6.6
Public Agenda Foundation. The Health Care Crisis: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage. New York:
McGraw, 1992.
BOOK, AN EDITOR IN ADDITION TO AN AUTHOR MLA 5.6.12
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed. F. W. Robinson. Boston: Houghton, 1957.
ESSAY WRITTEN BY ONE PERSON IN A BOOK EDITED BY ANOTHER MLA 5.6.7
Weyler, Karen A. “Captivity Narratives.” The History of Southern Women’s Literature. Ed. Carolyn Perry
and Mary Louise Weaks. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2002. 25-31.
BOOK, A SECOND OR SUBSEQUENT EDITION MLA 5.6.14
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York: MLA, 2003.
ARTICLE IN A REFERENCE BOOK MLA 5.6.8
Coulter, Ellis Merton. “John Adair.” Dictionary of American Biography. Ed. Allen Johnson. Vol. 1. New
York: Scribner’s Sons, 1964.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE, SIGNED MLA 5.6.8
Epps, Helen H.. “Textiles.” World Book Encyclopedia. 2003 ed.
ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE or DICTIONARY ENTRY, UNSIGNED MLA 5.6.8
“Onomatopoeia.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. 2003.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED SCHOLARLY ARTICLE REPRINTED IN A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS MLA 5.6.7
Frye, Northrop . “Literary and Linguistic Scholarship in a Postliterate Age.” PMLA 99 (1984):990-95.
Rpt. in Myth and Metaphor: Selected Essays, 1974-88. Ed. Robert D. Denham. Charlottesville: UP of
Virginia, 1990. 18-27.
EXCERPTED SOURCES FROM MULTIVOLUME CRITICAL ANTHOLOGIES MLA 5.6.7
(includes Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, etc.)
Daches, David. “W. H. Auden: The Search for a Public”. Poetry 54 (1939): 148-56. Rpt. in Poetry
Criticism. Ed. Robyn V. Young. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1991. 332-33.
BOOK IN A SERIES MLA 5.6.16
(like Opposing Viewpoints, Taking Sides, and Contemporary World Issues)
Wexler, Barbara. Violent Relationships: Battering and Abuse among Adults. Information Plus Reference
Series. Detroit, Gale, 2005.
ARTICLE FROM A MONTHLY MAGAZINE MLA 5.7.6
Hitchens, Christopher. “A Breath of Dust.” Atlantic Monthly Jul-Aug 2005: 142-46.
ARTICLE FROM A WEEKLY MAGAZINE MLA 5.7.6
Boyce, Nell. “A Law’s Fetal Flaw.” U.S. News and World Report 21 July 2003: 49-51.
ARTICLE FROM A WEEKLY NEWS SERVICE (such as CQ Researcher or Issues and Controversies on File) MLA 5.7.6
Jost, Kenneth. “Independent Counsels Re-examined.” CQ Researcher 7 May 1999: 377-84.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE MLA 5.7.5
Feder, Barnaby J. “For Job Seekers, a Toll-Free Gift of Expert Advice.” New York Times
22 Mar. 1994, late ed.: A1+.
ARTICLE IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL WITH CONTINUOUS PAGINATION MLA 5.7.1
Warner, Megan B., et al. “The Longitudinal Relationship of Personality Traits and Disorders.”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113 (2004): 217-27.
ARTICLE IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL THAT PAGES EACH ISSUE SEPARATELY MLA 5.7.2
Garrett, Laurie. “The Next Pandemic?” Foreign Affairs 84.4 (2005): 3-23.
ARTICLE WITH NO AUTHOR MLA 5.6.11 AND 5.7.9 (Note: Begin with the title if a source has no author.)
“A Painful Tradition.” Newsweek 5 July 1999: 32.
FILM OR VIDEO RECORDING MLA 5.9.1
Balanchine . Dir. Merrill Brockway. 1984. DVD. West Long Branch, NJ: Kulter, 2004.
GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION MLA 5.6.21
“Deaths by Major Causes: 1960 to 2002.” United States. Census Bureau. Statistical
Abstract of the United States: 2004-2005. 124th ed. Washington, DC: GPO, 2004.
IMAGE FROM A BOOK
Exekias. The Suicide of Ajax. C. 540 B.C.E. Chateau-Musee, Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Art
History. By Marilyn Stokstad. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. Plate 5-29.”
I have not included citing and referring to Databases. For this topic please consult the web link included in my note on the source.
Once more, make sure whatever publication you give out of your hands, it is your footprint in time. Make it firm and credible.
