Talk:MLA Style Manual

message: 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"The MLA Style Manual" 3rd edition (or any other edition) so it's possible they changed it and my information is just out of date as my handbooks are from roughly 5 or 6 years ago, however that seems unlikely.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)
replies: text: As of 2009, the official MLA standard is to italicize rather than underline.--Fez2005 (talk) 08:08, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Works cited, italic or underline for book titles?

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Page needs work

message: 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)
replies: text: Key word: "paper". NickelShoe (Talk) 01:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of publication/retrieval 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Indenting

message: Easybib is not a free service and does not belong with the services that are free. AgentSmith15 16:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, yes it is. Unless by "The Free Online Citation Service" it's participating in Opposite Day.--TheRaven7 00:40, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  Easybib 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: I changed it to "often," which is indubitably accurate and clear.  --zenohockey 04:26, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. But a citation would also be welcome. Bayerischermann 23:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  disputed template 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: The MLA Style Manual

message: 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)
thread_title: Recent changes

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

message: For contexts of some recent editing, please see User talk:NYScholar/Archive 25#MLA. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 05:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Re: Recent editing history

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  External links 

message: :The MLA Style Manual →  – Per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:THE. The work does not use "The" in its title  (which would have been an exception under WP:THE).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:28, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 20 September 2015 

message: 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)
thread_title:  MLA change 

message: 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)
replies: text: Sounds good! --Akhenaten0 (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't straightforward, as the lede notes that the  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)
thread_title:  Merge from MLA Handbook