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5 things you need to know about the new MLA works cited format


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Probably depends on the individual and department. In maths/sciences we tend to have students pick a real journal and ask them to use that format - the specific journal is up to them. As a scientist, I've never had to use MLA once in a math/science course. Perhaps once or twice as an undergrad in a humanities course.  So if a prof wants them to use current MLA, then they'd probably tell them to figure it out on their own.

Edited by bakpak
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Question: in your experience, do profs/ instructors keep up with such changes?

 

Some definitely do.

 

It is now imperative that students ask teachers which version of MLA they want. The teachers who do not keep up with such things may mark v8 citations as wrong!

 

I tutor high school and college level writing. I am finding a majority of teachers are already using v8, but not all. 

Edited by Momto2Ns
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Thanks for linking this Quark! :) -- Sorry I can't answer your question, though.

 

But I'll be sure to remind my homeschool co-op students to check with future instructors about not only which format (MLA, Chicago, etc.) is required -- but now I'll also add that they should check on which version/edition of that format the instructor wants.

 

It's interesting -- I've been teaching MLA style the past 5 years in my co-op classes, and instinctively taught is as a series of "train cars" that you fill as best you can, and if you don't have that piece of information for the citation, you "shunt" it aside (i.e. don't worry about including it)  and the next "train car" pulls up and you fill that one. Sounds a lot like the "containers" method described in this article. Hey, maybe I've been ahead of the curve in teaching on this one!  :w00t:

 

Once we've covered citations in class and figured out how to do them, I always direct my students to the OWL at Purdue, and to citation makers such as www.bibme.org -- I see others of you also linked OWL, so I'm feeling better and better about how I've gone about teaching citations!

 

Made my day! :laugh:  

Edited by Lori D.
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It's interesting -- I've been teaching MLA style the past 5 years in my co-op classes, and instinctively taught is as a series of "train cars" that you fill as best you can, and if you don't have that piece of information for the citation, you "shunt" it aside (i.e. don't worry about including it)  and the next "train car" pulls up and you fill that one. Sounds a lot like the "containers" method described in this article. Hey, maybe I've been ahead of the curve in teaching on this one!  :w00t:

 

Once we've covered citations in class and figured out how to do them, I always direct my students to the OWL at Purdue, and to citation makers such as www.bibme.org -- I see others of you also linked OWL, so I'm feeling better and better about how I've gone about teaching citations!

 

Made my day! :laugh:  

 

Same here. Last year I taught a class with a research paper, and I told them, "drop it if you can't find it" I didn't count off as long as they had the important parts. With pre-high school kids, I figured that was reasonable anyway.

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Same here. Last year I taught a class with a research paper, and I told them, "drop it if you can't find it" I didn't count off as long as they had the important parts. With pre-high school kids, I figured that was reasonable anyway.

 

Sounds reasonable to me. For high school, too. ;)

 

What I stress to my students about the citation process is that the point of citations is to make it as easy as possible for the reader to find that same piece of information in the same book or article where the student found it. And the more pieces of information you can provide about where that info came from, the easier it is to find it again. I mention that the specialized order is not meant to be "nit-picky", but to help organize the information about where to find that info in a structured way, so that the reader understands what they are looking at.

 

We also look at some citation examples I prepare in advance (some correct, some with jumbled order, some with much missing info) and talk about how easy/difficult would it be to find that source of information from the citation.

 

My hope is, that by the end of all that, the students see *why* you provide as much info as you can (to help out your reader), and that when you follow the format, it is easier to "decode" the source information -- both for the reader of your paper, but also for YOU as a reader wanting to access that same source... :)

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