MLA Style Guide 3rd Ed. (feature request/ question)

[mr206]

MLA has released the third edition of the style guide which dramatically changes some of the requirements for citing (particularly in the Works Cited page).

From the MLA website:

This edition of the MLA Style Manual also presents a significant revision of MLA documentation style. Notable changes include the following:

* The addition of the medium of publication as an element in entries in the list of works cited
* Inclusion of the issue as well as the volume number (when available) in every entry for a journal article in the list of works cited
* Simplified guidelines for citing works published on the Web (see 6.7)
* New guidelines for citing digital files, graphic narratives, and press releases
* Additional refinements aimed at simplifying and standardizing the formats for entries in the list of works cited

My impression is that this means that "medium of publication" needs to be a unique field for every citation in the database. Of course, I can re-purpose one of the user fields, but I'm unclear on which ones are unused by every reference type.

Another change not listed in the above list is that a few things are now required that never were before. I don't have the copy of the manual on my, but my impression is that "Access Date" will now be required for a far greater range of reference types, so a unique field for access date would be helpful. (In some reference types "Access Date" seems to be user 4? But in others that is used by "translator", am I correct?) And we're now going to need to identify the database from which we accessed certain types of things: I think that, for example, a journal article accessed via JSTOR will need JSTOR in the citation somewhere. A dissertation abstract found in ProCite will need ProCite somewhere.

I think all these things are doable by me, slowly and laboriously changing user defined fields and updating my references, but I wonder if there are easier ways...

[Jon]

Hi,

I'm no expert in MLA, so I'll let users who are step in here.

If you're not a PubMed user, user18 is otherwise undefined.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mr206]

Thank you, I think that solved that problem. I'll be rewriting some of the MLA citation format, but that's fine.

However, in the course of formatting my bibliography, another MLA trouble came up. I really like the (new?) options in the formats manager that allow one to choose to append a letter to the year, or add more information until citations become unique. However, I believe one more option is necessary.

In MLA parenthetical citations, years are not included by default, but are included if the year is the thing that makes the citation unique. So, in the case that I have these two texts (MLA full citations)

Sánchez, Marta E. "Shakin' Up" Race and Gender: Intercultural Connections in Puerto Rican, African American, and Chicano Narratives and Culture (1965-1995). Austin, TX: U of Texas P, 2005.
AND
Sánchez, Marta E. “La Malinche At the Intersection: Race and Gender in Down These Mean Streets.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 113.1 (1998): 117-28. Print.

As you can tell, that's the same author. The correct MLA parenthetical citation for them would be (Sánchez, 2005, 34) and (Sánchez, 1998, 125). Currently, the only way Bookends will get this right is if there are two citations like the ones above but of the same year, i.e. it *will* correctly represent (Sánchez, 2005, 34) and (Sánchez, 2005a, 45). But for two works by the same author in different years, it will only append the title, which is not correct MLA.

Is there a way to get those radio buttons to have more options (and perhaps also be ticky boxes?) Appending a letter is sometimes necessary, but it is also sometimes necessary to have additional information added, year first, then title.

Thanks!

[Jon]

Hi,

They will also be disambiguated by title, of course.

I'm not familiar with that nuance of MLA (perhaps it's new), and FWIW EndNote doesn't offer such disambiguating mechanism (I'm not saying that EN is the final arbiter, but it is very widely used). There is seemingly no end to the nuances one can add and I've tried to cover the major (and quite a few minor!) ones. If a number of people ask for this option to replace the old one (e.g.: Add initials/names/year/short title to citation until unique) I'll of course consider it.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mr206]

Unfortunately, disambiguation by title is not acceptable to the faculty who will ultimately read and bind my dissertation.

I completely understand if you don't want to support fully every citation style on the planet.

Is there a way to do this from my end? I've learned how to write new citation formats, but as far as I can figure, all I can do is re-create your MLA citation format. Is there something I can do with applescripts/ python or something else to add to the radio-button functionality? Put another way, if I'm willing to create a citation format from scratch, what are my options for disambiguating references. In theory, the logic tree is quite simple: two identical last names? check first names, if different, append initial. If the same, append year. If years are the same, append letter to year. I'm willing to make this happen, but I'd like a pointer to how to start.

Thank you for taking the time on this idiosyncratic citation style!

[Jon]

Hi,

Can you point me to web sites that list this in the MLA format? What do other students do, since EndNote (which most probably use) doesn't support this?

As for doing this with a script, I'm afraid that's not possible. The only solution would be to postprocess the manuscript, looking for the (hopefully few) citations where this disambiguation is necessary and editing it by hand. You'd only have to do that once, just prior to submission.

Jon
Sonny Software

[mr206]

So mostly MLA style is only available via the MLA style guide, which is a print book. They don't offer an authoritative online version. I have found the synopsis on wikipedia to be okay, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLA_style though I am surprised to note that it suggests the short title option that bookends *does* support. My copy of the new style guide is on order, so I can't confirm if wikipedia is correct about this.

The OWL at Purdue hasn't yet updated for the 3rd edition, but they are also a good online resource.

[samuelas]

The date disambiguation with MLA is nothing I've ever seen--it's always with titles, AFAIK.

apropos of which: I'm pleased to see this implemented in Bookends. However, there's quite a snag. The disambiguation only puts titles in quotes, when sometimes they should be italicized:

ex: Blah Blah (Badiou, “Handbook” 3-5) "blah blah" (Badiou, “Fifteen Theses” 45). But "Handbook" is a book and should thus be Handbook.

[Jon]

Hi,

I'm not familiar with that requirement, but nonetheless Bookends can do that. Italicize the word Handbook in the Short Title field of the reference, and the word will be italicized in the disambiguated final citation.

Jon
Sonny Software

[samuelas]

Yes: short titles that disambiguate are presented as the kind of title they are (chapters and article in quotation marks, books in italics--that is a short version of how the title looks on the works cited page). Your solution does italicize, but it does not solve the problem of there beign quotation marks around the short title.

s

[Jon]

Perhaps we should take this off-forum. Or if someone else would care to comment, please do. It is my understanding that the short title should be in quotes. For example

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/03/

Jon
Sonny Software

[samuelas]

This is what I found at OWL
Lightenor has argued that computers are not useful tools for small children ("Too Soon" 38), though he has acknowledged elsewhere that early exposure to computer games does lead to better small motor skill development in a child's second and third year ("Hand-Eye Development" 17).

It seems probable that these examples are articles, not books. Unfortunately no works cited list is provided. Either way, book short titles are italicized. All I can do is urge you to look at the actual style manual (or look at zotero´s implementation of MLA).

[Jon]

OK, that's the behavior you'll see in the next update. The short title will not have surrounding quote marks, and will be in italics if you have set it to italics in the reference. If there is no short title, the full title with surrounding quote marks will be used.

Jon
Sonny Software