MLA Handbook 8th edition

[joseph_anton]

As those of us who work in the humanities will be aware, the Modern Language Association has just released a major update to its style guide in the 8th edition of the MLA Handbook. I have only had a chance to read through it quickly, but it looks like there are some pretty big changes to their recommendations for preparing the list of works cited, e.g. they no longer think it's necessary to list the city where a book was published (for post-1900 books published in North America), which I'm fairly sure was a requirement up to now. There is, very sensibly, an emphasis on providing the reader with ways to locate the content cited in online databases (by giving URLs or DOIs), which I also think is new.

Unfortunately, I don't see any systematic guide in the handbook to what has changed since the 7th edition and I'm guessing putting together a new format for Bookends will take quite a bit of time and effort. But I guess many of us will soon be required to migrate to the new style guide and would be very appreciative of an update to the Bookends format whenever possible.

As of the time of writing, the MLA Handbook website has not yet been updated to reflect the new style guide, but they promise an update is coming soon: https://style.mla.org

[Jon]

Thanks for the heads up. When the new style guide is available I'll take a look (and if anyone has already created a format under the new guidelines, I'd be happy to see it).

Jon
Sonny Software

[joseph_anton]

I see that there is in fact a page on the MLA website explaining what has changed in the new edition: https://www.mla.org/MLA-Style/What-s-Ne ... th-Edition