MLA errors?

[JP Craig]

The MLA output styles in Bookends have many errors. It seems I'm always finding one and correcting it in the styles thingy (pardon my technical jargon). Where should I send my corrections, and why are there so many errors in the MLA format?

Today's example:

Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, vol. 1 New York: Zone Books, 1988.

Should come out as:

Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Vol. 1. New York: Zone Books, 1988.

[italicization omitificated]

I was keeping a TextEdit file of these errors, but I seem to have misplaced it. Anyway, I'll be finding the errors again, as I'm managing hundreds of references for my diss with this software, and I have a deposit coming soon. So my proofing will find these errors. (But such rigorous proofing is part of what I hope to avoid with a software reference manager. At least this product doesn't steal my lunch money like Endnote did.)

[JP Craig]

The correct entry for Bataille would be:

Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Vol. 1. New York: Zone Books, 1988. 2 vols.

I'm not even sure how to get that last bit about two volumes accomplished in Bookends.

[Jon]

Please send any formatting errors you find to me (support@sonnysoftware.com) and they'll be corrected.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

The correct entry for Bataille would be:

Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Vol. 1. New York: Zone Books, 1988. 2 vols.

Do you have an online source for this? All the examples I've seen place the "2 vols." before the publisher, which is where Bookends puts it.

Jon
Sonny Software

[JP Craig]

I was using a textbook I teach with, which turns out to be wrong when I check it against my big old official MLA Style Manual. Here's one of their examples:

Weinberg, Bernard. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. 2 vols. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961.

Furthermore, my textbook is also wrong about how to write a reference for a single volume of a multi-volume work. It should be as it is in Bookends already (with the exception of what seems to be a missing period and capitalization):

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Oxford Sherlock Holmes. Ed. Owen Dudley Edwards. Vol. 8. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Here's how BE does it:

Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, vol. 1 New York: Zone Books, 1988.

So the only thing Bookends is doing incorrectly is: the v in volume should be cap'd; their should be a period after the volume number.

Thanks for the correction; I'll be forwarding this problem you spotted to a mailing list here at the U of Iowa of about 200 instructors and profs, so you helped out a lot of people by helping me spot this error in our textbook. JP

[Jon]

Good. The capital V and period issues will be corrected in the 9.1 release.

Jon
Sonny Software

[thecritic]

The MLA output styles in Bookends have many errors.

Yes, they do. It's true for EndNote styles as well. Underlined titles should be italicized, for one. There should an indication that something is a reprint edition with a different publishing date. The list goes on. I have a modified BE style which I'd be happy to contribute.

[Jon]

From http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html

"The MLA Handbook provides the following advice for the use of italics and underlining in word-processed texts intended for print-only publication:

Many word-processing programs and computer printers permit the reproduction of italic type. In material that will be graded, edited or typeset, however, the type style of every letter and punctuation mark must be easily recognizable. Italic type is sometimes not distinctive enough for this purpose, and you can avoid ambiguity by using underlining when you intend italics. If you wish to use italics rather than underlining, check your instructor's or editor's preferences. (94)"

[thecritic]

From http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html

"The MLA Handbook provides the following advice for the use of italics and underlining in word-processed texts intended for print-only publication:

Many word-processing programs and computer printers permit the reproduction of italic type. In material that will be graded, edited or typeset, however, the type style of every letter and punctuation mark must be easily recognizable. Italic type is sometimes not distinctive enough for this purpose, and you can avoid ambiguity by using underlining when you intend italics. If you wish to use italics rather than underlining, check your instructor's or editor's preferences. (94)"

I haven't seen or used underlined titles in 15 years.

[tharpold]

From http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html

"The MLA Handbook provides the following advice for the use of italics and underlining in word-processed texts intended for print-only publication..."

I haven't seen or used underlined titles in 15 years.

I tell my undergrads that, while both underline and italic are acceptable in MLA-formatted bibliographies, italics are preferred in papers they submit for coursework in my classes. (And I've modified my BE styles to use italics.)

BUT: I warn my grad students, and it's been my experience when writing for journals and book publishers, that *many* journals and *most* book publishers require the use of underlined text (not italics), as well as many other optically unappealing text formats, for MSS to be copyedited and/or typset.

Which means having sometimes to go back through your MS and change all this stuff when submitting something for publication. What we need in Mac word processors is what FrameMaker and HTML have: a "cite" style that can be set to italic, underline, whatever, by which the titles of books, etc. are set apart from other forms of text.

[thecritic]

BUT: I warn my grad students, and it's been my experience when writing for journals and book publishers, that *many* journals and *most* book publishers require the use of underlined text (not italics)

This is the age of minimal editing by publishers, where authors are asked to submit camera-ready copy. I've written two books and neither publisher ever required a manuscript with underlined titles.

[tharpold]

BUT: I warn my grad students, and it's been my experience when writing for journals and book publishers, that *many* journals and *most* book publishers require the use of underlined text (not italics)

This is the age of minimal editing by publishers, where authors are asked to submit camera-ready copy. I've written two books and neither publisher ever required a manuscript with underlined titles.

I don't doubt that. Perhaps my use of *many* was an exaggeration, but it is still more common than one might think, given the advantages of the camera-ready copy model. My most recent experience of it was for a book to be published by the University of Minnesota Press, a major press in my field, and I know that other of my colleagues publishing books with similar presses have also had to submit decidedly camera-unready copy.

But my real aim in my comments was to propose the value of a "cite" style in modern word processors, as this would enable easy reformatting of book/journal titles, citation-specific searching, etc.

[thecritic]

But my real aim in my comments was to propose the value of a "cite" style in modern word processors, as this would enable easy reformatting of book/journal titles, citation-specific searching, etc.

I think this can be done in Mellel as character-style "variations." Originally it seemed like a strange feature to me, but given these considerations, now it makes sense.

[samuelas]

This is another reason I like Mellel. With the "Replace Styles" feature (which works on the works cited that Bookends produces, to be sure) you can always switch italics to underline or times to courier, and so on in a matter of a minute or two. And of course, you can do so with great consistency.

The MLA handbook believes some things exist that no longer do. It is a kind of nostalgic style guide (as all style guides are, really). I figure write and submit the piece in a manner with which you're comfortable and use the "Replace Styles" feature to take care of things later on.

In any case, I came here with a question: I'm halfway through my dissertation (Latin American literature), and to keep things straight, I've been trying to use Bookends again, which reminded me of the reason I've always been frustrated with it: bad MLA support.

If you guys wouldn't mind letting me know how you do MLA with Bookends, I 'd be very grateful. Otherwise, I'll probably switch to Chicago with footnotes, which Bookends seems to handle much more gracefully. (And of course, I don't mind that footnotes take up a bit more space on a page... )

thanks
s

[Jon]

If you'll point out specific MLA issues I'll look into them. The only major one that I'm aware of at the moment is that Bookends won't add the title when there is ambiguity between citations.

Jon
Sonny Software