Sonny Software

What excellent software: elegant, intuitive, and what a breeze it was to import my references from another bibliographic program! But I've noticed a few MLA formatting errors:

1) Book: There should be a period, not a comma, after the book title.

2) Journal article: There should be no punctuation between the journal title and volume number.

Also, I'd love to see formatting added for unpublished manuscripts, especially letters in archives. Here's an example:

Thanks,
Susan

Thanks.

I've fixed them, and they'll appear in the next update. If you want them sooner, please contact me directly.

I don't see the example for unpublished manuscripts...

Jon
Sonny Software

Thank you, Jon, for such a quick response. Wow. The Bookends buzz was all true.

Here's an example:

Unpublished archived letter:
Fauset, Jessie Redmon. Letter to Langston Hughes. 24 June 1924. Langston Hughes Papers. James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
[Author. Document. Date. Name of archive. and/or Name of archival library.]

The MLA Style Manual contains more manuscript types, which others may want to weigh in about.

Many thanks again,
Susan

Hi,

Since Bookends doesn't have an unpublished manuscript Type, I can't add that to the one we ship. But it is rather easy for you do it yourself. Briefly,

1. Open Preferences, References tab, and change the Unused Type to Unpublished Letter.

2. Select Biblio -> Formats Manager.

3. Select MLA, then press New. Set the name to MLA 2 (or whatever) and save it.

4. Use the Type popup to Add Type. Set it to Unpublished Letter.

5. In the Order field type

a. v. d. f.

(you may enter different fields if you keep the information elsewhere. For example I assumed you're keeping the name of archive in the journal field, but you may prefer another field, like Location).

The User Guide contains more information about creating/modifying formats, if you need it.

Jon
Sonny Software