10 /10 1 Votes
Country United States Published in English April 2016 ISBN 978-1-60329-262-7 Page count 146 Published in english April 2016 | 5/5 Barnes & Noble Publication date 2016 Pages xiv + 146 Originally published 1977 Subject Style guide | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Original title The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers Publisher Modern Language Association Similar Joseph Gibaldi books, Report books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Understanding mla style 8th edition 2016 updates
The MLA Handbook (8th ed., 2016), formerly the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (1977–2009) is a publication of the Modern Language Association (MLA). According to the MLA, the MLA style "has been widely adopted for classroom instruction and used worldwide by scholars, journal publishers, and academic and commercial presses".
Contents
Like the MLA Style Manual, the MLA Handbook is an academic style guide widely used in the United States, Canada, and other countries, providing guidelines for writing and documentation of research in the humanities, such as English studies (including the English language, writing, and literature written in English); the study of other modern languages and literatures, including comparative literature; literary criticism; media studies; cultural studies; and related disciplines. Released in April 2016, the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook (like its previous editions) is addressed primarily to secondary-school and undergraduate college and university teachers and students.
History
The MLA Handbook grew out of the initial MLA Style Sheet of 1951, a 31-page "more or less official" standard. The first five editions, published between 1977 and 1999 were titled the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. The title changed to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers in 2003 (6th ed.).
The seventh edition's main changes from the sixth edition were "no longer recogniz[ing] a default medium and instead call[ing] for listing the medium of publication [whether Print or Web or CD] in every entry in the list of works cited", recommending against listing URLs, and preferring italics over underline. Additionally, the seventh edition included a website with the full text of the book. Later online additions allowed for citation of e-books and tweets.
The eighth edition's main changes from the seventh edition are "shift[ing] our focus from a prescriptive list of formats to an overarching purpose of source documentation". Released in Spring 2016, it changes the structure of the works cited list, most directly by adding abbreviations for volumes and issues (vol. and no.), pages (p. or pp.), not abbreviating words like "editor" or "translator", using URLs in most instances (though preferring DOI, as in APA), and not favoring the medium of publication.
Editions
The list below identifies the year of publication of each edition of the MLA Handbook.