Online Models for 2009 MLA Rules

For those of you who wish to start using the new 2009 MLA documentation methods now, online resources are starting to reflect the changes. Here are four that you will find useful for explanation and models:

• The OWL at Purdue: MLA Update 2009
• A one-page guide from Bakersfield College (PDF)
• A 12-page guide that includes examples of parenthetical citations from Fulton-Montgomery Community College (PDF)
• A Hacker Handbooks Supplement (St. Martin's Press): Documenting Sources (the equivalent of section MLA-4--PDF)

Life Just Got Easier for Humanities Students

This week, the Modern Language Association (MLA) just made life easier for anyone using its style sheet to document online research sources. In the newly released 7th edition of its MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers , the MLA has finally gotten comfortable with the idea of online materials and has accepted the fluidity of the web.

It's simplified the documentation method for web documents within the Works Cited page of a paper (the bibliography). The key improvement is its recommended handling of URLs (Uniform Resource Locators--the "address" of a web page). Of URLs, the Handbook says,

In the past, this handbook recommended including URLs of Web sources in works-cited-list entries.  Inclusion of URLs has proved to have limited value, however, for they often change, can be specific to a subscriber or a session of use, and can be so long and complex that typing them into a browser is cumbersome and prone to transcription errors. Readers are now more likely to find resources on the Web by searching for titles and authors’ names than by typing URLs. You should include a URL as supplementary information only when the reader probably cannot locate the source without it or when your instructor requires it. (section 5.6.1, my emphasis)

To illustrate the change in documentation style, compare the previously used citation for an article accessed via an online database to what MLA now recommends--the bits in red highlight the difference:

Formerly:

Potter, Dawn. "In Defense of Dullness or Why Fanny Price Is My

Favorite Austen Heroine." Sewanee Review 116.4 (2008): 611-618. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Hinckley Lib., Northwest Coll., Powell, WY. 13 Mar. 2009 <http://webboard.northwestcollege.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=35430704&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.

Now:

Potter, Dawn. "In Defense of Dullness or Why Fanny Price Is My

Favorite Austen Heroine." Sewanee Review 116.4 (2008): 611-618. Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Mar. 2009.

There now. Doesn't that look easier?

Is This the Face of Shakespeare?

Representatives of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust are 90% sure that the portrait above--the Cobbe portrait--is "the only portrait of William Shakespeare painted during his lifetime" (NPR ).

The portrait appears to be the original of several well-known copies, such as the portrait hanging in the Folger Shakespeare Library. For the past three years, the provenance of the portrait has been studied: "The research conclusively demonstrates that the Cobbe picture is the prime version of the portrait and establishes beyond reasonable doubt its descent to the Cobbes through their cousin’s marriage to the great granddaughter of Shakespeare’s only literary patron, Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton" (Science Daily ).

To learn about the remarkable discovery of this portrait, read the story at NPR , watch the video below, or visit the webpages listed by Google News .

The Doctor Is In: Writing & Good Health

You know those TV ads where people swear that working out with their machine for only five minutes a day will give you good health and ripped abs?

They're lying.

If, however, you spend only two minutes a day writing about your emotions and do it for only two consecutive days, you will enjoy better physical health for as long as 4-6 weeks later.

And we're telling you the truth.

 These are the results reported by Chad M. Burton and Laura A. King in the British Journal of Health Psychology article "Effects of (Very) Brief Writing on Health: The Two-minute Miracle." Finally, an explanation for why middle-school girls who spend hours sobbing and writing in their diaries are so incredibly robust.

For a couple of decades, researchers have known that regular writing produces positive health benefits, as measured by the Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness (which measures 54 physical complaints). In the past, researchers used a writing sample of 15-20 minutes for several days.

What Burton and King set out to explore was the lower boundary of writing required to reap health benefits. Two. Minutes. Two. Days. That's all. Participants who showed positive effects wrote about either positive or traumatic events--both were effective. The key is that the writing contain emotional content, in effect “broaching the topic on 1 day and briefly exploring it the next” (Burton and King 1).

You can read the original paper online.
[Photo courtesy of Esther G via Flickr .]