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?