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?

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 .]

Lying Emails

As if email weren't already tricky enough, now a researcher at Lehigh University has demonstrated that "people using e-mail lied almost 50 percent more often than those using pen-and-paper": 

“There is a growing concern in the workplace over e-mail communications, and it comes down to trust,” says Belkin, an assistant professor of management in the College of Business and Economics. “You’re not afforded the luxury of seeing non-verbal and behavioral cues over e-mail. And in an organizational context, that leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation and, as we saw in our study, intentional deception.”

. . .  “It’s not just that e-mailers were more deceptive,” Belkin says. “It’s that the magnitude by which they lied was significantly greater.”

You can read a press release on the study here.

How Wired.com Produces a Story

Storyboard is a limited, one-time only blog from Wired.com that shows the sausage-making process of producing a story for Wired Magazine, in this case, a profile of Charlie Kaufman.

The editors say the blog is

An almost-real-time, behind-the-scenes look at the assigning, writing, editing, and designing of a Wired feature. You can see more about the design process on Wired creative director Scott Dadich's SPD blog, The Process. This is a one-time experiment, tied solely to the Charlie Kaufman profile scheduled to run in our November 08 issue.

Free Writing Course . . . and It's Good!

Several years ago, our English department spent some of its small, precious budget to buy the Annenberg Media series English Composition: Writing for an Audience. Today, you can watch it for free on Annenberg's Learner.org web site.

The interesting thing about this series is that it features conversations with and advice from writers from all fields of endeavor: authors, journalists, teachers, musicians, judges, nurses, engineers, scientists, and athletes.

For instance, author Frank McCourt (pictured, Angela's Ashes) talks about revising sentences; Emmy Award-winning scriptwriter David Mills (NYPD Blue and ER) and humorist/grammar expert Dave Barry describe how they use revision; writers and actors from the television series MAD TV outline how they write collaboratively; and humorist Tom Bodett discusses organizational techniques.

See: English Composition: Writing for an Audience (free registration required)