1. Brave New MLA: The 8th Edition
For more info, see Irvington HS Library MLA page:
And the MLA’s online tutorial site:
Slides by Allyson McAuley, Irvington High School Library Media Teacher, please feel free to contact me with any questions or if you spot an error!

2. Why Change? Old way... Researcher finds a source
Researcher identifies source type (magazine article, journal article, etc.)
Researcher finds correct format in MLA Handbook to cite that type & follows it exactly (or uses Purdue OWL, Easy Bib, etc.)
The problem?
Many digital sources are difficult to ID (ex: online periodical from print or digital only?) or do not have the elements required by the format. Researcher spends a lot of time hunting for information that is not provided & citations often incorrect.

3. Why Change?
New way...
1. Researcher learns the core elements common to any source citation
2. Researcher finds a source
3. Researcher creates a citation that includes the core elements, in order, skipping the elements that aren’t relevant
Rather than seeking an example that perfectly fits his/her source, the researcher works to document what they have in the same way for all sources. Many arbitrary differences between source types have been eliminated.

4. Core elements are all you need! (20)*
* page numbers throughout this presentation refer to the MLA Handbook 8th Edition
Note: point out to students that core elements 4,5,6 are often not relevant to many sources.

5. Example: academic journal
Old Way:
Goldman, Anne. “Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante.” The
Georgia Review 64.1 (2010): Web. JSTOR. 15 Sept <
stable/ >.
New Way:
Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, 2010, pp JSTOR,

6. New way: online periodical (magazine or newspaper)
A periodical for which volume and issue number are available:
Billings, Lee. “The Earth Next Door.” Scientific American, vol. 513, no. 3, 24 Aug ,
A periodical for which volume and issue number are not given. DOI (Digital Object Identifier) available instead of URL:
Clery, Daniel. “Earth-like Planet Found Orbiting Our Nearest Stellar Neighbor.” Science, 24 Aug doi : /science.aah7224.

7. New way: Book
Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002.

8. What things have not changed?
Parenthetical citation format
Format of the paper (spacing, heading, running headers)
Italics & quotation mark rules
Capitalization rules
Still no explicit instruction in the Handbook about annotated bibliographies
*Most changes are to the Works Cited entry format.

9. Common vocabulary Existing vocabulary to be clear about:
New 8th ed. vocab:
Source
vs.
Source type
Works Cited entry (citation)
Parenthetical citation
Core elements
Container

10. Core elements (20) Find the core elements
Put them in order followed by the punctuation mark shown
Punctuation has been streamlined so all types of sources are the same
Periods and commas only

11. Containers
“The eighth edition refers to containers...the larger wholes in which the source is located....The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container” (Purdue OWL).
Title of Source
Title of Container
“Poem”
Book of Poems
“Article”
Journal, Newspaper, or Magazine
“Web Page”
Website

12. A source with only one container
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp

13. A source with 2 containers
“Article”
Journal
Database
“Questions of Transport”
The Georgia Review
JSTOR
“Television Show Episode”
Television Show Title
YouTube, etc.
“America in Crisis”
20/20
Hulu

14. Example of 2 containers...
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Masque of the Red Death.” The Complete
Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 4,
Thomas Y. Crowell, 1902, pp HathiTrust Digital
Library, babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=
coo ;view=1up;seq=266.

15. What changes will we notice?
We have to learn core elements, not entry types
Fewer differences between entry types (ex: No more parentheses around journal dates, city of publication for books, or medium of publication)
Punctuation marks simplified: commas and periods
Since the types of source citations have fewer differences, it will be important for students to define source type in annotations (“In this April 2016 journal article from The New England Journal of Medicine…”)

16. Specific Changes? Author: et al. = 3 or more authors (not four)
Spell out roles like “editor” and “translator” instead of using Ed. or trans. (22-3; 96-7).
All organizations (institution, association, gov. agency) can be authors and start the entry (25), UNLESS...
Page numbers refer to the 8th Edition of the MLA Handbook

17. Specific Changes? Publisher:
If publisher and author are same, just put the name for publisher. No author.
In websites, don’t repeat publisher if same as site name
No more medium of publication (Print, Web)

18. Specific Changes? Publication date: Location:
Date of access for websites is now optional (53), goes after the URL, and is expressed: Accessed 22 Aug. 2016
Location:
Page numbers in WC page now preceded by p. or pp., but still not in parentheticals (46)
URLs recommended again, but NOT in <angle brackets> (48)
NOTE: Several of these changes bring MLA closer to APA, which is a good thing for students for college. This is a useful page:

19. What changes will we notice?
Researchers encouraged to make an educated guess about missing info:
[Square brackets]: “Supply as much of the missing information as you can”: [circa 2008] OR [2008?] instead of placeholders like n.d. (111)

20. Bottom line? These changes enable us to…
Adapt to the fast pace of changing information sources
Be independent in citing based on a simple “toolbox,” the core elements, rather than relying on many examples or a citation generator
Internalize citation skills and understand the reasons for the parts of an entry instead of feeling that they are arbitrary