MLA Handbook
The MLA Handbook the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is a publication of the United States-based Modern Language Association. According to the organization, their MLA style "has been adopted for classroom instruction and used worldwide by scholars, journal publishers, academic and commercial presses"; the MLA Handbook began as an abridged student version of the MLA Style Manual. Both are academic style guides that have been used in the United States and other countries, providing guidelines for writing and documentation of research in the humanities, such as English studies. Released in April 2016, the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook is addressed to secondary-school and undergraduate college and university teachers and students. MLA announced in April 2016 MLA Handbook will henceforth be "the authoritative source for MLA style", that the 2008 third edition of the MLA Style Manual would be the final edition of the larger work; the announcement stated that the organization "is in the process of developing additional publications to address the professional needs of scholars."
The MLA Handbook grew out of the initial MLA Style Sheet of 1951, a 28-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 and Dissertations; the title changed to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers in 2003. The seventh edition's main changes from the sixth edition were "no longer recogniz a default medium and instead call for listing the medium of publication in every entry in the list of works cited", recommending against listing URLs, preferring italics over underline. Additionally, the seventh edition included a website with the full text of the book. Online additions allowed for citation of e-books and tweets; the eighth edition's main changes from the seventh edition are "shift 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, not abbreviating words like "editor" or "translator", using URLs in most instances, not favoring the medium of publication.
The list below identifies the year of publication of each edition of the MLA Handbook. 1st: 1977 2nd: 1984 3rd: 1988 4th: 1995 5th: 1999 6th: 2003 7th: 2009 8th: 2016 Comparison of reference management software Parenthetical referencing The MLA Style Center—dedicated website MLA Style Guide, Eighth Edition, IRSC Libraries MLA Formatting and Style Guide, Purdue OWL
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated d/b/a OCLC is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services. OCLC maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system. OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, library directors who wanted to create a cooperative computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio; the group first met on July 5, 1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization, hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, to design the shared cataloging system.
Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the world's information in order to best serve researchers and scholars; the first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data. Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with "networks", organizations that provided training and marketing services. By 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on the OCLC Members Council. During 2008, OCLC commissioned two studies to look at distribution channels. In early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic and full-text information to anyone. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from private libraries worldwide; the Open WorldCat program, launched in late 2003, exposed a subset of WorldCat records to Web users via popular Internet search and bookselling sites.
In October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. WikiD was phased out; the Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988. A browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013; until August 2009, when it was sold to Backstage Library Works, OCLC owned a preservation microfilm and digitization operation called the OCLC Preservation Service Center, with its principal office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users; this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. Starting in 1971, OCLC produced catalog cards for members alongside its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, such as CONTENTdm for managing digital collections.
It offers the bibliographic discovery system WorldCat Discovery, which allows for library patrons to use a single search interface to access an institution's catalog, database subscriptions and more. OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications; these publications, including journal articles, reports and presentations, are available through the organization's website. OCLC Publications – Research articles from various journals including Code4Lib Journal, OCLC Research, Reference & User Services Quarterly, College & Research Libraries News, Art Libraries Journal, National Education Association Newsletter; the most recent publications are displayed first, all archived resources, starting in 1970, are available. Membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding. Newsletters – Current and archived newsletters for the library and archive community.
Presentations – Presentations from both guest speakers and OCLC research from conferences and other events. The presentations are organized into five categories: Conference presentations, Dewey presentations, Distinguished Seminar Series, Guest presentations, Research staff
The Elements of Style
The Elements of Style is a prescriptive American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was composed by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of 49 "words and expressions misused", a list of 57 "words misspelled". E. B. White enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959; that was the first edition of the so-called "Strunk & White", which Time named in 2011 as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923. Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. wrote The Elements of Style in 1918 and published it in 1919, for use at the university. He and editor Edward A. Tenney revised it for publication as The Elements and Practice of Composition. In 1957 the style guide reached the attention of E. B. White at The New Yorker. White had studied writing under Strunk in 1919 but had since forgotten "the little book" that he described as a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness and brevity in the use of English".
Weeks White wrote a feature story about Strunk's devotion to lucid English prose. Macmillan and Company subsequently commissioned White to revise The Elements for a 1959 edition. White's expansion and modernization of Strunk and Tenney's 1935 revised edition yielded the writing style manual informally known as "Strunk & White", the first edition of which sold about two million copies in 1959. More than ten million copies of three editions were sold. Mark Garvey relates the history of the book in Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. Maira Kalman, who provided the illustrations for The Elements of Style Illustrated, asked Nico Muhly to compose a cantata based on the book, it was performed at the New York Public Library in October 2005. In The Elements of Style, William Strunk concentrated on specific questions of usage—and the cultivation of good writing—with the recommendation "Make every word tell"; the book frames this within a triplet credited to an influential lecturer: Omit needless words Use active voice Use parallel construction on concepts that are parallel The 1959 edition features White's expansions of preliminary sections, the "Introduction" essay, the concluding chapter, "An Approach to Style", a broader, prescriptive guide to writing in English.
He produced the second and third editions of The Elements of Style, by which time the book's length had extended to 85 pages. The third edition of The Elements of Style features 54 points: a list of common word-usage errors; the final reminder, the 21st, "Prefer the standard to the offbeat", is thematically integral to the subject of The Elements of Style, yet does stand as a discrete essay about writing lucid prose. To write well, White advises writers to have the proper mind-set, that they write to please themselves, that they aim for "one moment of felicity", a phrase by Robert Louis Stevenson, thus Strunk's 1918 recommendation: Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts; this requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that he make every word tell.
Strunk Jr. no longer has a comma in his name in the 1979 and editions, due to the modernized style recommendation about punctuating such names. The fourth edition of The Elements of Style, published 54 years after Strunk's death, omits his stylistic advice about masculine pronouns: "unless the antecedent is or must be feminine". In its place, the following sentence has been added: "many writers find the use of the generic he or his to rename indefinite antecedents limiting or offensive." Further, the re-titled entry "They. He or She", in Chapter IV: Misused Words and Expressions, advises the writer to avoid an "unintentional emphasis on the masculine". Components new to the fourth edition include a foreword by Roger Angell, stepson of E. B. White, an afterword by the American cultural commentator Charles Osgood, a glossary, an index. Five years the fourth edition text was re-published as The Elements of Style Illustrated, with illustrations by the designer Maira Kalman; this edition excludes the afterword by Charles Osgood and restores the first edition chapter on spelling.
The Elements of Style was listed as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923 by Time in its 2011 list. Upon its release, Charles Poor, writing for The New York Times, called it "a splendid trophy for all who are interested in reading and writing." American poet Dorothy Parker has, regarding the book, said:If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now. Criticism of Strunk & White has focused on claims that it has a prescriptivist nature, or that it has become a general anachronism in the face of modern English usage. In criticizing The Elements of Style, Geoffrey Pullum, professor of linguistics at the University of Edinburgh
The Business Style Handbook
The Business Style Handbook: An A-to-Z Guide for Effective Writing on the Job called The Business Style Handbook, is a 280-page style guide tailored to people who write on the job. The authors are Brenda Greene. McGraw-Hill published the first edition in 2002 and the second edition in 2012. In 2003, McGraw-Hill published the book in complex Chinese. In 2004, China Financial and Economic Publishing House published a simplified Chinese edition. Tata McGraw-Hill released an Indian edition in 2003; this style guide focuses on business communications and is tailored for people who write on the job, which distinguishes it from style guides that are written from a journalism perspective. To develop the book, the authors surveyed communications executives at Fortune 500 companies. Results of that survey are summarized in the first chapter; the book includes a 200-page section of A-to-Z entries on usage, grammar and spelling for words and phrases used in business writing. Example: ampersand Use the ampersand in an organization’s formal name if, what the organization uses, as in Barnes & Noble.
But do not use the & in place of and in text. Write Trinidad and Tobago, not Trinidad & Tobago. If, you are using abbreviations and with &, so that research and development becomes R&D, profit and loss becomes P&L; the Business Style Handbook is on the recommended reading list for Microsoft Education Written Competencies and is found in university libraries around the world. It is recommended for business writing courses at universities, including USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Writing institutes, such as Borders Connect, a U. K. learning provider use the book for courses. The Business Style Handbook is organized. Acknowledgments Cites the Fortune 500 companies and communications executives who participated in the authors’ surveys for the first and second editions of the book. Introduction Describes the purpose of its methodology. Fortune 500 Survey Results A summary of findings from the authors’ survey on writing practices at Fortune 500 companies. For example, it quotes one respondent who states, “No matter the level of employee communicating ideas is critical to the success of initiatives.”
Why Style Matters Discusses the importance of writing well to establish credibility in business. For example, “Good communication skills are viewed as a core competency in the corporate world.” The Case for Standards Reviews the benefits organizations can gain from helping employees strengthen their writing skills. Write with Purpose Outlines how to approach writing strategically. Email: Before You Hit Send Gives recommendations for best practices in business emails, such as how to use cc, bcc and Reply to All appropriately; the A-to-Z Entries A 200-page section of entries on usage, grammar and spelling for words and phrases relevant for business writing. Example: bottom line, bottom-line Two words when used as a noun, as in How will the price increase impact the bottom line? Write with a hyphen when used as an adjective: It is too soon to assess to the bottom-line impact of the price increases
International Standard Serial Number
An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSN are used in ordering, interlibrary loans, other practices in connection with serial literature; the ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971 and published as ISO 3297 in 1975. ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for maintaining the standard; when a serial with the same content is published in more than one media type, a different ISSN is assigned to each media type. For example, many serials are published both in electronic media; the ISSN system refers to these types as electronic ISSN, respectively. Conversely, as defined in ISO 3297:2007, every serial in the ISSN system is assigned a linking ISSN the same as the ISSN assigned to the serial in its first published medium, which links together all ISSNs assigned to the serial in every medium.
The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers. As an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits; the last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the general form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows: NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character, C is in; the ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, C=5. To calculate the check digit, the following algorithm may be used: Calculate the sum of the first seven digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right—that is, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, respectively: 0 ⋅ 8 + 3 ⋅ 7 + 7 ⋅ 6 + 8 ⋅ 5 + 5 ⋅ 4 + 9 ⋅ 3 + 5 ⋅ 2 = 0 + 21 + 42 + 40 + 20 + 27 + 10 = 160 The modulus 11 of this sum is calculated. For calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right.
The modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker. ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris; the International Centre is an intergovernmental organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, the ISDS Register otherwise known as the ISSN Register. At the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept. An ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an anonymous identifier associated with a serial title, containing no information as to the publisher or its location. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change. Since the ISSN applies to an entire serial a new identifier, the Serial Item and Contribution Identifier, was built on top of it to allow references to specific volumes, articles, or other identifiable components.
Separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic media versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. A CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved. However, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial; this "media-oriented identification" of serials made sense in the 1970s. In the 1990s and onward, with personal computers, better screens, the Web, it makes sense to consider only content, independent of media; this "content-oriented identification" of serials was a repressed demand during a decade, but no ISSN update or initiative occurred. A natural extension for ISSN, the unique-identification of the articles in the serials, was the main demand application. An alternative serials' contents model arrived with the indecs Content Model and its application, the digital object identifier, as ISSN-independent initiative, consolidated in the 2000s. Only in 2007, ISSN-L was defined in the
The Sense of Style
The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century is a 2014 English style guide written by cognitive scientist and popular science author Steven Pinker. Building upon earlier guides, such as Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, it applies science to the process of writing, explains its prescriptions by citing studies in related fields – e.g. grammatical phenomena, mental dynamics, memory load – as well as history and criticism, to "distinguish the rules that enhance clarity and emotional resonance from those that are based on myths and misunderstandings". Pinker's prescriptions combine data from ballots given to the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, the usage notes of several dictionaries and style guides, the historical analyses in Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, the meta-analysis in Roy Copperud's American Usage and Style: The Consensus, views from modern linguistics represented in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and the blog Language Log.
"Style" is the effective use of words to engage the human mind. Style manuals that are innocent of linguistics are crippled in dealing with the aspect of writing that evokes the most emotion: correct and incorrect usage. Orthodox stylebooks are ill-equipped to deal with a fundamental fact about language: it changes over time. Language is not a protocol legislated by an authority but rather an evolving set of tacit standards from the contributions of millions of writers and speakers. Reverse-engineering good prose as the key to developing a writerly ear – The starting point for becoming a good writer is to be a good reader. Good writers are avid readers, they have absorbed a vast inventory of words, constructions and rhetorical tricks, with them a sensitivity to how they mesh and how they clash. This is the elusive "ear" of a skilled writer – the tacit sense of style which cannot be explicitly taught. Classic style as an antidote for academese, corporatese, legalese and other kinds of stuffy prose – The key to good style, far more than obeying any list of commandments, is to have a clear conception of the make-believe world in which you're pretending to communicate.
A writer of classic prose must simulate two experiences: showing the reader something in the world, engaging the reader in conversation. Classic style is an ideal. Not all prose should be classic, not all writers can carry off the pretense, but knowing the hallmarks of classic style will make anyone a better writer, it is "the strongest cure for the disease that enfeebles academic, corporate and official prose". The main cause of incomprehensible prose is the curse of knowledge – the difficulty of imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know. Be aware of specific pitfalls that it sets in your path, e.g. the use of jargon and technical vocabulary. Show a draft to some people who are similar to your intended audience, find out whether they can follow it. Show a draft to yourself, after enough time has passed that the text is no longer familiar. Rework and revise. Understanding syntax can help a writer avoid ungrammatical and misleading prose – Learning how to bring the units of language into consciousness can allow writers to reason their way to grammatically consistent sentences, to diagnose problems.
Grammar is a fascinating subject in its own right. How to ensure that readers will grasp the topic, get the point, keep track of the players, see how one idea follows from another – Even if every sentence in a text is crisp and well formed, a succession of them can feel choppy, unfocused, incoherent. A coherent text is a designed object: an ordered tree of sections within sections, crisscrossed by arcs that track topics, points and themes, held together by connectors that tie one proposition to the next. Like other designed objects, it comes about not by accident but by drafting a blueprint, attending to details, maintaining a sense of harmony and balance. How to make sense of the rules of correct grammar, word choice, punctuation – The idea that there are two approaches to usage – all the traditional rules must be followed, or else anything goes – is a myth; the first step in mastering usage is to understand. There is no such thing as a "language war" between descriptivists. "The alleged controversy is as bogus as other catchy dichotomies such as nature versus nurture and America: Love It or Leave It."
The key is to recognize. A convention is an agreement among the members of a community to abide by a single way of doing things. Linguists capture their regularities in "descriptive rules" – that is, rules that describe how people speak and understand. A subset of these conventions is less widespread and natural, but has become accepted by a smaller community of literate speakers for use in public forums such as government, literature and academia; these conventions are "prescriptive rules" – rules that prescribe how one ought to speak and write in these forums. Unlike the descriptive rules, many of the prescriptive rules have to be stated explicitly, because they are not second nature to most writers: the rules may not apply in the spoken vernacular, or they may be difficult to implement in complicated sentences which tax the writer's memory; this raises the question of how a careful writer can distinguish a legitimate rule of usage from a tall tale. The answer: look it up. Pinker includes a short guide to a hundred of the most raised issues of grammar, word usage, punctuation.
(For
The Elements of Typographic Style
The Elements of Typographic Style is the authoritative book on typography and style by Canadian typographer and translator Robert Bringhurst. Published in 1992 by Hartley & Marks Publishers, it was revised in 1996, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2012. A history and guide to typography, it has been praised by Hermann Zapf, who said “I wish to see this book become the Typographers’ Bible.” Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones consider it "the finest book written about typography," according to the FAQ section of their type foundry's website. Because of its status as a respected and cited resource and designers refer to it as Bringhurst; the title alludes to The Elements of Style, the classic guide to writing by White. First edition: Hartley & Marks Publishers, 1992, 254pp, ISBN 0-88179-110-5 Second edition: Hartley & Marks Publishers, 1996, 352pp, ISBN 0-88179-133-4, ISBN 0-88179-132-6 Third edition: Hartley & Marks Publishers, 2005, ISBN 0-88179-205-5, ISBN 0-88179-206-3 Fourth edition: Hartley & Marks Publishers, 2012, ISBN 0-88179-211-X, ISBN 0-88179-212-8 Anatomy of a Typeface The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web – an unaffiliated webpage applying the same principles to web typography A Classic Thesis style – An Homage to The Elements of Typographic Style – LaTeX and LyX template for dissertations and articles inspired by Bringhurst's book
