{"id":7330,"date":"2017-05-10T18:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T12:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/?p=7330"},"modified":"2023-10-10T18:17:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T12:17:19","slug":"decoding-revisions-to-the-8th-edition-of-the-mla-style-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/decoding-revisions-to-the-8th-edition-of-the-mla-style-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Decoding Revisions to the 8th Edition of the MLA Style Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many protocols in academic writing because of style guides that are focused towards a specific discipline. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style<\/em>, created by the University of Chicago, applies to all disciplines and presents complete instructions and guidelines for capitalization, punctuation, citations and references, and much more\u2014basically, it covers the syntax of the English language\u2014and is considered the \u201cbible\u201d of style guides for the general writer. Writers of both prose and poetry use this guide; however, researchers who write for specific audiences or disciplines, such as the biological or behavioral sciences, have different guidelines. For example, scholars in the behavioral sciences use the American Psychological Association (APA<\/a>) style guide when writing their theses or papers for publication; those in the biological sciences (including medicine) use Scientific Style and Format<\/em> published by The Council of Science Editors; and those in the humanities use the Modern Language Association (MLA<\/a>) style guide. In most, but not all cases, the differences among styles are the formats for citations and references; however, there might also be inconsistencies in how to write numerals (e.g., \u201c2\u201d or \u201ctwo\u201d), whether to use serial commas or other minor differences.<\/p>\n

In this article, we focus on the MLA Handbook Eighth Edition<\/em><\/a> and the major changes that were made in 2016 to address questions concerning electronic media. Many style guides are now updating their citation and reference protocols to accommodate online citations so that there is more consistency across styles.<\/p>\n

MLA Style Guide<\/h2>\n

Founded in 1883, MLA boasts of one of the best publishing programs<\/a> in the humanities, and its members continue to work to \u201cstrengthen the study and teaching of language and literature.\u201d MLA supports the advancement of \u201cliterature, language, writing studies, screen arts, digital humanities, pedagogy, and library studies.\u201d In MLA\u2019s eighth edition<\/a> of the handbook, the organization presents new citation and reference guidelines for writers, regardless of their sources or fields of study. According to MLA, many sources cannot be defined and because of online access, sources are available from more than one forum; therefore, the new edition suggests some \u201ccore elements<\/a>\u201d that writers can consult to create citations and references without checking the handbook for each entry that is out of the ordinary. The following core elements are the \u201cbasic pieces of information that should be common to all sources\u201d for adhering to the correct MLA style<\/p>\n