What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

15 April 2013

M is for MLA

This is the citation system I use most often, starting with my junior year of high school and progressing until... well, this week. I've ventured into Chicago and APA a couple of times each, but I keep coming back to MLA. Love it or hate it (and I've done both), it's the system I know best and so it's a bit of a habit.

Image from Austin Public Library.
MLA stands for Modern Language Association, and according to the website, the citation system is for language and literature. Hey, that's me--- no, wait, it isn't. I'm a Technical Communication gal. Indeed, most of the scholarly articles I've read in the past two weeks (I've lost count, but it's more than 15 and I still have at least 20 to go... more on that in a couple of days) have used a different citation system. Maybe it's time to leave my friend MLA behind.

But not until after this semester is over. I already started writing my research paper in MLA and changing citation systems would be a pain in the backside.

Any MLA fans out there? Chicago or APA? How about those who have no idea what I'm talking about and are pretty happy about that?

3 comments:

J E Fritz said...

The mention of MLA just gave me a screaming flashback to high school, where all they did was scream about using proper MLA guidelines. I love not having to worry about that anymore.

Chancelet said...

I'm just glad my schoolin' days are over! APA, Blue Book rules, all drive me crazy. Fiction rules with me for this very reason. :s Writer’s Mark

Karen M. Peterson said...

Working in a college tutoring center, MLA is the bane of my existence. It's amazing how many instructors expect their students to use it, but don't actually teach them how. Leaving it to us to teach. Grr.