FINAL THOUGHTS ON MLA

These are the final thoughts on MLA. The suggested MLA citations provided by the vendors (publishers) of these databases such as CQ and other databases are not necessarily INCORRECT for the most part but they do need adjusting at least as far as the instructors of this course are concerned. You may find that other instructors at MCTC will require more - so be flexible and accomodate what is required. Yes, I agree it may be confusing but it seems that even a matter of citing something is not a constant. Remember that to supply citations for your resources is all about information access -suppying enough information so that your readers can easily access the information again. We can assume that this means all readers, even those who are not students or instructors who have an institution subscription to these datbases. If the reader were to click on the URL provided for the article in the citation that is being viewed, the reader would be taken to a login screen FOR THE DATABASE itself. It is NOT asking you for your student login, it is asking you for private username and password (it assumes you have a PRIVATE subscription to the database). So this is the reasons why only the name of the institution is require NOT the URL so that the reader will know that the database is being subscribed to by MCTC. The name of the library will change depending on where you are using the database.

Only FREE websites require the URL.

I am requiring MLA format not APA not Chicago Manual of Style or any other format other than MLA.There are differences in all of these. To cite this information correctly requires that you look carefullyou at what you are doing and adjust according to the handout (which includes changing the fonts). To blindly cut and paste anything is not a good research technique.

I hope this explanation is of further assistance.

Jane Jurgens, Instructor