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My name is URL: on MLA web citation format
By Mark A. McCutcheon November 3, 2010 - 11:07am Comments (5)
In a comment on her own Landing blog post, Sarah asks:
How do I cite a comment on a blog post?
See the following comment for my response (and an unsolicited rant about MLA's revised citation format).
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Mark A. McCutcheon
Professor of Literary Studies & Chair of Centre for Humanities, Athabasca U
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Comments
As usual, the Modern Language Association's format for documenting web-based research sources is about ten years behind, and two parallel universes over, from what researchers are citing now and how best to cite it. The 7th edition of the MLA Handbook makes no mention of blog comments, but does offer guidelines for blogs and for e-mail messages, so I'd triangulate those to suggest the following format:
Here's the format at work, using this comment itself as an example:
So that, as near as I can tell, is what the MLA wants. Note that the MLA no longer wants a web citation to include a URL. I, on the other hand, still do, if you're willing to oblige me. So I'd appreciate seeing an MLA hack that keeps the URL, like this:
So there's the practical answer to this question; here's the rant-shaped backgrounder. According to the Handbook:
I disagree with this change in MLA format, for a few reasons:
1) Persistent or not, a URL has intrinsic historical and scholarly value as a datum of citation.
2) Any long URL can now get its own "tiny" equivalent with any number of URL abbreviators, like the one built into the Landing's Wire app. (I assume short URLs are persistent, but I don't know for sure. Would appreciate getting an authoritative answer on this.)
3) Is Google financing the MLA? Like everybody else, I Google all types of things. But is it the MLA's job to drive researchers into Google traffic? And what about the errors of transcription and judgment that can all too easily attend a researcher's effort to Google the precise source being cited?
4) Who the hell is typing a URL into a browser anyway? Does nobody at the MLA use CTRL+C? With more scholarly publishing going online, and more adoption of Web 2.0-cultivated link persistence, including the URL can more often mean more convenient than more cumbersome.
No, nobody wants to type in an Amazon product page link from a print article's citation list. But the increasing digitization of scholarship generally makes the MLA's striking of URLs from the research record seem both Luddite and historically irresponsible. Based on the amount of snail-mail I get from the organization, I know it can't be about saving paper.
I provoked a rant? Uhoh.
A follow-up question: how do I identify people who comment on a blog post? For instance, if you had written this under the username "zombiefan2453," I could put:
But that looks just a bit silly. And it's likely that I would know who you actually are, because I'm familiar with the username you use, because I recognize your online voice, or via a whois search (in the case of Wordpress, the whois search is included when I am asked to moderate a comment, and many other sites collect, but display only to the site admin, "real" names). So do I make use of those conveniences of technology, and identify the owner of the intellectual property, or do I preserve your anonymity and chosen name? The MLA is not marking my work, so if they don't have a rule, I'll take your preference.
If the commentator doesn't publicize his or her real name, I'd advise you respect privacy and just give the user name. It may look silly, but it's a research reality. (If you check the Works Cited list at the end of this early article of mine, you'll see I once cited a message board comment from someone whose user name was the very erudite-sounding "PB4Ugo2bed.")
And with the persistence argument...there's always the Wayback Machine. Online content IS being archived, even though it is so malleable.
In MLA writing style, parenthetical documentation enables the writer to acknowledge a quoted source within the text by giving a reference at the exact place where the source of information originated. Readers can later follow up on the fully referenced list on the “Work Cited” page found at the very end of the research paper. In a number of cases, providing a page number and the author’s last name are sufficient. For example Source: http://www.mla-format-works-cited.com/
In response to emerging rapid metropolitan expansion, all urban projects renewal sought "an order where more intellectually stimulating dishonesty, significant conflict, and more complex kinds, may happen" (Mumford 485).
- Amie