changing MLA from author to numeric

afry · February 2, 2018

I have a professor who wants his students to use MLA but he wants the bibliography to be in numerical order. And he wants the in-text citations to be a superscript number. I have suggested alternative styles that come close, but he really wants a modified MLA.

I have tried using the Visual CSL Editor, but I don't know what I'm doing. Can anyone help me with this?

adamsmith · February 2, 2018

Same professor as here, I assume: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/300187#Comment_300187 ?

afry · February 2, 2018

Hmmm. Perhaps one of the students.

adamsmith · February 2, 2018

If no one else beats me to it, I can give you the code to change over the weekend. Just to confirm this would be

In Text:
1 in superscript

Bibliography
1. Mares, Isabela. “Firms and the Welfare State: When, Why, and How Does Social Policy Matter to Employers?” Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, edited by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 184–213.

(+ italics) listed in order of appearance. And following MLA 8th edition?

afry · February 2, 2018

Yes. Thanks.

bwiernik · February 3, 2018

Download and open the MLA .csl style.

Change to <citation> section to the citation section from here:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bwiernik/zotero-tools/master/apa-numeric.csl

Delete the <sort> section of the bibliography section and add this line just after

<layout><code>:
<code><text variable="citation-number" prefix="[" suffix="] "/>

General code editing steps here:
https://www.zotero.org/support/dev/citation_styles/style_editing_step-by-step

afry · February 7, 2018

Thank you both. It's been a hectic week, but I successfully modified the style. Thanks again.