Error in MLA citation

writerhoward
The current version of Zotero produced this citation text for a New York Times article; however, it's in error:

Pear, Robert. “Health Law Provision for Small Business Is Delayed.” The New York Times 1 Apr. 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

The phrase "New York Times" should appear twice in succession, with the first one italicized and ending in a period and the second one unitalicized and ending with a comma.

Reference: p. 186 of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.
  • adamsmith
    Make sure you have the most recent version of the citation style. With that I get:
    Pear, Robert. “Health Law Provision for Small Business Is Delayed.” The New York Times 1 Apr. 2013. NYTimes.com. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

    Which looks right to me - I don't have the Handbook here, but what we do is in line with the instructions here:
    http://www.bibme.org/citation-guide/MLA/newspaper
    or here
    http://libguides.bgsu.edu/content.php?pid=47108&sid=410222
    as well with the general instructions on where to cite the repository for web resources.
    What's the exact example in the Handbook?
  • writerhoward
    How can I tell if I have the most recent Zotero version of the MLA citation style?

    The bibme model citation on line 4 of the webpage you stated is incorrect as is the one on the BGSU site. Unfortunately, many online sites with MLA information deviate from what's in the MLA manual.

    One site that shows how to correctly cite an online newspaper article is #39 at this URL: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc5e/RES5e_ch08_s1-0011.html

    In MLA, for a web article the following information is required (pp. 184-185 of the MLA manual) after its author(s) and the work's title:
    the "title of the overall Web site (italicized)," which for the New York Times is "New York Times," followed by the "Publisher or sponsor of the site," even if it's the same as the site's title. Then, the two dates appear separated by the publication medium, which in this case is "Web."
  • adamsmith
    OK, and how would the same article be cited if I retrieved it from Lexis Nexis or Proquest?
  • adamsmith
    (You can make sure that you have the most recent version of the MLA style by re-installing it from the repository http://zotero.org/styles )
  • cegobin
    adamsmith:

    The proper format for a newspaper article retrieved from an electronic database would look like this (in MLA format:

    Brooks, David. “The Practical University.” New York Times 5 Apr. 2013

    late ed.: A.23. ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 14 May 2013.

    There should be hanging indentation, but, otherwise, this is correct.

    By the way, I think it has been mentioned elsewhere, but the current style/filter does not work well to produce the above citation. If you choose newspaper article, it treats it as a print source and leaves out the database and the access date.
  • adamsmith
    you need to have the "Include URLs" box checked in the Cite-->Styles tabe of the Zotero preferences for MLA to work correctly. With this & taking the data straight as it comes from Proquest you get
    Brooks, David. “The Practical University: Commentary.” New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast) 5 Apr. 2013 : A.23. ProQuest. Web. 14 May 2013.

    Apart from the edition (which is a problem with the proquest data) that looks right to me, which is what I thought. I don't think we'll be able to get that requirement right for both Newspaper articles from Proquest and from the Newspaper webpage itself, so I'll leave things as they are.
  • cegobin
    I'm pretty bad with html, but my previous example left out italics for titles. The line spacing is off in this example, but you see the hanging indentation and the italics.


    Brooks, David. “The Practical University.” New York Times 5 Apr. 2013

    late ed.: A.23. ProQuest Newsstand. Web. 14 May 2013.

  • cegobin
    Thanks for the tip on urls--I'll try that. The only difference between yours and mine is that it puts the edition before the date, instead of after--not a big deal, imo.
  • adamsmith
    as I said - I think that should come out right when the data is entered correctly. The italics are as in your example.

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