MLA 8th edition
The MLA has just published its new style guide, 8th edition, (April 2016), and the citation styles are much different than the previous edition. Does anyone know when Zotero will be updating its MLA format to the 8th edition guidelines? Thanks.
Inside Higher Ed
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/31/new-mla-handbook-wants-make-citing-sources-variety-media-much-easier
LA Review of Books
https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/the-future-of-academic-style-why-citations-still-matter-in-the-age-of-google
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/391/1/hierarchical-item-relationships/
https://www.zotero.org/trac/wiki/HierarchicalOntology
Perhaps it will renew interest in implementing this framework.
The way it sounds, for the 8th edition we'll just have to make some editorial choices. We won't publish 10 versions with all the different permitted variations, but we'll likely do a with and without URL version.
Going forward, we'll keep the 8th edition as a new, separate style for a while until it's in decent condition. Then we'll use it to replace the current MLA style (i.e. 7th edition), so users get updated automatically, but as per above, keep the 7th edition available as a legacy option.
I'm not sure if it makes, at some point, sense to retire a style entirely, but we'll certainly keep it around for years, though perhaps not decades.
https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=Modern%20Language%20Association%208th%20edition
Let me know how it's working -- the bibliography section of the style actually has the exact same structure as the elements listed in the manual. I think that works very nicely.
Titles are still supposed to be capitalized.
URLs are supposed to leave off the http:// or https:// and they're not always showing up in a reference list - they are showing up for books, magazine articles and websites, but not journal articles. It's also not pulling in DOIs when they are available, FYI, which the 8th ed says to do in favor of other URLs.
CSL can't strip https, so that's not going to happen.
On the DOI -- it's not clear to me what they actually want. The style is prefering DOI over URL -- it will never print a URL when a DOI exists -- but I'm not sure when a DOI should be used and they don't really help, especially not when considering the examples.
Given the absence of DOIs for Zotero on all other item types, only way to test this would be to use a journal article without page ranges.
If you see a URL for an item that does have a DOI, that'd be a bug.
I'm open for other suggestions on how to handle this. I initially had this print DOIs whenever they're in Zotero, but that seemed an awkward fit with the manual which cites a whole lot of journal articles (most of which do have DOIs) but only uses DOI in two(?) citations.
Does the item have a URL (and for Zotero: no page range)?
--yes --Does the item have a DOI
-------yes -- Print DOI
-------no -- Print URL
--no --Do nothing
I was just trying to add MLA 8th edition to Zotero in my Firefox browser. However, I get this error message: ""https://www.zotero.org/styles/modern-language-association-8th-edition" is not a valid style file."
I was clicking on the link here: https://www.zotero.org/styles
Any thoughts?
Is there a way to add a byline when dealing with a particular translator, as per the MLA 8 Rules? For example:
Descartes, René. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Translated by Jonathan Bennet, Early Modern Texts E-book, 2010, www.earlymoderntexts.com.
Because I am discussing translation choices, I need this to appear as:
Bennet, Jonathon. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. By René Descartes. Early Modern Texts, 2010. Early Modern Texts E-book, ww.earlymoderntexts.com.
Bentley, Eric. “The Science Fiction of Bertolt Brecht.” Galileo, Grove Press, 1966, pp. 7–42.
is supposed to now appear as (you'll notice a missing by-line too, despite it being filled out as the Book Author):
Bentley, Eric. “The Science Fiction of Bertolt Brecht.” Introduction. Galileo, by Bertolt Brecht, Grove Press, 1966, pp. 7–42.
For the introduction, enter this as a Book Section item. Put "Introduction" in the Extra field like this:
medium: Introduction
Does that render properly?
The introduction renders properly now, thank you bwiernik.
I will toy with ways of getting translators to render as I want. For example, if I call the Publisher
"By René Descartes, Early Modern Texts E-book"
I get:
Bennet, Jonathon. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. By René Descartes, Early Modern Texts E-book, 2010, www.earlymoderntexts.com.
which is correct, from how I understand the rules.
E.g. For a Report entry, title = "Chart 8 - Shallow Soils", report type = "Chart, 1:10000", series title = "Quadrant R204 - Seabed and Shallow Soils Survey", report number = "655536.208 Rev.1" the biblio appears as:
ACME Geosurvey Ltd. Chart 8 - Shallow Soils. Chart, 1:10000, 655536.208 Rev.1, 13 Oct. 2018.
I believe it should appear including the series title thus:
ACME Geosurvey Ltd. Chart 8 - Shallow Soils. Quadrant R204 - Seabed and Shallow Soils Survey, Chart, 1:10000, 65536.208 Rev.1, 13 Oct. 2018.