Thanks to all of you who responded to my query as to what schools are doing
about the new MLA formats (it was a busy first week for me so I didn’t have
a chance to thank you personally!). It seems that most schools are either
keeping the requirement to include the URLS or leaving it to teacher
discretion. Some will require the URLs for websites but not for articles
found in subscription databases..
As I’m still unsure how I feel about it, I will ask our department chairs to
see if they and their depts. have a preference!
Thanks again and hope this is useful for others..
*Including URLS *
1. Our teachers met with me and we discussed it. They all agreed they
would revise the school wide policy to include URLs. The other high school
in our town decided to do away with them. I felt good that we discussed and
came to consenus with the English department.
2. Our district (decided upon by the librarians) has decided to maintain
that students must provide the URL.
3. We are continuing to require students to include the url in
citations. Our English department decided this was best after our 10th grade
year-long research project last year when it was hard enough to figure out
some student's sources with the citation when it included the url. Without
the url, there are many sources we would not have been able to check. If we
can see how and where they're making the mistakes, we can help them correct
them. Without this information, we can only tell them that their research is
invalid.
4. Our teachers still require citing the URL. The thinking is that the
reader ought to know exactly which source was used, especially since there
usually are many possible sources. I doubt that anyone would accept "book"
as a source, so why should "Internet" be acceptable? If we want to know
WHICH book, we ought to also know WHICH web site was referenced.
5. Our high school teachers required it as a way to make sure that the
student realized that all material needed to be cited.
*Eliminating the URLS:*
1. Our English Dept. and I are working on school-wide form to fit the
new MLA standards. It is flexible. We are not including URLs. They are too
cumbersome these days.
2. We are following the new MLA guidelines.
*Leaving it to Teacher Discretion*
1. We are essentially leaving it to teacher discretion--teachers could
not agree on the format--some like the new; some did not.
2. We do not have a separate policy for 5th-12th grade students. We are
leaving it to student/teacher discretion, as recommended in the 7th edition.
(I haven't had a chance yet to see if this works, because no students are
writing papers yet.) Many sources a student would use is writing a paper
(for example, Poets.org, NationalGeographicKids.com come immediately to
mind) make it clear in the citation how to find the website.
3. We are going to leave that to the teacher's discretion, but feel the
students should know what MLA actual requires.
4. We are leaving it up to the teacher's discretion.
5. We're just in the process of updating our own research guide, and
when this comes up, we add a note to "check with your teacher."
*Something in between*
1. Our students don't have to include the URL for our databases;
however, for web sites they must include the URL.
2. For web-based information, the URL would be essential since the
information doesn't exist off the web. However, for print material that is
reproduced in multiple databases (Time Magazine, for example, located in XYZ
database) the URL is not significant since the information is located in
multiple places. That allows the reader to locate the information in
whatever database or hard copy to which the reader has access and avoids a
generally useless (to someone who doesn't subscribe to that specific
database) string of information in the citation. Legal citation has been
doing it this way for many years.
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