6th Grade - Historic Patriots

STYLE GUIDE - click here for your copy



You have an assignment, like National History Day.
You have been asked to not only take notes on notecards, but to provide BIBLIOGRAPHY CARDS. But....but....how do you write out the information ABOUT that source?
Should the title of the source (book, magazine, encyclopaedia, or whatever) go first? Should you write the author's name last? What about the date? And is punctuation important...

...OH!!! WHAT WILL YOU DOOOOOO????!!!!!

[INSERT HEROIC MUSIC HERE...tum, ta-ta, tum-tum-tum, ta-ta, tum-tum-tum, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da....well, you get the idea...]

NEVER FEAR, CITIZEN! YOUR DAY IS SAVED!!!

MLA (MODERN LANGUAGE USAGE) Style is a DOCUMENTATION CONVENTION. That's really just a big, fancy way of simply saying, "Hey, I have this book I'm using for Mr. Johnson and I need to tell him about it for my bibliography - and I KNOW EXACTLY how to write out that information!!! THANK YOU!....THANK YOU, MLA!....my hero...."

In the words of the MLA website:

MLA style has been widely adopted by schools, academic departments, and instructors for over half a century. The association's guidelines are also used by over 1,100 scholarly and literary journals, newsletters, and magazines and by many university and commercial presses. The MLA's guidelines are followed throughout North America and in Brazil, China, India, Japan, Taiwan, and other countries around the world.

IT IS REQUIRED IN MY CLASS TO USE MLA STYLE FOR ANY AND ALL SOURCE INFORMATION!!! SO GET USED TO IT...AND USE THE LINKED GUIDE OR GO TO THE MLA WEBSITE IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS...

http://www.mla.org/