Ignore the one-star reviews
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First of all, you should ignore all the one-star reviews of this book. Those reviews criticize the MLA, not the book. The book itself is really good. One of my English professors recommended it to our class. She also said that every English major should have a copy of it. I had always used Diana Hacker's book in other classes. After she recommended it, I decided to check it out at the bookstore. After skimming through it, I decided to buy it. It was so much easier to follow than Hacker's book. I will use it in the future. Gibaldi devotes an entire chapter just to plagiarism (and how to avoid it).
Brandon Simpson
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Disappointing
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I'm a french student who is writing a research paper in English. This book has helped me getting through some basic problems, such as punctuation, margins, how to avoid plagiarism, how to make a bibliography, cite sources... But the information given about the overall aspect and presentation of a research paper is disappointing. Nothing about the making of a table of contents, or an index, where to put the illustrations. Only three pages cover the issues of typing, paper, margins, spaces, heading and titles and page numbers (including information given for typewriter users... ridiculous). And, on the contrary, it sometimes gives a lot of details when an example would have made the thing clear enough, and gives loads of examples when one sentence to explain would have been sufficient. Morerover, when looking for a precise piece of information, it sometimes proves diffucult to find and ambiguous. So, in fact, I use it but hate it. But there are so many kinds of research works and methods that I might as well be the only person not satisfied with this book.
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Highly recommended style of writing research papers
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I have already used MLA when I wrote my research paper to obtain the BA degree two years ago. And now I have just bought it from Amazon because I am interested in obtaining a PhD; and MLA is the best choice I could make to follow in my future dissertation. I really recommmend it for all students who are to present dissertations as it is a universally recognized style, easy to follow & apply.
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A great guide to a great style
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The MLA (Modern Language Association) style is my preferred style for writing papers - both in terms of citation and in terms of overall format. While I must confess to making small changes (based on my British English background and preference), I still adhere to most of the MLA standards when it comes to putting together research papers. This is a guide that is useful not only for writing, but also for researching. There is a section that discusses researching both in a library and online. The guide then gives a refresher course in grammar, spelling, sentence and paragraph construction, and other elements of style that are useful in the general academic paper. By far the most useful part of this guide is the section that shows how to reference in footnotes, endnotes, in-line/in-text citations and proper documentation of sources. While there are few elements due to new media (how does one reference a video on MPG format that doesn't actually reside on a website?) that might not be covered, this guide is fairly comprehensive when it comes to in-print, internet, and other media resources. For undergraduate students, graduate students, academic writers and general writers, the MLA style is easy to follow, fairly intuitive in approach, and comprehensible even by those not training in such styles.
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