New Citation Manuals Make Citing Electronic Sources Easier

The long-awaited seventh edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, the standard style and documentation guide for millions of college students, has arrived in the Richland Library! The new edition has made many changes to MLA documentation style and has simplified guidelines for citing information found on the Web, in digital files, and graphic narratives. "The new edition builds on input from scholars, librarians, and students to create the best tool ever for writing research papers," says MLA Executive Director Rosemary G. Feal.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue offers students information on some of the changes in the new edition.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Diana Hacker has posted information about some of the changes in the MLA Handbook on her Web site http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/home.html . NoodleTools has incorporated the new MLA guidelines. The Richland Librarians are updating all of our MLA handouts, our examples on our Web site, and our classes. We will begin teaching 7th edition of the MLA Handbook this semester.

Copies of the new MLA Handbook are available in the Richland College Library at the Reference Desk and in the Main Collection: LB 2369 .G53 2009.

The new 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (usually referred to as the APA Manual) is also available in the library: BF 76.7.P83 2010.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue offers APA formatting guidance:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
NoodleTools will soon release updates to make their citations compatible with the 6th edition.

A new type of research engine: WolframAlpha

In May 2009, the new computational search engine called WolframAlpha went live. This is not your average and typical search engine. It is called a computational search engine because of what it does best: computing from its own knowledge base. It aims to return an answer to your query rather than millions of web page results. Click on the examples page to see just some of what it can do related to science, math, geography, weather, and more.

What Students Think

Much has been made of the "knowledge shortcomings" of the general population. One only needs to think about some of the shocking (and funny) interviews that Jay Leno does on the segment he calls Jaywalking.

E.D. Hirsch caused quite a storm when he proposed that people can't learn unless they have a certain minimum amount of factual knowledge, which he called cultural literacy.

Did you know that there is also something called information literacy? It too has been the subject of much discussion.

In August 2008, 225 Richland high school juniors took a needs assessment developed by the Network of Illinois Learning Resources in Community Colleges.

The assessment was an opportunity for librarians to take a look at the understandings and misunderstandings of our own student population.

The assessment showed that there is much that students do not understand.

This little slideshow -- What Students Think -- demonstrate some of those gaps in understanding.

These may not be quite as shocking as Jay Leno's discoveries, but they definitely play a role in keeping students from producing the quality work we know they are capable of.