A Love Letter to the MLA Handbook

I’m an enthusiast of the MLA Handbook. There was a time when I would put things like the name and date of my seventh and eighth grade papers on the upper right corner of the page; this is something I am ashamed of and will never do again. Well, that’s a little extreme, but still, once I became an avid fan of the MLA Handbook, I never looked back.

The MLA Handbook was produced by the Modern Language Association and serves as a guide for the industry standards for professional and academic scholars. Most high school and college students have heard of some sort of named convention for citing, writing, or other literary standards; styles like APA or Chicago-style may be more familiar to some. But I am partial to MLA, partly due to the fact that I have the most experience using MLA protocols.

Despite its weight and size, I bring the handbook to school with me every day. The handbook is lushly decorated with swooshes of teal, purplish navy, dark forest green, warm mustard yellow, and mellow orange. (I have the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook.) I have perused multiple sections of those 400 glorious pages and continue to try to become an expert on the book. A close friend even made me a crown with “MLA” written on it; it sits on top of a wooden shelf in my room and makes me very happy. My liking of this handbook strikes some as odd, but what else should I do to motivate myself to write essays?

So how did the MLA Handbook originate? Well, the Modern Language Association had been up and running for a while and was responsible for publishing essays it deemed to be of interest. The development of the Handbook began in 1931 when a style sheet was created and produced by Carleton Brown, executive director of the MLA from 1920 to 1934, and Cyril Arthur Peerenboom, a member of the MLA community. Twenty years later, William Riley Parker (then MLA’s executive director), and editors from “one hundred and nine journals and thirty-four university presses” produced a new publication known as the MLA Style Sheet. The MLA Style Sheet changed from a stylesheet to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations in 1977. Over the next few years, copies of the Handbook were sold and changes were made. The current edition of the MLA Handbook includes a whole lot: rules for in-text citations, proper capitalization, when to use italics or quotes, the list of works cited, where to locate information, and much, much more. You can enjoy a physical copy of the MLA Handbook, or you can visit their website, which is slightly less exciting. Another MLA related thing you can do is check out their newsletter which a friend kindly introduced me to. The MLA newsletter is only available to MLA members (it’s easy to become a member, just sign up) and it delivers MLA-related news, essay competitions, and more!

Finally, please enjoy some page recommendations. Page 66 is super helpful and tells you which titles are italicized and which are in quotations. This is a good tool when creating a list of works cited or talking about a specific medium in an essay. Page 208 of the MLA Handbook goes over supplemental elements (like a translator or an editor) and how and when to add them. It also gives a helpful works cited template. Page 227 of the handbook is an overview of in-text citations. And, finally, my personal favorite, page 313, gives examples of various works cited.

I don’t know what else to say except that you too should get a hold of the MLA Handbook. It is a pristine piece of work that is useful in all school settings (and some jobs) and really helped give my work structure. Hurray MLA!