MLA Style

The MLA Pocket Handbook: Rules for Format & Documentation
$7.95
This very small book is certainly a help in interpreting the new 7th edition of the MLA guide, but the reader has to thumb through the book to find each entry type. It needs a table of contents that indicates what page the database entry or book entry is on. This pocket guide is good in a pinch but not as thorough as Diana Hacker's pocket handbooks. Unfortunately, Hacker revised her book just before the 7th edition came out.

A Concise Guide to MLA Style and Documentation
$14.95
My son's 12th grade English teacher introduced the MLA style to her classes this month and my son first paper was full of red ink corrections. He said MLA was difficult to use because the available references were written primarily for college students. The MLA books and the internet sites had much more detail than the average high school student needed and were overwhelming to research.

Reading the reviews of the other MLA reference books on Amazon.com identified similar problems. When I came across Thomas Fasano's "MLA, A Concise Guide to MLA Style and Documentation," there were no reader review opinions yet. What attracted me to buy this book was the knowledge that Mr. Fasano was a high school English teacher in California. After grading his share of English papers, Mr. Fasano would probably know the common MLA style mistakes of high school students.

I ordered the book on Amazon.com and it arrived two days later. I thought it was a little expensive for a pamphlet of 40 pages, but it was well organized, simple to read, and easy to research. There's also an index at the end of the book to send the student to the right pages. The book has the 2009 MLA updates.

I showed the book to my son and he was immediately impressed. His biggest problem with MLA was properly citing and using the sources of his research. Mr. Fasano dedicated 21 pages of 40 pages in his book to these problem areas. They include: Chapter 2, Sample Entries, The List of Works Cited; Chapter 3, Citing Sources in the Text; and Chapter 4,Footnotes and Endnotes.

In Chapter 2, Sample Entries, The List of Works Cited, the chapter was organized with 141 citation examples by categories including Nonperiodical Print Publications, Periodical Print Publications, Web Publications, Web Sites with Print Publication Data, Web Sites with Publication Data for Other Media Besides Print, Web-Based Scholarly Journals, Web Publications in Online Databases, and Additional Common Sources. My son said the book had everything he needed.

The book also included information on formatting the paper in MLA style, evaluating the sources of information, plagiarism, summarizing and paraphrasing sources, abbreviations, and other good writing tips for high school writers.

The best news was my son's improved confidence in writing, knowing that his papers now at least met the requirements of the MLA style. He could now focus on his paper's content and presentation.

Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing)
$12.00
This book will really help me with my citations in my papers. I was in need of some help on that area. If you need a good citation aid for your college papers, this will really help.

MLA: The Easy Way! [Updated for MLA 7th Edition]
$10.95
The best choice is buy the original MLA last edition. This is just to know the format of an essay. If u want mor��� information buy another book.