How to Correct EBSCO's Faulty Output in MLA Format

Martin Maner
Wright State University
Department of English

The following instructions are based on the 6th edition of the MLA Handbook.  Some of the details explained below may be different in the brand-new 7th edition.

For several years I have wondered why my students so consistently list hard-copy articles incorrectly in their bibliographies.  The following is an example.

Typically, a student will fill in the library name, city, and state, and leave everything else as it stands. 

The first thing one can conclude is that the student has not opened the MLA Handbook.  (With today's point-and-click generation, this is no surprise.)  This student used the article in hard-copy form but has listed it as though it were online.  Why?

The answer is that like many other databases, the EBSCO version of the MLA International Bibliography in this example has included an online link to the database record, not to the article itself!  Links to the database record are irrelevant in MLA bibliographic format.  (If the article itself exists online and was consulted there, that is an entirely different matter, and one must consult the MLA Handbook section 5.9 to determine the correct format for such sources.)

Let's fix this incorrect entry.  The first step is to cut out the irrelevant information:

Danson, Lawrence. "Max and Mr. McCall." Princeton University Library Chronicle 47.2 (Winter 1986): 175-188. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 8 Sep. 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=1986029679&site=ehost-live>.

Next, we need to correct the mistakes made by the EBSCO programmers.  In MLA format, months and seasons are not included:

Danson, Lawrence. "Max and Mr. McCall." Princeton University Library Chronicle 47.2 (Winter 1986): 175-188.

Next, we need to follow the MLA Handbook's instructions on listing inclusive page numbers.  The second number is always supplied as two digits, unless more are needed because a "hundreds boundary" has been crossed (as in this example: 1299-303, which is the MLA Handbook's way of handling pages 1299-1303).  We need to cut out one digit:

Danson, Lawrence. "Max and Mr. McCall." Princeton University Library Chronicle 47.2 (1986): 175-188.

Here is the corrected MLA entry:

Danson, Lawrence. "Max and Mr. McCall." Princeton University Library Chronicle 47.2 (1986): 175-88.

Last update: 15 April 2009
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