Showing posts with label MLA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MLA. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

How to cite a tweet: MLA style

In case you were wondering, official guidelines here. More on this over on insidehighered.

Good for MLA for coming up with a quick, clear, solution. This must mean they think twitter is here to stay and that it warrants its own special word ("Tweet") at the end of the citation (not "Web," which is what I would have expected). I guess that's because tweets aren't entirely web-based, going to phones, etc. Very interesting stuff for an MLA enthusiast like me.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Here we go again...

Classes start on Monday, but meetings and stuff start this week. I actually have an 8:15 meeting on Tuesday, which seems mean to me. I've been in my office almost every day I've been in town these past couple of weeks, but being compelled to be here before 8:30 on one of our last days of "break" is a bit much. Oh well.

The good news is that I've got 3 of 4 syllabi ready to go. I am still working on my ENGL 372: Advanced Composition syllabus--and probably will be until Sunday. (Maybe I'll post more about that class later...)

For now, though, how about some good old-fashioned linking-posting as a way of taking a 20 minute break from syllabizing?

1) Just because the kid is so very very cute, I must link the "Baby in Tub Assures You that, No, He Does Not Like Anything You Suggest." I love that the kid is saying pretty awful things, but you can't help but smile--and that you kind of want to ask him/her more questions.

2) Lots of folks are talking about last night's How I Met Your Mother and its big surprise ending. I'll admit that it made me tear up. It's a pretty bold move for this kind of comedy to make, but I don't agree with people saying that it doesn't work because it came out of nowhere. Isn't that precisely the point? I also didn't really get the countdown thing happening, although as soon I heard people talking about it, I remembered certain numbers standing out.

3) This is one of the silliest columns I've ever read at Insidehighered.com. I don't have vast amount of experiences on hiring committees (I've been involved in 6, on the committees for 5, and chaired 3), but I can say that we really and truly never talked about what folks wore. I don't even think it was a "back of my mind"/subconscious consideration for us. Sigh. Fortunately, people are tearing the piece down in the comments. 

4) Women laughing alone with salad. Love it, love it, love it. And, as Homer and Bart remind us, you don't win friends with salad.



5) Well played, James Van Der Beek. And the website is real.

6) Finally, this one, because yeah, it's not exactly new, but it really makes me laugh.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

How I've been spending this Saturday...

In my office on campus, editing, editing, editing...

And now, converting my freshly-edited article from MLA to Chicago style. Three and a half pages done out of 19. Fun stuff. I need a break.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

More links...

...these are decidedly academic in theme.

First, I suppose I am better late than never on posting a link to Brian Croxall's delivered-in-absentia MLA talk. (More smart analysis here.) I was at MLA this year, as we are hiring for two positions in our department, but I have yet to attend a single conference session (four MLAs, zeros sessions). Each time it was because I simply didn't have the time--the first three MLAs, I was interviewing as a candidate; this time, I was on the other side of the table.

Anyway, one of my colleagues and I talked about heading down to the Convention Center to see how busy the Job Center was and to get a general feel for this year's vibe, but we never got around to it. There were lots of good reasons: we just didn't have the time/energy after 8 hours of interviewing, it was bitterly cold and windy outside, and my colleague had a nasty cold. But I think that a big reason (unspoken by me) was that we didn't want to deal with what was sure to be a depressing scene. There were, after all, about 40% fewer jobs listed this year than last year. And last year's numbers were something like 30% less than the year before. It's nasty out there and I'm so grateful to have a job. And I couldn't handle seeing all those desparate folks who aren't as lucky as I am. Heck, I think I still have job-search PTSD.

Anyway, all of this is a roundabout way of saying, good for Brian Croxall for reminding people of how expensive, frustrating, awful, and often futile the job search can be.

Second link: from insidehighered.com, a report from a Rhet/Comp session at MLA. This session sounds like it was lame...lots of finger-pointing and pontificating about what's wrong with rhet/comp. But if you are interested, check out the comments at the end of the column. Some are depressing because of their own pontificating, but others (from Kathleen Yancy, for instance, or from Joe Essid, who I worked with the one year I was at Richmond) are quite good and give some hope.

Third link, also from insidehighered.com: this one made me laugh--a column about a panel of historian parents and their historian offspring at the annual American Historical Association meeting. Choice quotation? "[I]t turns out that the way you rebel against an American historian parent is to become a medievalist." Ha. Beyond the laughs, though, are smart observations about how the field (and academia) has changed over the years. Good stuff.

One last link, which is only going to be funny to English folks...MLA 2010.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

New MLA guidelines

Another week's old bookmark I've been meaning to link to: Yes, the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing has made some changes. But don't panic. (It's okay to admit that you were panicking.) Everything you need to know is here. Take that, underlining!