Woo hoo! I’m back. Not that I haven’t been editing between my last posting and now. It’s just that the deadlines have been tighter, thus preventing me from typing up my style sheets. But, never fear, I have three papers that need my attention before this Friday. Here we go…

• Nineteenth century: MLA format requires that we spell out centuries in lowercase letters. Note that it is not hyphenated unless it is used as an adjective (nineteenth-century literature).
• kit out: This is British for “equip.” (Oh, how I love the British….)
• sixties, seventies, and eighties: Decades should be spelled out, but it is also “acceptable” to express them in numbers. Note that the spelled-out versions are lowercase. When expressing them in numbers, write them “the 1990s” or “the ’90s”
• War: When used with a modifier to discuss a specific war, (e.g. the Vietnam War), the word “War” is always capitalized.
• Ellipses (a.k.a. “dot, dot, dot”): MLA doesn’t give a ton of explanation on ellipses; however, whenever MLA lacks a discussion, they default to Chicago. Chicago 11.54 specifies NOT to use an ellipsis points before the first word of a quotation. I prefer this method
• Multiple works by the same author: The parenthetical citation goes like this: (Author, Title ##).
• Using brackets for clarification: If necessary to clarify meaning, use brackets with the meaning after the original word of the quotation rather than just replacing the word. (Did that even make sense?) So the quote would go: “I want to see him [Ryan]” rather than “I want to see [Ryan].”
• Vis-à-vis: This phrase is in Webster’s dictionary. Therefore, it is not italicized when used in the text.