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MLA International Bibliography
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| Searching MLA | |
| Reading and Understanding MLA Records | |
| Does Randall Library Own the Article Cited? | |
| Printing and Emailing from MLA | |
| Specialized Searches in MLA | |
| How to Use the Thesaurus |
MLA includes indexes and abstracts articles on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore from over 4,000 journals and series published worldwide. It also covers relevant books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. Produced by the Modern Language Association.
| Connecting to MLA |
1. Go to the Randall Library's Homepage (http://library.uncwil.edu)
2. Click on "Database
and Article Searching." Databases are listed
alphabetically.
3. Select MLA from the
list.
If you are connecting to MLA from off campus, complete instructions for
off-campus set up are located at http://library.uncwil.edu/homelist.html.
| Searching MLA |
1. SEARCH STATEMENTS:
MLA Search statements consist of a) literal words and
b) logical words
Literal
Words
Literal words are key words that are important to the topic. Let's look at two topics: first, you want information on social
class in literature. The literal (key) words you should choose would be "social," "class." Another topic could be the role
of women in the works of Faulkner and O'Connor. The literal (key) words would be "women" "Faulkner," and "O'Connor."
Logical Words
Logical words, also called "operators," instruct the system to retrieve records containing the literal words according to
the logic assigned. (Ex: "and", "or")
2. COMBINING SEARCHES:
AND retrieves records containing BOTH words. For instance, the search statement, "social and
class," retrieves
records that contain both words. AND is restrictive.
VARIANTS OF "AND"
WITH retrieves records with both search terms in the same field. For example, the statement "social
with class" retrieves records in which the two words, "social" and "class" appear in a single field, but
they may be separated by several sentences.
NEAR retrieves records with both search terms in the same sentence. For example, the statement
"social near class" retrieves records in which both terms, "social" and "class" appear in the same
sentence, but in anyorder.
**NOTE: Add a number next to near to specify how
close the terms are to appear to each other.
For example "social near2 class"
retrieves records in which the words "social" and "class" appear
within two words of each other.
ADJ retrieves records with search terms next to each other in a specified order. For example, the
statement "social adj class" retrieves records in which the term "social" immediately
precedes "class."
[No operator]--includes both terms beside each
other--[ex. William Faulkner]
OR retrieves records containing EITHER word. For instance, the search statement, "Faulkner or O'Connor,"
retrieves records containing either "Faulkner" or "O'Connor." The
records do not have to contain both words.
OR is expansive.
3. COMPLEX SEARCH STATEMENTS--USING PARENTHESES:
Search statements are complex when you use more than one operator in a statement, especially "AND"
(or one of its
variants) and "OR."
Ex. women and (Faulkner or O'Connor)
Placing parentheses around "Faulkner or O'Connor" nests those two words, so that the system knows the order in
which to search. To put it simply, the numbers of records comes out right when you use
parentheses.
4. After you enter the search
statement, click on the Search button.
| Reading and Understanding MLA Records |
Sample Record:
The
Tyranny of Things (Trivia in Karl Marx and Mark Twain)
By: Brown, Bill; Critical Inquiry, 2002 Winter; 28 (2): 442-69.
(journal article) Linked
Full Text |
Sample Complete Record:
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| Does Randall Library Own the Article Cited? |
To find out if Randall
Library owns the periodical cited, click on the Check
library catalog for title link at the
bottom of
each citation. A catalog record for the periodical displays if
Randall Library owns it. Periodicals
are located on the ground
floor of
Randall Library.
| Printing Citations |
To print the abstracts or full text articles from MLA, click on the Print button at the top of the page.
| E-mailing Citations |
1. Check the
article abstracts you want to send by pressing the mouse in the box to the left
of the abstract.
2. Click on the E-mail
button at the top of the search
screen. The e-mail delivery screen appears.
3. Type in a complete e-mail
address.
4. In the "Subject:" box, type "MLA
Abstracts" or another phrase that describes your
search.
| Saving Citations |
There is also the option to save the citations you've
retrieved through your search. Check the article(s) you want to
save to a disk and click on the folders link at the top of
the page. Next click on the Save button.
| Specialized Searches in MLA |
A.
To limit
searches to journal articles only
To narrow your search to
journal articles only, limit your publication type to "journal articles".
B. Searching
for entries on a particular work or an author
1.Click on the "author"button
2.Type name of work in TERM box.
If you are searching for an author, type last name in first.
3.Select work
from the list that displays.
Or you can choose the advance search option and change the "default" to "author"
| How to Search the Thesaurus |
Use the thesaurus
when you want the official, controlled vocabulary for a topic. For
instance, you want to search the
topic, night terrors.
1. To use the thesaurus,
click on the "thesaurus" button.
2. Enter
who done it fiction. The
system responds, "who-done-it fiction, see
detective-fiction."
3. When you click "detective-fiction,"
the system responds with the thesaurus entry on that topic, including cross
references to other related thesaurus entries.
4. To
search "detective-fiction," click the "Search Subject" button at the top of the
screen.
If you need anymore help searching MLA International Bibliography click on the Help link at the top right of the page.
Last Update: December 12, 2005