<p>Let me count the ways</p>
<p>I hate your name reversals
always last name before first
unless there is a second author
then his last is last and first is first
after the 'and' that separates them</p>
<p>I hate your dashes
web backslashes
periods after every item
(unless of course it is the item which gets a comma and which I also hate)</p>
<p>Thank you MLA citation
for allowing my grade to make that migration
south of where I hoped it be if not for sticklers
who follow thee.. </p>
<p>I hate revisions..</p>
<p>MLA is the reason I’m a science major. Just kidding. I had to use it so much in high school, it killed it for me. But I still have my trusty pocket style manual and aced all my gen eds with that little thing. lol.</p>
<p>Once you take like one class that uses it, it becomes like second nature. Because of my second degree, I have to use APA a lot more now and I despise it. I <3 mla.</p>
<p>I was a lot more familiar with it about ten years ago. This is my first class in the last ten years to require it, so, I’m really loathing it at the moment. Plus, it always seems you have your ‘eh, close enough’ teachers and your ‘OMG I can’t believe this idiot missed a whole freakin’ comma!’ teachers. I really need to either dig out my old style manual or buy a new one if I can’t find it soon. I think I’ve only used APA once before, but, I don’t remember what class it was. I pretty much need the style book for either. Blegh… I would rather take 10 tests than type up one works cited… lol</p>
<p>I’m sure your example was hyperbole, but I have yet to meet a professor who will chastise a student for missing one comma even in a paper, much less their citations. I’ve found that RGE is correct in saying once you’ve had to use it consistently in one course it will become second nature.</p>
<p>Jennifer- no need to buy a whole new manual. You can google it and there’s a wonderful site that comes up with anything you’d ever want to know about mla. Save your money :).</p>
<p>Use a template generator. Jeez…you’re supposed to be in college…figure out ways of making your workload lighter.</p>
<p>Try [EasyBib:</a> Free Bibliography Maker - MLA, APA, Chicago citation styles](<a href=“http://easybib.com/]EasyBib:”>http://easybib.com/)</p>
<p>I’ve been using MLA since 9th grade, so it’s definitely second-nature to me. What was a pain for me was APA.</p>
<p>
I’m sure it happens with professors. I had teachers in HS that took off points for commas. If you missed 3 commas/other grammatical errors, the best grade you could get was a B in my AP English & Honors American Lit classes. If you missed 5, it was a C, missed 7 = D, missed more than that, you failed. Then of course they could still take off additional points for other non-grammar reasons. </p>
<p>I’ve used MLA since 9th grade and APA since 11th grade.</p>
<p>College is not high school. Unless missing a comma changes the intended meaning of a phrase (e.g. “he was mad, smart…” vs. “he was mad smart”), college professors, at least in my experience, will not be grammar Nazis. They might point out the mistakes, but three incredibly minute grammatical errors, any one or more of which could be stylistic preference, in a ten page paper will not automatically earn one a B.</p>
<p>^^ Ditto. In college the professors are usually smarter than HS teachers and realize that slight grammar or punctuation mistakes don’t affect the meaning of a paper. My english prof even admitted that there’s just too many rules for anyone to ever write a paper that’s 100% flawless.</p>
<p>I’ve encountered multiple professors (not at my college, though) who find the rule that you can not end a sentence with a preposition to be outdated. I still do it for the sake of word count, but you can see the difference between high school and college professors—night and day.</p>
<p>EasyBib is the best. :)</p>
<p>EasyBib is easy (obviously, lol), but its formatting is strange. It’s not always correct MLA formatting.</p>