Simplifies the process of writing MLA papers in LaTeX.
Copyright (c) 2012 Scott Zeid. Released under the X11 License.
This is a LaTeX file, mla-simple.tex
, that simplifiies the creation
of MLA papers using LaTeX. It defines an environment called mla-simple
,
a wrapper of mla-paper's mla
environment that automatically handles
Works Cited pages. It also fixes various formatting issues which exist
when using the MLA package by itself, specifically:
- Uses the correct date format (DD MMMMM YYYY).
- Removes the extraneous "References" heading when using BibTeX on the Works Cited page.
- Re-enables two spaces after periods.
- Uses the correct 12 point font size.
- Includes and uses a BibTeX style called "mla-new" by Patrick W. Daly.
- Fixes the above BibTeX style to use proper formatting for URLs.
Other features of MLA Simple include:
- Support for UTF-8 encoded input files (using inputenc).
- A Makefile and shell script that help automate the process of writing LaTeX files on the command line. They should work with any basic LaTeX document, not just ones that use MLA Simple.
- Packages
- datetime
- ifpdf
- inputenc
- mla (mla-paper)
- natbib
Simply include mla-simple using \input{mla-simple.tex}
. Then, begin
your document environment as usual (but you do not need to declare the
document class; MLA Simple does this for you) and then create an instance
of the mla-simple
environment, passing your name, instructor, course
name, date, and paper title as arguments. Then write your paper inside
that environment.
For your Works Cited page, make a BibTeX file with the same name as your
LaTeX file, but with the .bib extension, and cite your sources using the
\mcite
command. (You can use a different file name by using the
\wcfile
command.) These two commands, as well as the \nowc
command
described later, are defined by MLA Simple. \mcite
is equivalent to
(\citealt{source})
, with \citealt
being part of the natbib
package.
If you have no sources, you can just use the mla
environment which is
part of the mla
package. You can also insert the \nowc
command
somewhere in your document.
If you want to define your sources manually, use the mla
environment
instead of the mla-simple
environment, and wrap your sources within
the workscited
enviroment (both part of the mla
package).
Finally, convert your document into the appropriate format. The included Makefile can convert your document into PDF or DVI format for you.
\input{mla-simple.tex}
\begin{document}
\begin{mla-simple}
{Scott}{Zeid}{Professor Jane Doe}{Compositon II}{\today}
{Test MLA Simple Document}
This is a test MLA Simple document \mcite{mla-simple}.
\end{mla-simple}
\end{document}
-
Sometimes, you have to cite full dates, not just the year. However, you could simply put the whole date field, like this:
year = "4 April 1984"
-
When citing Web resources, you usually have to include the date on which you retrieved it. You can do this using the note field. For example:
@misc{starbucks, author = "Starbucks Coffee", title = "Starbucks Coffee", note = "Web. 16 April 2012", url = "http://www.starbucks.com/" }
-
To restore the default US date format when using
\today
, do\usdate
. (This is part of thedatetime
package.) To go back to MLA dates, do\mladate
(from MLA Simple). See [thedatetime
documentation] datetime for more date formats.
The included Makefile is intended to help simplify the process of converting a LaTeX document into other formats. Currently DVI and PDF are supported.
(assuming your document's filename is starbucks.tex
)
starbucks
starbucks.pdf
Makes PDF AND DVI files from the document.starbucks.dvi
Makes a DVI file from the document.clean
Removes all intermediate files in the current directory. This is done automatically by the other targets.clean-all
Removes all intermediate files, as well as all DVI and PDF files, in the current directory.
MLA Simple includes a shell script, write
, that runs the editor defined
in $EDITOR
and then runs the Makefile on the given LaTeX file. It will
be created with a simple template if it does not exist, and an empty
BibTeX file will also be created if necessary. If the editor is Vim or
Gvim, it will open both the LaTeX file and the BibTeX file in tabs. (Vim
7 or later is required for this to work.)
./write <filename without .tex extension> [<extension of output file>]
If the output file extension is not given, it will default to pdf
. This
argument is simply passed on to the Makefile. For PDFs, the Makefile will
also leave behind a DVI file.
- mla-good.bst obtained from the Reed College Help Desk. This version actually works with recent versions of BibTeX. I have modified this to fix the formatting of URLs. (They should be enclosed in angle brackets, while the original version prefixed the text "URL".)
Stefan_K
from latex-community.org for information on how to suppress the default bibliography heading without leaving extra vertical space.
The template is released under the X11 License. However, please note
that the included mla-simple.bst
BibTeX style, based on mla-new.bst
by
Patrick W. Daaly, is released under the LaTeX Project Public License (version
1.0 or later), which [is not compatible with the GNU General Public License]
lppl-gpl.
Copyright (C) 2012 Scott Zeid.
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