Home > Computers and the Internet > MS Word 2007, 2010 and MLA References

MS Word 2007, 2010 and MLA References

June 21st, 2010

When Office 2007 was announced, there was a feature I was really excited about: References. A whole tab on the ribbon is dedicated to them, allowing you to choose your style and insert and manage citations. I was very happy at this news, because one of the things we try to get students to do in our program is make MLA references–but we have all kinds of problems. Chiefly, the students are not used to making citations (they don’t learn it here like we do in the U.S.), and MLA citations can be very difficult and complex, depending on the source. I imagined that MS Word 2007 would have an editor that would allow you to choose your citation type (e.g., book, periodical, etc.) from an exhaustive list taken directly from the MLA listing, and then prompt you for all the relevant data, and then automatically insert your in-text citations and the Works Cited list, all formatted to MLA standards.

Boy, was I ever disappointed.

First, the list of MLA citations in in MS Word’s dialog box comes up in one of those incurably idiotic miniature scroll windows that show only six lines at a time, and should have been done away with 10 years ago. Second, the list of citations is incomplete; for example, our students rely heavily on electronic sources, particularly from library database subscriptions. Word’s MLA list does not allow for these. Third, the citations are not inserted intuitively; since one is citing a stretch of text, you would expect that you would select the cited text and insert–but that just deletes the text you selected and replaces it with the citation. Fourth, the Works Cited list is not automatically added at the end–you have to insert it, and even though it is required to start on a new page at the end of the document, Word will not create that area, instead putting it wherever your cursor is set. Fifth, the Works Cited list is not formatted right–the title should be centered, the list double spaced, everything 12 point text–it’s not. Worse, Word does stuff like make certain text styled, like bold and blue, where it should not be. Dates are not expressed correctly, web page article titles not included, etc. etc. Sixth, the whole thing is done in a field, which makes it extremely difficult to edit and keep straight when you must make the necessary modifications that Word did wrong. Seventh… well, the list goes on, and on. You get the idea.

In short, it’s a failure, a mess, a complete disaster which only makes adding correct citations harder to do, not easier. Disappointed, I had to steer my students away from it.

But there was hope: maybe Microsoft would improve it with the next version of Office. Certainly I could not be the only one to notice how awful it was, and Microsoft would get off their butts and make the next iteration much better.

Nope.

I found that my college’s Citrix account had upgraded to Office 2010, so I went in and checked it out. Not only has it not improved even the tiniest bit, it didn’t even upgrade to the 7th edition of MLA, which made major changes in how citations are written. True, the 7th edition came out only about a year and a half ago, but certainly they could have done something. But nope–not only does Word’s Reference feature still suck, it now sucks and is out of date.

Categories: Computers and the Internet Tags: by
  1. Yves
    June 21st, 2010 at 21:50 | #1

    First, the list of MLA citations in in MS Word’s dialog box comes up in one of those incurably idiotic miniature scroll windows that show only six lines at a time, and should have been done away with 10 years ago.

    => Unless you have the box for “Show All Bibliography Fields” checked, the box only shows you the fields really required. So you prefer a huge screen with 2 dozen fields to fill in over a concise screen where only the necessary data needs to be entered. Only if you get over 12 fields or something, the scrolling starts…

    ====

    Third, the citations are not inserted intuitively; since one is citing a stretch of text, you would expect that you would select the cited text and insert

    => That would only be valid if you do a direct citation, something which is almost never done. Your expectation is highly unlogical if you ask me.

    ====

    Fourth, the Works Cited list is not automatically added at the end–you have to insert it, and even though it is required to start on a new page at the end of the document, Word will not create that area, instead putting it wherever your cursor is set.

    => And what if I wanted some text/index after my bibliography? It would be highly unlogical to not place the bibliography where you cursor is.

    ====

    Fifth, the Works Cited list is not formatted right–the title should be centered, the list double spaced, everything 12 point text–it’s not.

    => The gallery items are not style specific. That is, the same one is used for APA, MLA, Chicago, … If you want your own, you should create your own gallery entry. As for the spacing and tabbing of the bibliography, you should adjust the ‘Bibliography’ paragraph style assiociated with the bibliography. Think of it, when you first start Word, the font, margins, … for your text are not correct for MLA. You have to set them first. Why would that be any different for the bibliography tool. Basically, you have to create (or download) an MLA template containing all those things. Once you have that, you can create hundreds of MLA formatted articles.

    ====

    Sixth, the whole thing is done in a field, which makes it extremely difficult to edit and keep straight when you must make the necessary modifications that Word did wrong.

    => Press the little blue are in the surrounding box and choose the convert to static text option. If the whole thing wasn’t done in a field, how would you add extra entries afterwards? How would Word locate the position of your bibliography? And no, it isn’t always at the end…

    Although you are right that there are several severe limitations/errors in the (MLA) bibliography tool, such as the lack of coverage for electronic sources, you hardly touch those issues. Instead, you rant on your own lack of knowledge on how to use Word…

  2. Jim
    June 21st, 2010 at 21:54 | #2

    Luis,

    You should be able to accomplish this with a simple VBA macro. There are probably some free ones you can download or I’d be happy to send you a quote. Just a few hours work really.

  3. Luis
    June 21st, 2010 at 22:00 | #3

    Jim:

    Thanks, the offer is appreciated–but my main goal here would not be to use it for myself, but for my students, many of whom are not very computer-literate, to use instead of puzzling through the MLA manual. Ergo, the manner in which I wrote the post, to reflect what they would face if they tried to use MS Word for this purpose. I would not want to have to tell every student to make special modifications and then have to deal with supporting the ones who couldn’t, when in the end it would be about as much work (or more) than it is to simply do MLA themselves.

  4. Brad
    October 22nd, 2010 at 03:16 | #4

    @Luis
    Then Why not create a template file where everything is formatted the way you want it and Make sure to save it as a Word Template (*.dot/*.dotx) rather than a Word Document (*.doc/*.docx) This would allow your students to create a new document from opening your template with everything in the correct place. The only thing the template would not help is the exact formatting of the Works Cited/Bibliography section because this all has to do with what information is provided in the references section.

    But you could do it by taking Yves advice and creating a Gallery Item to format it.
    “If you want your own, you should create your own gallery entry.” (Yves)

  5. Ryan
    December 7th, 2010 at 23:01 | #5

    Does anybody know why my in-text citations are automatically formated to bold? This is irrespective of the style I use.

Comments are closed.