Using MLA Bibliography and
ABELL with reference works

DESCRIPTION | SEARCHING | MARKING | VIEWING
PRINTING | EMAILING | SAVING
RELATED DATABASES | SEARCH THIS DATABASE

DESCRIPTION

WHAT ARE MLA BIBLIOGRAPHY and ABELL?

MLA International Bibliography is a classified listing and subject index of scholarly books and articles on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics which has been compiled by the Modern Language Association of America since 1921. The electronic version includes indexing from 1963 onwards, and currently contains more than 1.7 million records. In addition, the MLA Directory of Periodicals gives full information on over 7,100 journals and book series.

ABELL (Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature) contains 860,000 records, covering monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards.

SEARCHING

If you enter the database using the MLA Bibliography link from the Library database pages, you will enter the Combined search screen for the MLA International Bibliography and ABELL. Using this screen, you may perform a search for Keywords, Title Keywords, Subject, Author/Reviewer, Publication Details, Journal, and Year.

If you would like to exclusively search MLA International Bibliography, click on the MLAIB search link in the Criticism options links above the search boxes. Using this search screen will allow you to use the Thesaurus embedded in MLA International Bibliography to browse for subject terms, author names and author's works.

The MLAIB search screen also provides a link at the bottom of the screen for Advanced Search Options. This advanced search has 20 search boxes which will help you narrow your results and will have links to the thesaurus that may help you select search terms.

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MARKING and Creating an ARCHIVE

To mark records, click in the box to the left of each item in the results list.

You may also create an Archive and use the link to "Save to my Archive" to create a long term folder with search results. When creating an Archive, you must list Pace University as your institution.

VIEWING

To view the document, click on the link within the citation of your results list. You may also click on the icons in the columns to the left of the citation.

• The small piece of paper will take you to the citation information
• The large piece of paper icon will take you to the full text.
• The camera will take you to the full text as a pdf file. You must have adobe acrobat loaded onto your computer to view a .pdf file.

If you are looking at the citation, you may see a link to View the Full Record which will bring the full text up in html format or View Page Image which will bring up the document in pdf format.

You will also notice a link to "Jump to first hit in text." This link will bring you to the place where your first search term can be found in the full text of the document. Use the arrow buttons before and/or after the words within the text to move from search term to search term.

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PRINTING

Use the Print button in your browser to print the article. There is no option to change to print format in this database.

EMAILING

When you are in a record, click on the E-mail Full Text link at the top of the screen to open the E-mail Manager Screen.

• Type your name, e-mail address, and a subject heading in the text boxes provided.
• The text of the email will be in the box below your subject. You may view the format before sending the email by scrolling through this box.
  • Diagrams or photographs will not be included in the email.
• Click the Send button

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SAVING or Downloading the Citation

• To Save Click on File from the browser's menu.
• Click on Save As…
• The system will automatically save the results to the a:\ drive. You must specify a filename ending in .txt to save as text format.
• Click Save.

To Download the Citation

Click on the link to "Download the Citation" while you are viewing the record. This feature will give you the text you need to use for your citation. However, it will not format the text to a particular citation style.

You will have several download options but if you do not have any of the programs listed, you will need to select Download in plain text format. Save the citation as a .txt document and you will be able to cut and paste the information into the references section of your paper. Be sure to follow the correct rules for the citation style you are using. Please see our guide for How to Cite Resources for citiation help.

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RELATED DATABASES

Click here to see related Literature databases.

SEARCH THIS DATABASE

Begin searching MLA Bibliography and ABELL.