The Little Seagull Handbook with Exercises 4th Edition – 2021 MLA Update Fourth Edition

The Little Seagull Handbook with Exercises 4th Edition Preface

This book began as an attempt to create a small handbook that would provide help with the specific kinds of writing college students are assigned to do, and to make it as user-friendly as possible. It’s been more successful than we had hoped: much to our surprise, it’s been adopted by many instructors who had been using much larger handbooks. These teachers tell us they like it because it’s got “just enough detail,” it’s easy to use, and it costs less than half what their former books cost.

Must Read: The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings 5th Edition

From our own experience as teachers, we’ve seen how much students prefer smaller books, and so, to paraphrase Elmore Leonard, we’ve tried to give the information college writers need—and to leave out the details they skip. We’ve also seen how important it is that a handbook be easy to use. To that end, the book is organized around four familiar categories of Write, Research, Edit, and Exercise, and it includes menus, directories, a glossary / index, and more to help students find the help they need.

In order to preserve the handbook for easy reference, the exercises are in the back of the book, with links in the margins to make it easy to navigate between the handbook and the exercises. To enable students to check some of their work, we’ve included answers to evennumbered items after the exercises. We’re pleased now to offer a fourth edition, with new student model essays for five key genres; a new genre chapter on summary/response essays; updated advice on finding and evaluating sources and new guidance on factchecking sources; expanded advice on respectful and inclusive language, including nongendered third-person singular pronouns; improved chapters on revision and reading strategies; and updated MLA (2021), APA (2020), and Chicago (2017) documentation guides.

The Little Seagull Handbook with Exercises 4th Edition Highlights

Help with the kinds of writing students are assigned, including arguments, analyses, reports, narratives, and more. Brief chapters cover ten common genres, with annotated model student essays included for the five most-assigned genres and thirty additional models offered online.

Easy to use. Menus, directories, a glossary / index, and color-coded parts help students find the information they need. A simple four-part organization—Write, Research, Edit, Exercise—makes it easy for them to know where to look. And students agree: in a survey of more than 250 students using the handbook, 93 percent say it’s easy to use, and 88 percent say it’s easier and more reliable than sifting through information online.

Just enough detail, but with color-coded links that refer students to the glossary / index for more information if they need it.

User-friendly documentation guidelines for MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles. Documentation directories lead students to the examples they need, color-coded templates show what information to include, and documentation maps show where to find the required 12 detail. Model papers demonstrate each style, with a complete MLA paper and brief examples of the other three styles in the book with complete papers available online.