Last summer, The Modern Language Association released it 3rd edition of the MLA style guide. It takes affect this month (April 2009). There are two major changes with regard to citations.
Web URL are no longer included in standard Citations. I have programmed them out of Citation Machine. If there is a reason to include them in your MLA submission, simply add the URL, enclosed with angle brackets , at the end of the citation and close with a period.
Title are no longer underlined in the citations. Instead, they are italicized. This change, also, is included in Citation Machine.
You've likely noticed some happening with Citation Machine. If it has caused you any convenience or grief, please accept my apologies.
My main concern has been that efficient performance. With the end of the semester approaching and now here, the usage of CM nearly doubles, and I know that slow loads can be very frustrating.
So, a couple of months ago, I tried utilizing iframes in the code, something I hadn't done before -- and it worked quite nicely. When you click [MLA], and the list of content sources appears, that is the only information that is reloaded. Before, the entire page had to be reloaded. When you clicked a source to be sited, and the web form appeared asking for info on the source, then that form is the only thing that is loaded.
Version 4.0 was born.
The problem that emerged was that although my Windows computer (a Mac Intel machine) ran the new tool just fine, many people wrote in indicating that these new features were not loading at all -- rendering Citation Machine useless.
I write in some workarounds, that would recognize Windows machines, redirecting them to non-iframe versions of the Citation Machine, which meant that I was maintaining multiple versions of the tool. The workarounds thickened the programming and caused more problems, nececitating more workarounds and more coding. It finally got to tedious to work with.
So I got up early yesterday morning and started a complete re-write of Citation Machine, using Cascading Style Sheets, something I'm doing more of -- finally. Pulling in working modules from the earlier versions, I seem to have finished it after another early morning codathon (3:00am to 7:50am).
Version 5.0 seeks to solve both the problems of slow loading and complexity of the code. To address both of these problems, Citation Machine will now offer either the menu of citation styles and sources, or the web form or completed citation -- rather than loading both the menu and the forms with each mouse click. The significantly simplifies the code and page loads should be nearly as fast as with the iframes.
Please let me know if the new version causes any problems.
Many of the follower of my 2¢ Worth blog, already know that we've added a second web server to the Landmarks setup. I guess we have a sever farm now, though it's really more of a server backyard garden. But even at that, Citation Machine was stressed off and on through the end of the fall semester.
So, over the past few weeks of not traveling, I've been working on some new programming for CM that breaks it loose from the databases. Now, all of the coding is resident within the program itself and various config files. What this means is that it should run faster.
I have also added a new feature that is more of a beta offering, because I do not know how much it will stress the system. But for years, people have asked about the ability to have CM remember their citations for the sake of later bibliographies. Now you can do that, and here's how:
Click [Register] in the top menu to register for a CM account
If you have already registered, you can use this page to login. If not, type your name and e-mail address, make up a username and password, and select your location.
Click [submit].
Go through the process of generating a citation. When completed, you will see a [Save this Citation] button at the bottom of the page. Click this.
To view your citations, click [See Citations] at the top menu.
From here you can get a listing of the citations with dates generated, or click [Citations Only] to view a copiable version.
I use Citation Machine all the time, mostly to cite images and other sources for my blog. A problem that has pestered me over the months is that the CM window is so large. I'm constantly having to move it around on the screen so that I can find the information on the web page that I need for the citation.
So to solve the problem, I've installed a new button in the top menu, [Shrink]. This button will remove the top banner and the left menu (assuming that you've already chosen your citation style, and reduce the size of the window so that it doesn't cover up as much of the digital document you are citing. Google Ads remain. I have to pay for my children's college somehow.
An additional link will appear, [enlarge], that will pop the window back out to size with the banner and the main menus.
My apologies for Citation Machine being down over the last couple of days. I have moved the pages over to my new dedicated server, and there was a glitch in moving the domain name. Dreamhost released it, but there was a problem in my configuration that prevented Rackspace from catching it. Cleared up now, over a phone call from my breakfast table in Asheville yesterday. I love phone support.
There's obviously a lull in citation machine usage right now and I'll be spending part of this time featuring Son of Citation Machine out. I think you'll be pleased.
I have been reading all of the suggestions. Many have been kind and constructive suggestions, and others expressions of frustration with Son of Citation Machine. I understand completely. People use Citation Machine to alleviate the frustration of navigating complex style manuals, and to have to figure out how to navigate a new CM... -- well I understand.
I also understand the frustration among educators about the presence of paper mills in the Google Ads. Brenda has been blocking those companies as we run across them, and the list is surprisingly long. I wrote about this (It Doesn’t Solve the Problem) in 2¢ Worth the other day, and I suggest your reading.
We have also been working on another strategy to diversify the Google Ads. I have installed three RSS aggregators in SOCM 2.1, that will display news feeds from three sources:
BBC World News
Internet Movie Database (IMDB) Studio News (movie reviews)
iTunes top selling songs
Again, I know that folks do not come to citation Machine for casual reading. But the main purpose of the feeds is to provide more varied content for the Google Adsense spiders to find and to issue more varied ads on the site. Our test site already indicates much more diversity in the ads.
It seems that citation machine has settled for the time being. I have written an ad hoc load sharing program that sends everyother person to two citation machine sites. That said, we are now looking for a dedicated server. Going through this each semester, and putting you through this each semester is not fair to any of us. Plus, I have other web tools that need better performance. So we're listening to sales pitches now, and will likely be selecting a service in the next couple of days.
Also, I have continued to add some multiple author templates, mostly in the APA format. I'll catch up with the APA format later today and tomorrow.
