MLA 7

EasyBib currently provides free MLA formatting based on sixth edition of the MLA handbook. In April though, MLA will be releasing their seventh edition of their handbook. We plan to incorporate these new rules for the 2009/2010 school year, as to not confuse any users by changing our system in the middle of the year.

Some interesting rules to note with the new edition:

• No more underlining. Instead, MLA will recommend italicizing titles of independently published works.
• No more URLs. While you will have to provide the core data for online sources, a URL is not required. However, you are encouraged to add the URL if the citation data provided does not let the reader easily locate the source

In the meantime, we will continue to improve our core services. Always feel free to contact us if you have any ideas or suggestions!

Citing the Inaugural?

We’ve received a few emails asking how to cite Barack Obama’s Inauguration speech, so we’ve included a suggestion below:

Obama, Barack H. “Inaugural Address.” 2009 Presidential Inaugural. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. 20 Jan. 2009.

If you missed the speech, check out the video on YouTube or the full text at the BBC.

Cheers!

EasyBib just got better

Hey Bib users,

We know you’re probably winding your semester down and prepping for the holidays but we wanted to introduce you to some cool stuff we’ve been working on over the last several weeks.

New Web Site Autocite: If you’re familiar with our book ISBN search, you may like our new Autocite tool for online sources. Just enter in your URL, and the page title, site title, and date accessed fields will be filled out. This is just a start - we’ll continue to update the service to make it more efficient for you to cite online sources on EasyBib.

Online database-only source: With the earlier version of EasyBib, you could only cite sources indirectly found in a database, like magazines, newspapers, and journals. Now, if you need to cite something from say, the Opposing Viewpoints database, you can cite it directly through our online database form.

Updated forms interface: We’ve had a lot of questions about how to cite sources in online databases and other indirect publications, and so we’ve updated the forms to make it cleaner and clearer to use. Now, there are tabs for each publication type, and options on whether the source was found directly or indirectly.

Easy copy and paste: Some of our users just create one citation on EasyBib for their projects and have asked to make it easier to see their latest citation and copy and paste it into their paper. Well, now when you create a citation, we show you your latest citation right up top. You can highlight this and copy and paste it immediately.

Delete all: If you use EasyBib in a multi-user setting, this button may help. It clears all the citations of a list that someone prior to you has been working on, so you can start anew.

More prominent export features: We’ve had questions on whether EasyBib can export to Microsoft Word. Yes, we can =) We’ve now added icons to make it easier to find.

Some backend stuff: To make your experience faster and more reliable.

Happy holidays from the EasyBib team!

EasyBib partners with TrialPay

If you guys are anything like we were in college, money wasn’t exactly lining our pockets.

Of course we understand, when you do come across some extra coin, the first thought in your mind may not be upgrading your EasyBib account to our premium MyBib Pro service.

We make every effort to keep our paid service at a price point we hope is affordable for everyone. At $7.99, our goal is to provide the best citation service online, at a price that will pay for itself after one use.

Times are tight, and since school comes first, we want to bring you another option to get MyBib Pro.

We’ve partnered with TrialPay who works with trusted companies that like Ebay, Blockbuster, Amazon, and GAP who will pay for your upgrade to MyBib Pro, if you sign up for one of their services.

If you’ve ever considered upgrading to MyBibPro but didn’t want to pay for it directly, here’s your chance to get around that. As always, thanks for using EasyBib, we appreciate the support.

More efficient web browsing w/ ChunkIt

EasyBibbers,

I’m sure it seems like every website you visit these days is loaded with
fairly pointless advertising.

At EasyBib, our goal is to bring our users the most complete, and accurate citation service, period. Though advertising is a part of our site, we make efforts to partner with companies offering services that we feel can actually benefit our users.

While working on your bibs, you may have noticed some banner advertising
ads for a tool called ChunkIt!, a recent sponsor of EasyBib.

You know all those links you have to click and manually scan on Google searches, and academic database like LexisNexis, JStor and Science Direct? ChunkIt! automatically does that work for you.

With a single click it will instantly search and extract the relevant “chunks” of information hidden behind the links on any web page, and bring them forward with all your keywords highlighted.

Beyond academic databases, I found that ChunkIt! works well on sites that contain a lot of links ­ I’ve used it on Yahoo, ESPN, and Wikipedia and it really helped me find relevant information.

We know EasyBib users appreciate efficiency, and ChunkIt! will make searching for relevant sources that much easier. It¹s free, and can be download here.

Thanks,
Emry

Experiencing heavy traffic

Hi guys,

We’ve been having intermittent downtime this week. This is due to a significantly higher than expected volume during midterms season.

What basically happens is, everyone tries to use EasyBib at once during peak hours and the concurrent usage can overwhelm us.

We are working around the clock to deploy a more robust setup. In the meantime, we suggest you use the site during off hours - before 9pm EST or after midnight EST.

Thanks for your patience.

Darshan

Columbus Day site updates

Hi all,

Happy Columbus Day! Hopefully you are resting on this school holiday, but if you have to work, maybe the updates below will help (though we’d guess you’d prefer the day off…):

• Internet Explorer Parenthetical Citation Wizard fixes: If you’re a MyBib Pro user, you may have found that the wizard did not work for you all the time. We’ve fixed this issue.
• Exporting your bibliography to Word: We’ve made the option more prominent (click Export to Word when you’re viewing your bibliography) and we’ve also made a separate landing page so you can retrieve your RTF manually if you need to.
• Speed improvements by way of PHP opcode caching: Last week we hit some pretty severe traffic - among other smaller adjustments, we’ve added a cache to make our servers work more efficiently under higher loads. It’s called APC.

Debate watching

Hey everyone,

As election season nears we’ve been asked a few times how students can cite the presidential and vice-presidential debates.  Using the TV citation form, it’s simple. Here’s an example:

2008 Presidential Debate. CNN. New York. 26 Sept. 2008.

Personally, I’ve always found the weeks leading up to an election exciting. The twists and turns this race has taken have been no different. Here are some links I like to check out:

• C-SPAN debate center
• Electoral-vote.com
• Miss a debate? You can find it on Hulu

And of course, for everyone out there that’s of voting age: regardless of your politics, it’s important you participate. Be a good citizen and register to vote - click here to learn more.

Downtime resolved: 8pm-midnight on 10/6/08

Hi all, If you tried using our site last night, you may have experienced intermittent downtime. We had significant concurrent traffic on our system that ended up locking up some of our front-end servers.

We’ve resolved the immediate issue, but are taking steps to prevent this from affecting us long term:

• Two additional front end servers to be deployed this week
• Additional RAM upgrades across front-ends
• Exploration into cloud-computing solutions to handle traffic spillover

Again, apologies for any issues you may have experienced and know that we are working our hardest to keep downtime at a minimum.