Citing Tweets

Photo by Eryn Karmiller

One of our tutors took this screen shot the other day of some very interesting news. The Modern Language Association (MLA) has created a way to cite tweets from Twitter to meet the demands of expanding use of technology. Many students today need to cite tweets in their academic papers, especially when speaking about pop culture or citing celebrities and/or scholars.

The Purdue OWL explains how to cite tweets on their website:

"Begin with the user's name (Last Name, First Name) followed by his/her Twitter username in parentheses. Insert a period outside the parentheses. Next, place the tweet in its entirety in quotations, inserting a period after the tweet within the quotations. Include the date and time of posting, using the reader's time zone; separate the date and time with a comma and end with a period. Include the word "Tweet" afterwards and end with a period.

Brokaw, Tom (tombrokaw). "SC demonstrated why all the debates are the engines of this campaign." 22 Jan. 2012, 3:06 a.m. Tweet.

Purdue Writing Lab (PurdueWLab). "Spring break is around the corner, and all our locations will be open next week." 5 Mar. 2012, 12:58 p.m. Tweet."

This is obviously a huge jump into the future for MLA and could potentially be controversial. Should students be citing something as informal as a tweet? What does this say about where society is heading? We would love to hear your thoughts, so please comment below!

--Sarah