Book excerpt: THIS TITLE HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT THE 2016 MLA UPDATES! Our editorial team has updated this text based on content from The MLA Handbook, 8th Edition. Browse our catalog or contact your representative for a full listing of updated titles and packages, or to request a custom ISBN. This version of the best-selling college handbook includes a tabbed section called Writing about Literature, a practical guide to interpreting works of literature and to planning, composing, and documenting papers about literature. Students will find help with forming and supporting an interpretation, avoiding plot summary, integrating quotations from a literary work, observing the conventions of literature papers, and using secondary sources. Writing about Literature also includes two sample student essays — one that uses primary sources and one that uses primary and secondary sources. The full primary texts are also included.