'MLA,' 'NET ARE CRASHING.(BOOKS)

Byline: JACQUELINE BLAIS USA Today

At first it may appear to bore the daylights out of you, as stern, no-nonsense works often do. But the quietly popular ``MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers'' by Joseph Gibaldi makes a nice ka-ching sound when it surfaces in late summer every year on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list.

Students are politely invited into the ``customs of a community of writers who greatly value scrupulous scholarship and the careful documentation, or recording, of research.''

But the fifth edition has run up against the Internet, with its share of gossip, urban legends and bizarre stories that are hard, if not impossible, …