[Tex/LaTex] urls do not show up in in biblatex-mla Works Cited list

biblatexmla-styleurls

Using the texlive distribution on Arch Linux. I have:

\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=mla]{biblatex}
\bibliography{sources.bib}
...

In sources.bib I have:

@article{taylor,
%...
howpublished = {Web},
url = {http://www.etc.com/blah/blah/blah}
}

Everything shows up except the url. I've also tried putting \usepackage{url} in the preamble and changing the url line to url = {\url{http://www.etc.com/blah/blah/blah}} and it makes no difference.

Best Answer

The newest edition of the MLA Handbook recommends against showing the URL. If you'd like to go against these recommendations and use something close to the previous edition, add the package option showmedium=false to the preamble:

\usepackage[american]{babel}
\usepackage{csquotes}
\usepackage[style=mla,showmedium=false]{biblatex}
\bibliography{sources.bib}

Watch out, though, as this option attempts to retain previous stylings without making any promises. In your example, among other things, both "Web" and the period following it will be missing.

One nice thing to keep in mind about the default usage: URLs for eprint sources, while always being hidden from print, still nevertheless supercharge the PDF. Check out the following Bibtex entry as an example:

@article{barrowsaa,    
    Author = {Adam Barrows},    
    Eprint = {http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v056/56.2.barrows.html},    
    Eprinttype = {muse},    
    Issue = {Summer},    
    Journal = {Modern Fiction Studies},    
    Number = {2},    
    Pages = {262--289},    
    Title = {`The Shortcomings of Timetables': Greenwich, Modernism, and the Limits of Modernity.},    
    Url = {http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/v056/56.2.barrows.html},    
    Urldate = {2011-02-17},    
    Volume = {56},    
    Year = {2010}}

Here's the resulting text, with the database text (Project Muse) functioning as a hyperlink to the article:

Barrows, Adam. “‘The Shortcomings of Timetables’: Greenwich, Modernism, and the Limits of Modernity.” Modern Fiction Studies 56.2 (Summer 2010): 262–289. Project Muse. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.

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